Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch
I purchased my first internet domain name on May 10, 2001. For several years before that, I had a personal website that I hosted on the AOL free server. Fast forward to 2018 and I’m the owner of a dozen different domain names. I’ll admit that most of them are unused. Someday my grandsons might want them.
I think that everyone should get their own domain for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is so that you can easily control your e‑mail. If your e‑mail address is YourName@yourisp.net, you would lose it if you ever changed your Internet Service Provider to another company. If you had your own domain, you could have the e‑mail address of YourName@yourdomain.com or .net, or .org, etc. You would keep that e‑mail for as long as you owned the domain. Never again would you have to change your e‑mail address.
Another advantage is that you could have many e‑mail addresses. Most providers let you create at least a hundred separate addresses. I usually create a new address for different sites. If I get a lot of spam, I know who sold my e‑mail address.
Owning your domain isn’t expensive. For instance, HostGator, one of several hosting services that I’ve used, charges $12.95 a year to register a domain name. Hosting services are $7.16 a month. If you sign up for three years, the rate drops to $3.96. If you do a web search you will find many companies and many different pricing plans. For that low fee, you can get unlimited e mail addresses, disk space and bandwidth. There are several other hosting sites that offer similar pricing.
Once you’ve purchased the service, you can easily make a website to show off your hobbies, a family photo album, or share recipes. Other uses for personal domains and websites are to give family members their own e mail address, host private chat rooms, backup files, etc. You can even create your own private cloud storage space. You could also do like me: plain old fashioned BS.
Although it is helpful, there is no real reason to know HTML coding. There are several free programs that can have your personal website up and running in just a few hours. Most hosting companies offer easy installation of these applications. Web searches will find you many more. A final place to get help with a website is the Cajun Clickers Club. There are several members that I’m sure would be more than willing to help.
All of my websites are powered by open-sourced software. I use several free programs: RV Web Site Builder, WordPress, phpBB, Blue Griffon, to name just a few. My point is that if you can use a word processor, you can use website software.
I sure hope I’ll be checking out some new websites in the near future. After all, if I can create a website, anyone can.
Keep on clicking and thanks for reading.