Plans | Features | Network | Policies | Support | About | Contact

Web hosting is like renting office space.
You can put your desk in a cold, empty warehouse on a sidestreet with no coffee shop, and call it an "office."

Or you can rent a fabulously functional office, the perfect size for your business, on a street sized to handle the cars coming into your parking lot. The building is beautiful, all the utilities are included in the rent, and they have an on-site temp agency to help you get organized and operational.

The landlord helps you move in, and gets you hooked up with phones, business licenses, and the services you need. The building has great security and it's own newspaper. The maintenance guy knows your name. And it fits your operating budget perfectly. The only thing you need to think about is running your business.

This is that web "office space" and Gryphyn Media is your web landlord.

1. A domain name registered at a registrar. You buy the right to use that name annually. I can take care of that... it costs $15 a year.
Read more about domain names

2. Web hosting... a place where your website lives on a networked computer called a server. Think of it like renting office space... I rent those spaces like a landlord. That's web hosting. You tell your domain registrar where your website lives (it has a numerical IP address), and it points your domain name at it (so no one has to remember that numerical IP address). I take care of that, too, when I register the domain name. Normally, people buy web hosting by the month or the year... just like paying rent.
Read about web hosting plans

3. Email. Part of the web space is room for email to be received, stored, and picked up by you. You can pick it up by "popping" it off the server onto your home computer, using an email program (called an "email client") like Outlook or Eudora. You can also read it right on the server using webmail. And you can have people use programs on your website to send you email... those are the forms you fill out on websites... contact forms, order forms, forms to register as a user.

4. A "design" in the form of a bunch of files that you upload to your space on the server. It consists of HTML code, images and other files that tell web browsers ow to make your site appear to visitors. You can learn to build a website yourself, or have other people (designers, developers) do it yourself.
Ask for help finding a designer

Those things combine to become a "web presence" for a website owner. Let's say you become "JaneDoe.com." You can them begin to build a permanent web identity that you control... a website with info about your business, email in your own name. When you own a website, you never having to change your email address again. You are Jane@JaneDoe.com, no matter if you use Comcast, or Verizon, or AOL to access the Internet. You can move JaneDoe.com to other hosts... and it still looks the same to a browser. As long as you continue to register the domain name and keep a place to host it.

You can add other things... tools to let you manage the website without knowing tech stuff. In the beginning, it makes sense for most people to keep it simple.

The three biggest technical stumbling blocks for new website owners:

1. Setting up email. Successfully setting up email requires a properly installed email client (Outlook, Eudora, Mozilla, etc), a properly set-up email account at your domain, and the cooperation of whoever you use for Internet access (AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, Verizon, Juno, etc.). It's easy to get confused. Gryphyn Media can walk you through that.... we do it all the time... and you don't.

2. Password confusion. Suddenly, you have an ISP username and password... plus a set for your domain registration, plus a set for your hosting account, PLUS one or more sets for email accounts... and you might have passwords for admin tools. Whew! We can help you find tool to choose, manage, and safely store your passwords. And sort out when to use which.

3. A lack of skills to get the site up and working right. You might have had a template designed, or bought one from a vendor. But now you have to customize it. Forms! CGI scripts! Images that don't appear, or look funny when they do. Arrghh! You can hire us to sort through all that. Rent-a-guru by the hour or keep us on retainer.
Read more about extra support options.

You want to focus on making the site do something productive, not fiddle with things that won't work right.