A few years back, I opened an account with BlueHost.com and registered www.thekitchengardener.com I deluded myself into thinking that I could earn some ad revenue by posting gardening related content and showing ads through Google AdSense. I posted a series of long articles and had plans to host a discussion forum and even make my own movies. I maintained the site for almost a year, but never got enough hits to earn more than a few measly bucks from Google. It finally dawned on me one day that the basic problem is that the Web is up to its eyeballs in content. Youtube was just taking off at the time, piling massive amounts of video on top of all the other content already available. In order to stand out, you've got to do something really unique, or work like heck to develop your own mountain of content. All's well that ends well though. I registered another domain with BlueHost to start selling custom kitchen knife blocks (woodworking is my OTHER favorite hobby besides gardening!), which so far has been far more lucrative than selling ads on a gardening site. A few months ago I accidentally uploaded my knife block pages to thekitchengardener.com - woops! I haven't even bothered to fix it. :-) Anyway, I'm not trying to discourage you, just sharing my personal experience. If you're looking for a hosting company, I would have no problem recommending BlueHost. They are reasonably priced ($90/year if I remember correctly), offer a lot of extra tools to run scripts, monitor usage, etc. etc. Their tech support department has been helpful on the few times I've needed to contact them. The other nice thing about going with a hosting company is that you get your own email addresses - lots of them! I think I can create like 1,000 email accounts or something crazy like that. I only use 2. :-) For software, I use FrontPage. It took some time to get used to, but I quite like it now. I try to keep my websites simple anyway, so I only use a fraction of what FrontPage can do, but I don't like tedious tasks so using an editor is much more convenient for me than coding HTML by hand. FrontPage has recently been replaced by SharePoint Designer, which I have used once or twice. From what I can see it looks pretty similar to FrontPage. Also note that if you want all the flexibility of a hosted solution but don't want to pay a hosting company, you can host it yourself. Recipe: 1) Download a VMWare virtual appliance containing Apache web server. Also download VMWare Server to run it on. Both are free. 2) Configure your cable modem/DSL router to pass port 80 traffic to your virtual webserver. 3) Register a subdomain with a dynamic DNS provider. Most of them will work with dynamic IP addresses (DHCP), and are usually free. You can alternatively see if you can get a fixed IP address from your ISP (they will probably charge extra for this) and then point your domain to that address. This is all free, but there will be a pretty steep learning curve if you're not technical. -Diggity

Phyl, THS = That Home Site, also known as the Home forums. This forum (Suggestions) falls under the Garden forums and there's even another called Nature.net. There all part of the Garden Web community. Click on Forums at the top of the page to see all the listings.

do you happen to still have the paper work that came with it like the directions and the instructions manual that will have all your default info in it and how to reset it. If not look on the bottom for the model and google that you should be able to go to the manufacturer site and find the manuals. Did you set up your router originally with it connected to a desktop computer, in other words which pc did you install the software on? The router is setup on the family PC not my Laptop. Unplugging the router (and modem if one) itself from power and powering down all the computers, then power up the modem if you have cable first then after a while power up the router and once it is fully up then power up the various computers, often makes a big difference. I think we have a modem and a router for Xbox and laptops. are you just using the Vista built in firewall? Yes.I'm using the windows firewall. what are you using is it cable or dsl or what for internet? My son says it's cable/DSL internet. have you done all your windows updates? Yes.Except for three optional ones. I'm confused about resetting the router. That would be on the main computer. Will this help my laptop internet connection?

I saved a pic to see the file size, only 125kb. Ok, but wouldn't the actual black background also take some time to load also?...just like if one had some sort of real busy background? I'm thinking about and comparing it to maybe making a copy of something on my printer and it having a background other than white. Ten MBs on a slow connection, particularly a DUN, could seem like an eternity. My speed runs between 200 and 500 kpbs. Many people with fast connections tend to forget what it's like for people with slower connections. That's sure the truth. The member has said numerous times he/she doesn't know how to post a single pic...I just decided against trying to explain, thinking I was likely the only one with a slow or slower connection. I know some folks on dun just don't attempt to open some pic stuff...not worth the waste of time.