I've had a website for years. I won't bother giving out the URL. You don't want to look at it right now because it's a mess. I started this as a place to store useful information such as links and code snippets, but never took it too far. My main use of this website is to get quick access into MSDN, since it's sometimes hard to drill through the menus there. Anyway... I decided to convert it to ASP.Net in an effort to learn more. I thought what better way to learn than to do. I needed and ASP.Net project and this was as good as any.
First mission, switch hosting providers to one that offers ASP.Net. Anyone who reads PC World has seen the 1and1.com ads. What a deal, they were offering ASP.net for $6.99 a month. I just check and it looks like it's now $9.99. Well, what they don't tell you is that this is dot.Net 1.1, not 2.0. This information is hidden deep in the bows of their documentation. What I can say is that 1&1 has an awesome control panel, and is very easy to configure. What I can also say is that they have a great refund policy, and I took advantage of that and canceled my account quickly. When I called their support desk and asked about future plans for 2.0, they acted as though I wanted to purchase a ticket on the space shuttle. When I told them they were losing my business because of it, it didn't phase them. You would think I was asking them to install ASP.net on a linux box. If someone can enlighten me on the difficulties of installing 2.0 on a Windows' server that already has 1.1, please speak up. This seems like an easy thing from my view point.
I then switched to GoDaddy. You can get an ASP.net 2.0 (or 1.1) plan for as low as $3.99 a month. I upgraded to the deluxe plan to give access to sql server too, all for $6.99 a month. What a deal. Now GoDaddy's configuration and documentation leave a lot to be desired. There are way too many ads all over their website and they try to upsell you with every click. That being said, one you get set up, it works great. I have had zero down time, I love their webmail agent. And, what is really nice, is that http://webmail.yourdomainName.com gets you to your email. It's really cool. It's almost as good as using the exchange mail that outlook now provides.
With GoDaddy, I had my share of problems too. They setup my ftp incorrectly so that I couldn't transfer files. They did, however, fix it quickly. Then I couldn't get ASP.net to work for the longest time. I finally got that working after fiddling with Frontpage extensions and blowing away everything and starting over. Their documentation is all by non-existent. I'm a professional developer, as many of you are, so it wasn't too terrible. I couldn't imagine a novice trying to use this account, although they probably wouldn't be messing with ASP.net either.
If the price wasn't a few dollars cheaper and billable monthly, I probably would have gone with someone like DiscountASP, as advertised on GeeksWithBlogs. I just trying to keep the cost of this hobby to a minimum. Although I don't have personal experience with them, They sound like they are more .net focused and I image the .net support is much stronger.
Why am I telling you all this? I spent several weeks trying to get to the point where I could put a simple “Hello World” out there. If I can save one poor soul from going through this, it's worth the energy. The bottom line is not to waste time with 1and1 if you want to use .Net 2.0. Whoever you go with, be certain of what version they are supporting.
Cheers, John