Of Interest
In this section, we will place news, articles, websites, etc. that we find to be interesting or worth mentioning.
1. Last month, we recommended an easy and cheap service for people to start a small website. Another possibility for this is a provider called Yola.com. They actually allow you to create a website for free, and give you a program to do it!
However, there are some downsides. Only the basics are free; additional features like more storage, pre-built templates, etc. cost money. Also, if you want your own domain name (www.yourwebsite.com), you have to pay for it; otherwise your website will just be hosted off of Yola (www.yola.com/yourwebsite). The domain name costs about $20 a year from Yola, but they do allow you to buy it from other providers and use it at Yola, so you might be able to find a cheaper price.
Because it is free, you may also have to deal with advertisements, poor customer service, errors/glitches, etc. The service has received very mixed reviews in these respects. There is no such thing as a free lunch! However, this is the only service we have ever found that allows you to create a website for free, so it is worth mentioning. See their website...
2. Another possible website service is called VodaHost.com. Instead of being minimal but free, it offers a whopping amount of features for a pretty cheap price: A website creator, unlimited storage and bandwith, a domain name, email accounts, an e-commerce system, etc. all for about $8 a month. If you are looking to create a more detailed and in-depth site with a lot of pages, and/or need some of these features, VodaHost may be worth looking into.
The drawback is that VodaHost has a reputation for very poor customer service and some errors/billing problems/etc. You can find many, many reviews online of dissatisfied customers who were given little to no help by the company. However, the reviews seem to be improving recently, and those customers that did not have problems said it was the best service they had ever used. It is up to you whether it is worth risking it or not.
If you do try VodaHost, or have used it in the past, please send your impressions and feedback to us. We are interested to know more about them! See their website...
3. One of our members sent in some amazing pictures taken by the crew of a ship in 2006. They happened to be in the right place at the right time, and witnessed an island literally rising from the sea due to an underwater volcanic eruption! See the pictures here...