Website Host, Function Options

[mverzyl]

I Don't Want To Make 2 Topics So This Post Will Consist Of 2 Questions.

1. I Want To Start A Website. I Already Know What Domain Name I Want, But I Need Help On Finding A Good Host. My Website Will Be A Personal One, Consisting Of A Few Blog Entries Once In A While Where People Can Leave Comments About My Entries. I Want My Site To Have A Forum, Have An Area Where I Put My Own Graphics And Layouts For People To Use, I Want It Where People Will Be Able To Leave Comments About Each Graphic And/Or Layout And I Want It So That They Can Become A Member Of My Site And Have To Be A Member To Use My Graphics And/Or Layouts. Kind Of Like Createblog (lol) But A Personal Site. And Also Maybe Say If I'm Online, How Many People Are Online, Etc...

Does That Kind Of Function Have More To Do With The Host I Use Or The Design? And If You Could Please Point Out A Good Host For What I Want I Would Appreciate It.

2. My Dad's The Pastor Of A Church And Since He Knows Nothing About Website Design He Asked Me To Make And Run The Website For Our Church. He Bought A Domain (A While Ago) And Is With A Host (Bellsouth), But I'm Afraid It's Not Very Good. They Have This Easy Website Builder And When I Went To The Control Panel To Try And Figure Out How To Put Up The Site And Edit All I Could Use Was Their Easy-Builder. I Couldn't Find Any Way To Put In My Own Codes To Build The Site. Anyone Know About BellSouth Website Hosting? I Think I'm Going To Have To Go With Another Host. Is There A Way To Use Our Web Address With Another Host?




EDIT:

I Looked At 1and1.com And What They Have Kinda Looks Like What I Want, The Blog Thing. And Having Other Stuff On Your Site. But I Also Want A Forum, People Able To Leave Comments About Things, And To Become A Member, Etc... Can I Do That With Them? And Not Just Have It Be A Blog? Also They Have Kinda Like An Easy Site Builder Thing, Can I Still Use My Own Banner/Site Design If I Wanted To?

[mverzyl]

Thank You So Much For The Input. I'm Looking At www.hostgator.com And They Seem To Have A lot Of Stuff That's Compatible And/Or Comes With Them, Looks Like What I Need. Like Instant Blogging And Forums, Password Protection For Certain Things, Etc. Do You Know Anything About Them? I'm Thinking About One Of Their 2 Middle Plans. Baby Or Swamp.

I Do Have One More Question Though. Only One More (For Right Now) I Promise. lol. But How Would My Site Be One Where People Can Become A Member Of? How Does That Work. Is That A Certain Program I Install? Do You Know What I'm Talking About? I Wan It To Be Where They'd Have To Be A Member To Use The BulletinBoard/Forum, Have Access To My Graphics, And Comment On My Entries.