About the JoePivetti.com website

Here's more about the process, the costs and the mechanics for creating this website.

The Process

First I selected a domain name and tested for the availability at GoDaddy.com.  I researched the Internet to find the best deal for hosting my website, including free hosting.  I found that there is no such thing as free (they'll get you for this and that later).  I made contact with a GoDaddy rep via the instant messaging option available on their website and got two years of hosting that also included a second website name which they helped me find (this ended up being JP4Engineering.com).  I followed directions from the website wizard using freeware (Blue Griffon).  I roughed out a structure and made a menu and then filled out pages and kept adding links.

The Costs

I investigated free hosting but the more I read the more I dreaded the prospect of potential rework so I went with GoDaddy which cost $50 for two years for two websites.  The web space seems to be unlimited but the email is very limited (this seems to be how they plan to make money).  So I just don't use the joepivetti.com email any more.  All of the software I use is freeware so there isn't really any other cost than the hosting costs.  I don't know if they will raise the annual fee when I go to extend the contract in 2017.

Mechanics

GoDaddy has alot of tools to make editing the website easy, including use of a virtual website on my PC.  All I have to do is drag files onto a folder and it uploads.  I found that over-writing files didn't flow well when using the virtual webpage but using the GoDaddy file manager is simple.  I just go to my account on GoDaddy and start the file manager which has many available commands but I primarily just use the upload command to update files.  The GoDaddy tools include site analysis tools which i only use once in a while to see if anybody is visiting.