Over the last (couple of years now) I have seen some interesting but crazy hosting panels. It is very important to get your Joomla hosting right from the start. You may assume that all hosting companies offer the same thing. They are not all created equal and some hosting panels, if you can even call them a hosting panel, are just not worth the hassle they can put you through.
There is no need now a days to be using a hosting company with a home made panel. Don't get me wrong, some custom made hosting panels are just fine while others are just not enough for the average person to use. I actually installed Joomla at a customers hosting account and found that they did not even offer a file browser! That is just not acceptable for the year 2007.
A few developers I have talked to seemed to think it costs a great deal to have Plesk or Cpanel, the industry standards for hosting panels. This is simply not the case at all. You can find thousands of hosting companies that offer Plesk or Cpanel and either one of these two panels will make your life alot easier. With either one you can easily set up a database, email addresses and manage your own files. Without a good, simple hosting panel, you will always be looking for support. Visit the following hosting company (link removed to the hosting company) I now offer high quality hosting on my own dedicated server) and combine excellent cost with personal service.
If you don't have a good hosting panel to work with you will be calling your hosting company on a regular bases and it may include a cost. Dealing with an HTACCESS file without a good file system to access inside your hosting account, can be a nightmare to say the least. The htaccess file is what you use to make search engine friendly URL's. This file also does many other important tasks for you. If your hosting company already has some features set, you are going to need to make changes to the htaccess file until you figure out what they have set already. This is no longer an issue on our server.
The process of dealing with the htaccess file will get very stressful if you are only using FTP to make changes. The site will disappear on you and you may even loose the Joomla admin panel, so working in JoomlaExplorer is out of the question. Besides, JoomlaExplorer will not always work. You can still have file permission issues when using Joomla Explorer to manage your files from the back-end of your Joomla site.
You want to work with the htaccess file from your hosting panels file system. I was really shocked to find that in 2007 there are still hosting packages that do not offer access to a file system! This article and problems with file permissions is old news, our latest server does not have file permission problems.
There really is no need to settle for any less than the industry standards for hosting panels. Plesk or Cpanel are the most widely used and they are available at most hosting companies. You can expect to have either one of these panels and host your Joomla site for about $15.00 per month.
Yes you can find hosting for much less but that's another story all together. Bandwidth and Hardrive space are not unlimited, they cost money. Our hosting does not make false claims hoping most people will never use anywhere near the BS (Bad Story) you read about daily now.
A simple test or investigation will leave you wondering what the truth is. You may find a site that offers unlimited everything for 5 or 10 dollars a month. At that same site you may find that they also sell dedicated servers but, the unlimited offer will not apply. So you have to ask yourself the question, " why would anyone pay $100.00 to $800.00 a month for a dedicated server if they can get unlimited everything for $5. or $10. dollars a month?
You would be wise to be using a Linux/Unix type server also. Joomla is opensource software and so is Linux. Joomla will run on a Windows server but you are going to run into roadblocks like when you try to have search engine friendly URL's. Again, there is no need to be putting yourself through the hassle of dealing with a 'Windows Server'.
For the newbies that are reading this, a Windows server has nothing to do with your windows operating system on your computer. You can use your windows operating system on your computer just fine. Its the hosting of your website that you want to be on a Linux type server. Most of us that are using Joomla are also using Microsoft windows on our personal at home or office computer.
Some of us will be using Mac's, and that's not a problem either, as long as you use the right browser. If your on a Mac and you don't have the right browser you will not likely be able to upload pictures with the JCE advanced editor. Safari has been known to causes problems uploading pictures using a Mac. As of June 2007, Windows XP works just fine in regards to dealing with Joomla and working with Fire Fox or Internet Explorer 7. (Updated Nov 2008, this is old news and may no longer apply, thinks are changing fast!)
However, Windows Vista may be an issue for some users of Joomla and accessing features of the browser. Not sure exactly what is happening, I only know that a few customers are not seeing the same things I see at their sites. This may or may not be related to the new Vista operating system. I will report more about these issues once I have been into the store and tested a new computer with Vista, IE and Firefox and see what is going on. (Updated Nov 2008, we have a Laptop now running Windows Vista so I'll report on this soon. So far Window's Vista is really not bad at all!)
The most resent issue I ran into with hosting that was not able to handle Joomla was the lack of ZLIB on the host server. You wouldn't be able to install a template or components from your Joomla back-end without ZLIB. It's not usual to expect to have zlib on your hosts server. After over 50 installation of Joomla on numerous hosting accounts, I have never seen this one missing yet. Article by Baratta Design and should not be copied.
As mentioned, this article is very old now. Baratta Design now offers quality hosting using Media Data Hosting . We use the latest Cpanel and the server is managed by tech people in North America, we do not use any 'over-seas' support center's.
