Thread: Web Hosting for all my pictures

I'm tired of e-mailing pictures only to have them bounce back because the message is too big or the mailbox is full.

So I'm looking for a not-too-expensive hosting place but there's a whole lot of crap out there. So naturally I searched here and found:

www.smugmug.com if all I want is pictures.

baconzoo has moved to www.ipower.com

endless uses www.mewebhost.com

bklyntrayc uses www.mediatemple.net

And out on the 'Net www.lunarpages.com and www.bluehost.com get consistently good reviews.

Since I'm talking pictures, disk storage matters and for $7/mo it's all over the map -- anywhere from 50MB to 15GB.

Any suggestions from the Web experts?

check this summary:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-...1.html?tag=txt

also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_sharing

Do you think you'd want your own site or photo hosting only?

Originally Posted by bklyntrayc

Do you think you'd want your own site or photo hosting only?

At the end of the day it's about photos about trips. But presentation is important and some photo host sites (like flickr and photobucket) do a crappy job so I might go my own way. I'm a software developer. How hard can this "web design" and html be?

Another option is:

http://www.pbase.com

I've used them for about two years. No complaints.

With smugmug you pay for bandwidth with unlimited storage. Pbase is the opposite. You pay for storage with unlimited bandwidth.

Originally Posted by Snow Dog

How hard can this "web design" and html be?

Not very, why don't you give it a go and let us know how it works out.

I just moved all my sites to a Virtual Private Server on ServInt.com(http://servint.com/vps/). From there I use an open source program called Gallery(http://gallery.menalto.com/) to host display, format, and organize everything. Works for me, but maybe a little more setup and technical features than most people want to deal with.

Originally Posted by Snow Dog

At the end of the day it's about photos about trips. But presentation is important and some photo host sites (like flickr and photobucket) do a crappy job so I might go my own way. I'm a software developer. How hard can this "web design" and html be?

If you have the know how and a broadband connection you can use Dynamic DNS and a simple web server on your PC at home to host your photos.

Originally Posted by Lurch

If you have the know how and a broadband connection you can use Dynamic DNS and a simple web server on your PC at home to host your photos.

or buck up and pay the $5 a month for a static ip.

www.fotki.com

Originally Posted by fez

or buck up and pay the $5 a month for a static ip.

It costs a lot more than that to get a static IP from my ISP. I'd have to upgrade from a normal consumer level account to one of the higher end buisness accounts. The DDNS service that I use is free and reliable I see no need for a static IP address or space on a commercial web hosting service just to share some images.

yeah, its only $5 a month for me from qwest. i use lots of services on my home server (ssh, ftp, mail, web) so it is well worth it to have the static ip.

Originally Posted by fez

yeah, its only $5 a month for me from qwest. i use lots of services on my home server (ssh, ftp, mail, web) so it is well worth it to have the static ip.

Same here I just point everything to the DDNS name.

The Interweb Host of SnowJournal.com ( http://snowjournal.com/page.php?cid=topic5440 )
was offering "cheap" deals. On the right of the Home Page:

Intercarve Networks $5.95/month Webhosting PHP/MySQL Email with Spam Blocking 300MB storage, 8GB transfer

But you'd have to join SJ, and last time I looked, the link to the InterCarve site was "page cannot be found".

www.autoxphotos.com

some local friends of mine created this website for racing pictures...maybe TGR as a whole could creat something like it.

Thanks for all the comments. After checking out a bunch of sites I decided to go with smugmug since it does everything I want (and more) for $40/yr.

Using a home server has 2 issues -- slow uplink speed and a computer that's on 24/7 uses about $15/mo of electricity.

Bump. What is the current consensus for the best photo hosting site? Need reasonable cost, ability to link, decent storage, and bandwidth.

Originally Posted by Lurch

If you have the know how and a broadband connection you can use Dynamic DNS and a simple web server on your PC at home to host your photos.

Not all home broadband accounts support this the IP address is only 1 part of the hosting. Many have terms of service that forbid web hosting and will go as far as blocking the port 80 normally used for web hosting (cable and dsl). So for many it is a pain to make it work with some other port opened up and redirected or the like. Plus you web address has to have the :xxxx on the end where xxxx is the higher port you opened and are using.

A friend of mine uses Picasa. Limited storage but it'll do the resizing and it's free. Part of the Google Collective now.