For all I.T. specialists - A few queries?

[easty027]

As there seems to be a huge number of skilled IT people on here, (after reading the ‘what do you do for a living’ thread) I thought I would ask a few questions as I have no experience in web design / web setup whatsoever.:-

I am looking at registering a domain name for design services, i.e. just a home page with some very basic information on to get me started as a freelance designer.

Q1_Domain Names & Email
I have looked at a few sites on the internet were I can get the domain name I need for something between £6 - £8 for 2 years. The question is, after the 2 years will this price shoot up due to the fact that they know you need it for your business?, or can you actually purchase domain names outright?
Some of these include email, some don’t. What I need is an email address for people to contact me with, rather than using my typical hotmail address which doesn’t look as professional, again can this be directed to my hotmail somehow without setting up an alternative inbox etc?

Q2_Home Page Upload
Regarding the home page, how difficult is it to just load up a home page just so it sits there advertising services with contact details etc?
In terms of graphics and branding I have no issues creating that as that’s my line of work so I am able to set up the home page ‘aesthetically’ if you see what I mean.

Any info would be appreciated – thanks in advance!

 

[mmm-five]

I use register1.netfor mine, as it's quite cheap all in (from £16/year) for webspace, email, etc. But you can go for the other packages which let you run forums from them and have unlimited emails on the domain. Not had a problem with the service in 3 years, but I hear that their tech support is very fast & efficient.

I've not used the email service much as I set it all up before I really decided what I wanted it for, and by then I'd put the website up and couldn't be bothered changing everything over to a homepage only hosting service.

IIRC, I pay about £90 for 3 years for hosting package and the domain renewal was about £7 for 2 years - and you'll get a reminder a month or so before it's due for renewal so that nobody else takes it away if you accidentally let it expire - although you might get renewal 'demands' from other companies who are simply trying to scam you.

As for the 2nd part of your query...it's as simple as designing what you want for your webpage and then uploading it via FTP to your webspace.

 

[nicko]

not used them, but the one I see/hear a lot of adverts for is www.godaddy.com
(mostly through Leo Laporte's TWiT network podcasts and Cranky Geeks)

 

[srhutch]

I have a number of domain names from http://www.easyspace.com/ and loads more from http://www.ukreg.com

the prices remain static, easyspace costs a bit more but I get more tools to set up 'a' and 'mx' records etc...

 

[gannet]

I use 1and1 for the domain I need email for (work uses them too). Domain costs vary depending on the domain, not aware of charges going up after established either.

I use googlemail for all my mail - 1and1 just setup to forward mail to googlemail and you can even set it up so it comes from a @domain email address rather than 'on behalf of' like you get with so many others...

I have also used Domain Monster for a couple other domains email through which also just forward to googlemail.