Ever thought of a proper URL?

[Mayhem]

Just thinking... with all this site hosting shifting malarky, thought about actually running a proper URL and redirecting the DNS server addresses to match where the site is currently held?

It's what I do with my site at the moment.. use an online URL manager and I can change the DNS entries for free with it should the site hosting change.

I see sadly gtw.co.uk is gone, but there is gamesthatwerent.co.uk still free for example.

Just a thought here... saves having to worry about telling people a new URL all the time, and gives the site a "professional" quality heh...

[Frank Gasking]

I'm glad someone has pushed this idea for me, so I can get off my ass for once ......

Have you got a link for this Mat?... i'd be interested in taking a look. It's been on my mind on and off, as CS.C64 doesn't mean a thing.

At the moment, i've considered cs.c64.org to be GTW's address, which will redirect to wherever the site is located... but yeah, it doesn't actually say anything about GTW... I keep quoting this address, but press and sites has just listed the real address where it redirects too... which means now that people reading RG won't be able to access the site

I guess I had avoided a real URL, mainly because it had to be paid for previously for a large sum.. but if there is a good/cheap service out there, then i'd definately want to set a gamesthatwerent.co.uk.

Professional??... you've gotta be kidding!! ... for starters, a tableless structure would be half way there... There's so many flaws in the site code at the moment, let alone the url being shite..

Cheers Mat, I appreciate any help/suggestions on this one.

[Mayhem]

Actually people do recommend < div>, and style tables for structure over say frames for example.

I have my URL management with www.ukreg.com who are a part of Fasthosts. At the time I was hosted elsewhere but I'm actually with Fasthosts now for my hosting too. Just the way it went, offered a good deal considering.

Anyhow, UKReg will allow you to register a URL for the standard amount. It also allows you to set up various forwarding, and assign the DNS addresses needed to point the URL in question to where your hosting is. You'd ask whoever is hosting the site for the DNS which you'd plug into the management page. If you leave them payment details (eg. credit card) they will auto renew the URL for you on top (£2.95 per year for a co.uk)

I'm sure there are other places that do exactly the same thing, but that's whom I'm with. The management side of things is free.

By taking control especially of the DNS to yourself and not whoever hosts the site, it makes it a doddle to change and alter things without having to ask and wait on the other party to do it for you (especially if you want to change hosting company).

[Frank Gasking]

Thanks for the great information Mat, i'll check them out tomorrow and see about signing up. I owe it to you for actually forcing the issue a bit for me... as its well overdue, so cheers Mat.

Also I've had about 3 offers for new webspace, which i'm considering too.. so there's some really generous people out there

With regards to < Div>... we are not allowed to use tables or frames at all at work, and everything is being done with style sheets now... especially soon because W3C standards are to become enforced more, or at least with regards to 'accessibility' offerings of a particular site (very important for a university site). Soon, sites which are unaccessible (mainly big companies, universities etc) will be slapped with possible prosecutions/fines.

My first project at work was to do the Art Department site, and this was my first try at completely using style sheets and includes... Now because i've found the method so flexible and nice to work with, i'm really itching to sort out GTW. Actually, the way it is all built at the moment really narks me off, but changing 400-500 reviews and their sub pages will take a long time.

I'm slowly moving.... the GTW front page and header are being sorted out at the moment, but the header will stay as a frame for now until the other pages are fixed into CSS. The front page will be a lot quicker to load, as well as the header featuring less graphics but looking relatively the same. There's not a table in sight