which web host (UK based please)

[judivb]

Hi

I'm very new to all this. I have just taken over management of the site for Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy. I have had dreadful problems with the folk who set it up and then hosted it. I want to change to a new web host. This will be the first time I've had direct dealing with a web host, and am very nervous about it, as that side of the web is verging on incomprehensible to me. I've done various searches for reviews and forum comments, and - of course - been frustrated by the different views on different hosts. Here's the list of hosts I've come up with to try, and long for any experienced comments on these ...
Webhosting UK, Netweaver, Wiser Hosting, 1and1, Dataflame. Obviously customer support is vital to me! In case it's relevant, I use Dreamweaver CS3.
Judi

[OldWelshGuy]

you mention dreamweaver, are you using their ftp built in publishing or are you using a separate FTP client?

How is the site constructed, is it static or dynamic?

tell us more.

[judivb]

I'm using the ftp built in with Dreameaver.

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure what "dynamic" means, but the site is definitely static at present. Eventually I want an enquiry form, and probably a search (from a name/area database).

I have a php script, written by someone else, which I know will work for the enquiry form. I know I'll need databases for the search facility, so suppose I'll need MS SQL or MySQL. Since I currently know neither ASP.NET and php I'd like to be able to use either. I don't expect to need Flash.

The site doesn't involve selling, and wouldn't expect to have high traffic.

Hope this helps in knowing what I'll need!

[AncientGardener]

After several years of being totaly frustrated with various hosting companies I finally found Positive-Internet. They are not cheap but their support is 2nd to none. They have a policy of responding within 3 hours during office hours in the week and nearly always manage to do better than that even at weekends. They have a small support team whom I almost know by name now. How rare is that?

Their basic package is about £120 per year (+VAT) and you get MYSQL, PHP, CGI, etc, with up to 4 VHost under the same account.

[Westoner]

Originally Posted by AncientGardener

After several years of being totaly frustrated with various hosting companies I finally found Positive-Internet. They are not cheap but their support is 2nd to none. They have a policy of responding within 3 hours during office hours in the week and nearly always manage to do better than that even at weekends. They have a small support team whom I almost know by name now. How rare is that?

Their basic package is about £120 per year (+VAT) and you get MYSQL, PHP, CGI, etc, with up to 4 VHost under the same account.

We've had many customers transfer to us because of the lack of support they've received from some of the big companies. We don’t tend to get too many support questions from the same people. I’ve personally found that the bigger companies tend to give you the shortest possible answer so that you end up going back to them, time and time again, for more help. We try and answer the question thoroughly and give advice on the next step too.

I think support is key to providing quality hosting. We’re just about to move to telephone support, but this costs money and we’ll have to increase our prices in some way to meet these costs.