Alexandra S

Hi guys, Thank you all for your answers and sorry for not coming back earlier (terribly busy week!). I think that the answer from @sobredosis is the one that I was afraid to admit as being the most reliable way of finding out. I was hoping that I will hear at least some advice from personal experience but I guess "being green" is not on the top list of priorities for most in the web industry. Anyway, at least the whole e-mail sending process will also give me a chance to find out how good and knowledgeable their customer cervice is. Cheers

Hello forumers, I have a blog that I’m hosting for free at the 000 web host.I haven’t had any problems but they don’t support Fantastico and although that has prompted me to learn a lot about site management, I’ve reached a point where I think that the automated installation of scripts would save me a lot of time. Note that this is my hobby and not my main occupation so time (and money) is important. The thing is that I want to transfer to a web host that is actively green and not just green-washing. Now, when I mention that to my friends who are web designers, I usually get a lot of frowns as most of them think that the best web hosts out there don’t think about going green in order to attract customers. But I think that since the carbon footprint of the internet has reached the levels of the avio-industry, it was time that people started acting more responsibly about that and I want to reward a company for trying to do the right thing. So I want a host that is: a) Using wind/solar powered servers and possibly offices Is offsetting their carbon footprint (preferably actively for example by planting trees and not just by buying offsetting credits) c) Has generally an eco-friendly attitude and not just one eco-friendly package d) Has good customer support as I’m not that experienced with facing issues My blog is on the WordPress platform and it wouldn’t get too many visitors, never more than 100 a day. I upload one medium sized picture per post and I don’t have any videos uploaded (sometimes I do embed YouTube videos but that doesn’t count, right?) so the blog is not file heavy. Also at some point I’m thinking of building another small website on the Joomla platform, nothing too big, which I would like to host with the same provider. My budget for having both of them on a shared server could not exceed £60-70 per year. And last but not least, I live in the UK so I guess for legal reasons it would be best that the provider is also based here. I have already done some research but I would really like to hear if any of you have had any good or bad experience with (or maybe are working for) any providers that tick most or all the boxes. I would really appreciate your help/recommendations on this. Cheers, Alexandra

Thank you all for the warm welcome! I'll see you all around

I'll have to agree with both the above remark about the blurred images. Other than that the design is really nice. Also, although I'm not a grammar Nazi, I am a linguist and seeing poor grammar and spelling, typos and inconsistency in a website, puts me off. Maybe you would want to have somebody proofread your FAQs. For example: 1st question - "Take" written with a capital letter. Also it's not easy to realise what the question is about and what is "it" before reading the answer. 1st answer - "Not" written with a capital letter. In addition, you refer to your product in the text as "Chine Shine", "Chine shine" and "chine shine". Inconsistency is bad for branding and it gives out a very unprofessional image.

Hello there, My name's Alexandra, I'm originally from Greece and I live in London. I am very much interested in learning more about the intricacies of web design/development. I am fascinated by the internet and of how it can be used to build communities, both online and offline. I am a member of the freeconomy community and also a few open-source communities so I believe a lot in skill sharing. I am a Localisation Specialist for an iGaming company and I have worked as a Search Engine Assessor for the Google search engine so although I'm not directly tied to web design, I am well acquainted with the terms of web usability, nice design and functional code. I've read the rules and I promise to be behave Peace, Alexandra PS: I love the feel of this forum; it's very well structured and its colours are soft on the eyes, not like most other forums I found while googling. I mean really, why would someone build a web design forum that is red throughout??? That thing burns!