Hello everyone - I'm new to this world. I have just come out of the closet ... I was a closet tech & web girl. And I wanted to know if anyone can help me. I'm a creative writer/journalist and want to create my own site for my newsletter on politics, life, love, sex, work, etc.... But, I wanted to create a "dialogue" of sorts by having a bulletin board or a forum where people can participate. I am overwhelmed with web hosts and could use any advice.
Thank you for your time ... and happy holidays!

Peace,
Chris

http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

They charge $1 per GB download, and 1cent per megabyte per month storage. SSH access, perl, php, etc. MySQL database. No monthly fee.

Nice feature for amateurs is you pay upfront. Lodge $20 (or whatever) to your account by credit card, and then it gets run down as people download from your site

I've found the responsiveness of the staff (by email and forums) pretty good too.

I see you've already decided, but I've been happy with http://www.webhost4life.com/. The price is good, and the support has always gotten back to me promptly. Wish I could call them instead of just sending email, but that's a minor inconvenience.

If anyone looks at the site and decides they want to sign up, let me know: I can get a referral bonus. :-) gNfOiStPzAgMer@nyx.net

Hi...
I really like dailyrotation.com and trust them...
they've been running this ad for years.
and I think they use projectgeek.net too
It has some great features, like your own shell account, full support for your php etc.
(I think)
anyway, give them a look...
PROJECT GEEK.... Shell City's full featured web hosting service.... $10/month'll get you 100 megs of disk and 20 gigs of transfer. $25/month'll get you 500 megs of disk and 50 gigs of transfer.....GO THERE!
http://www.projectgeek.net/

sincerely,
a boing boing reader too

Thirded for dreamhost. Best uptime, customer service, and back-end ever.

I second the recommendation for http://www.hostmatters.com/ . They rock - some of the best costomer service I've ever had. Another one that has excellent customer service is http://www.luxsci.com/

i have a linux server too... i charge $120 and i host rushkoff and r.u. sirius' sites, among others.

flexible disk space :: flexible monthly transfer rates :: plesk control panel :: 5 pop e-mail accounts & unlimited forwards :: spam & virus filtering :: webmail access :: e-mail list management :: content management solutions :: cgi-bin :: 2 mysql databases :: php4 :: ftp access :: shell access :: custom error 404 pages :: .htaccess password protection :: ssi :: ssl :: apache functions :: frontpage extensions

http://www.the44.net/

atomhost.com

cheap and reliable, good customer service

There's this guy who's blogging on his own starting webhosting service

http://www.bradheintz.com/site/archives/000009.php#more

NO SETUP FEE
Web-based control panel (CPanel 6) with file manager
Web-based email , Unlimited email addresses , Unlimited email forwarding , FTP access, PHP 4, Python, Perl 5, Full CGI-bin access
Unlimited MySQL databases (within disk space quota), User-installable scripts for forums, guestbook, chat rooms, and more!

$5/mo 50M disk 1G bw (No Frills plan)
$10/mo 100M 2G (Basic Plan)

http://www.justthesite.com/

he.net. They have been around for a long time, and have a great customer support *back-end*. They are not the cheapest.