Hello Andrew,

I use Ipower for my hosting and they have been very good. They offer 24 hour phone support and their plans have unlimited bandwidth.

For a cheap and user friendly web design tool you might might want to check out Xara Xtreme or Xara Web designer. They are graphic based web design tools that write the html code for you. Not the best pro code for a huge site like amazon.com, but it works and search engines will see it.

I really love our hosting provider IX Web Hosting http://www.ixwebhosting.com. I use Dreamweaver CS4 for design and use Exposure Manager (http://www.exposuremanager.com/index.html) for our online store and photo lab fulfillment. The hosting does come with an eCommerce solution and now all plans include unlimited storage and bandwidth. Although I don't use it they do offer VPS services. One of the things I really like is they customer support. I usually do major updates in the dead of the night and they are there 24 hours a day by phone or chat interface. They are also constantly upgrading and improving the services and product offerings. I have hosted with them for 5 yrs now and couldn't be happier.

** Thanks for the suggestion; I'll check out their offerings.

Those tools seem really cool!! I may have to give the XWD tool a shot, most unique web page building tool I have seen yet. Their other tools are cool as well. Not too bad pricing either. Thanks for this tip....much appreciate it!!

** I'll check out their offerings, thanks for the recommendations.

** Dreamweaver seems cool, but how would you rate it for ease of use for a novice? And regarding Exposure Manager; so you have a website with EM as well as IX? Are the two linked together? Where do you generate the sale...your site or EM's site? From what I've read on their site, they don't seem to host videos ..... or do they?

** Are you referring to IX or EM?

** Again are you referring to IX or EM? But whichever you are referring to, it's really great to see that they are providing excellent customer support (which is severely lacking in many companies these days!!) Many thanks again for this info., it's much appreciated.

I think it is a very flexible program. I started with GoLive (Adobe CS) and Migrated to Dreamweaver at CS4. If you are looking for a complete WYSIWYG program loaded with pre-designed sites that you tweak then you probably do not want Dreamweaver. However, it does have design templates and if you are familiar with photoshop, you can create some really great graphics. I would recommend the tutorials on Lynda.com as they are much better (IMO) than the adobe training tutorials.

In addition to video services, we also provide some photography services, so I needed an online store linked to a pro lab that could handle fulfillment. Exposure Manager was a good fit for what i need. EM does not host videos natively but you can import HTML text and customize it heavily. When I need to import clips I host them on my main domain and code them into my EM site, but mostly I use EM for photo sales and online DVD reorders.

Example
My content site: www.TheVideoProfessional.com (Hosted on IX)
My online store: store.TheVideoProfessional.com (Hosted on EM)

Through the magic of domain mapping, my store shows as part of my host domain even though they are handled by different companies.


My content site generates the leads and I lock in contractual video sales through direct contact. The online store is for photo sales, DVD re-orders, and post-event sales.

Another way to think of it, the public portions of my content site serve as the showroom and storefront. This is where a client can find out more about my company and our services. It is a touchpoint (along with our facebook page) for clients to interact with me and gather useful information. The private portions are for direct interaction and feedback, i.e. posting clips, useful information, etc. And the online store is the self-service portion of my site. It is where clients come to place orders from the convenience of their homes without having to call me or mail in order forms.
I am referring to IX. IX includes an eCommerce store but I found it too cumbersome for my needs and I did not want to be responsible for transactional security of CC info. EM already has all the necessary safeguards built in for a safe and secure online shopping experience.

I was mainly referring to IX but the customer support at EM is very good too. For me, that is a huge factor. If you treat me right, I tend to be a very loyal customer.