Any recommendations of a solid Web business hosting / site design company would be welcome. We are looking for a top-notch design firm. Thank you.
You may want to consider obtaining the hosting and design separately. Graphic designers aren't usually good server and networking people, and I wouldn't want a network admin designing a website. The best hosting for the individual or small company is www.lunarpages.com. No other company I've seen or researched comes close.
Took a look at their 7.95 mo. plan. Wow. 800 megs of space, 40 gigs of transfer, pop account, cgi bin, ftp access and web based browser, php, mySqyl... (how's their uptime really, and tech support?) poundtherock, you may have everything you'd want right here. Maybe even overkill depending on your needs. The web host you select has to do with what features you need most now, but always keep an eye to growth because you will find your needs will grow as you become more aware of what can be done. I've seen a lot of people be closed minded because they don't know what they don't know ( like Rumsfeld says) and so believe they'll never want what they don't think necessary today. If you know you'd ever need 800 megs of space though, and that's a lot of space, good for image intensive sites, you can get 50 megs for $1.50 a month at www.2mhost.com. And when you register your domain name, register it at godaddy.com, no sense paying more.
I would not cut corners when it comes to hosting. I would recommend you check out iNNERHOST, which was bought out by Interland last year. URL is: www.innerhost.com -Fast
Check out their control panel. It's really nice. And I've never needed support so I have no idea how it is.
Gald to see this thread. Concerning registering a domain name at these "no frills" sites, anything to be aware of - i.e. the name gets registered, but they hold the rights, etc.? I have briefly read up on this on the Internet about nasty things that can happen if you don't keep on top of the domain name. Any tips and general guidelines that someone can offer in what they did for a hassle free registration. Thanks.