I am renting a host slice at slicehost.com. I decided to use these guys instead of one of the millions of places like hostgator or site5 because I end up with a web host that’s entirely under my control and I can use Apache’s multi-site thing to host several low-volume sites on there without it becoming expensive, plus have somewhere clients can go see what I can do. I also have total control of the slice and if it starts to squeak I can easily upgrade it or move the database to another slice without any hassle. A 256MB slice costs $20/mo with an extra $5/mo for a daily and weekly backup.
They have lots of tutorials telling you how to set up your machine once you’ve bought it. Start here. Very useful if you’ve installed Ubuntu server anyway and want to get it all hardened and safe.
Colin also recommended these guys for fixed assets like images and so on to take the load off your machine. Cheap as chips and he has’t managed to use up the introductory $15 even though he owns a high traffic site.
I’ve been learning how to set up company email using google apps standard. So there’s now a mail on pharmarketeer.com for me and Rosie. Need to spend some pennies on cheapo business cards for when I go to networking events. Pharmarketeer has a lighthouse as its logo, and I have’t the dosh to pay someone who can do logos yet, so will go for Staples basic stuff for now.
But it all works, I’m not scared any more. I’ve done what I can – I am talking to people and showing what I can do.
Working with Mike on krowdbuy (watch this space – still very early days) and very excited about that too.
Also had a good time at the Kagu Ling opening yesterday and really looking forward to the Karmapa’s visit to Manchester at the end of July.
Having a meeting tomorrow about some contract work that will keep the wolf at bay so that’s cool too.
I’m the happiest I’ve been in years even though I’m broke and facing a ton of work to sort it out. Humans are weird.