web hosting

[plasticdan]

I am looking to set up my own website for personal use, I would like it to have a message board/chat room facility, I don't mind paying a monthly fee what do you reccomend ?

[mattfox]

A Google search will list hundreds of hosting companies for you! However, the only way to find out how good they are is try them yourself or search for reviews. Up until recently, I was using http://www.web-mania.com/ and I had no probs with them at all. They charged �23.50 for a year and you can buy your domain name from them too (the www.YourNameHere.com bit!).

As for chat programs, you'd have to install something like
PhpMyChat or for beginners bit of software there's http://www.coffeecup.com/live-chat/

The reason I'm not using WebMania is because I now do my own hosting - perhaps you'd like to know more? :) Drop me a line at matt @ mftechservices and I'll see if I can help!

[mattfox]

oops.. there's a dot com after mftechservices in my previous post!! It is past midnight and I should be sleeping!!!

[fo3nix]

Web mania is good as a cheap host, but it's got quite an insecure setup, so not too good for really important stuff. But a personal site would be fine.

I can recommend both textdrive and dreamhost:

http://www.textdrive.com
http://www.dreamhost.com

Dreamhost is cheaper, and is probably easier to use. But textdrive gives you more control, though I doubt you'd need that sort of access.