It is surprising, in this age when hard disk space is cheap and widely available, that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) limit the space available to their customers. For example, I have a community website, for which I pay nearly £100/year, which limits me to 80 MB total space. I should like to add still pictures, videos, sound files and so on, but as my web space is already full (in fact they kindly allowed me 10 MB extra space) there is currently no possibility of doing this.
At another of my website, I have arranged for searches and access to be directed through my broadband connection into my house, where they are connected to the website which I am running under Windows XP. There is no limit on the size of the website I can provide here. Fortunately, this ISP does not charge for this useful service, so I do not need to purchase additional web space beyond the small amounts they allow me to use as part of my broadband account.
I see that there are some ISPs who are offering much more space that usual, but this does not seem to have stimulated the principal ISPs to increase theirs.
Major disadvantages of serving my web from my home computer, are that the uplink speed is slow, only one web can be made available this way for each broadband connection and the computer has to be on all the time. Many computers are not designed to run continually and there may be power supply or hard disk problems ahead. Perhaps I should consider buying a dedicated server to serve my web from home. My first searches on the Internet for a suitable computer have not been very successful. For about £350 I can buy a server that this has no monitor, keyboard or mouse. I suppose I could load Linux onto it and administer it from another computer. Suggestions about the best way to proceed would be gratefully received.
I'm sure there are many people like me who have web sites which are cramped and expensive to run. For us, a computer that would run continually and silently from home, would be a great step forward.
Christopher Spry
London, 15 August 2006
