In this section, we will place news, articles,
websites, etc. that we find to be
interesting or worth mentioning.
1.
Last month, we recommended an easy and cheap service
for people to start a small website. Another
possibility for this is a provider called Yola.com.
They actually allow you to create a website for free,
and give you a program to do it!
However, there are some
downsides. Only the basics are
free; additional features like more
storage, pre-built templates, etc.
cost money. Also, if you want
your own domain name
(www.yourwebsite.com), you have to
pay for it; otherwise your website
will just be hosted off of Yola
(www.yola.com/yourwebsite).
The domain name costs about $20 a
year from Yola, but they do allow
you to buy it from other providers
and use it at Yola, so you might be
able to find a cheaper price.
Because it is free, you may also
have to deal with advertisements,
poor customer service,
errors/glitches, etc. The
service has received very mixed
reviews in these respects.
There is no such thing as a free
lunch! However, this is the
only service we have ever found that
allows you to create a website for
free, so it is worth mentioning.
See their website...
2. Another possible website
service is called VodaHost.com.
Instead of being minimal but free,
it offers a whopping amount of
features for a pretty cheap price: A
website creator, unlimited storage
and bandwith, a domain name, email
accounts, an e-commerce system, etc.
all for about $8 a month. If
you are looking to create a more
detailed and in-depth site with a
lot of pages, and/or need some of
these features, VodaHost may be
worth looking into.
The drawback is that VodaHost has
a reputation for very poor customer
service and some errors/billing
problems/etc. You can find
many, many reviews online of
dissatisfied customers who were
given little to no help by the
company. However, the reviews
seem to be improving recently, and
those customers that did not have
problems said it was the best
service they had ever used. It
is up to you whether it is worth
risking it or not.
If you do try VodaHost, or have
used it in the past, please send
your impressions and feedback
to us. We are interested
to know more about them!
See their website...
3. One of our members sent in
some amazing pictures taken by the crew
of a ship in 2006. They happened
to be in the right place at the right
time, and witnessed an island literally
rising from the sea due to an underwater
volcanic eruption!
See the pictures here...