NationStates Jolt Archive

I am a property manager for a realty company. The owner of the company came to me and asked about moving to a new webhosting service to save some money.

Our present webhosting service costs about $50, but they specialize in realtors and offer special templates and add-ons. We were looking into saving some money by switching to a webhosting service that doesn't specialize.

Since I don't know much about it, I am turning to the wealth of knowledge on NS for help.

First things first, here is the website: http://www.atlantasmillenniumrealty.com

Question #1: How much disk space will I need from the webhosting service?

Question #2: What is MySQL, and why would I need it?

You have a job?

I thought you were an unemployed bum like the rest of us!

I'm an employed bum.

I am a property manager for a realty company. The owner of the company came to me and asked about moving to a new webhosting service to save some money.

Our present webhosting service costs about $50, but they specialize in realtors and offer special templates and add-ons. We were looking into saving some money by switching to a webhosting service that doesn't specialize.

Since I don't know much about it, I am turning to the wealth of knowledge on NS for help.

First things first, here is the website: http://www.atlantasmillenniumrealty.com

Question #1: How much disk space will I need from the webhosting service?

Question #2: What is MySQL, and why would I need it?
1. depends on how many pics you have on your site, how big they are/will be, and what kind of quality you want them to be (compression)
100mb would be a safe bet but you could quite probably actually fit a decent site into about 10 meg... but its probably better to have extra room to expand and also its nicer for customers to see good quality pics.

2. you'll want mysql if you want to have an interactive, dynamic site which people can search, request data and do all that kind of crap on in real time. its a method of communicating between a database and website... don't know any more about it cos its a new language and i'm only just getting to understand html lol

Question #1: How much disk space will I need from the webhosting service?

First of all, $50 how often? Because if it's every year that's a sweet deal.

Second, the space will depend on what you want to store there. Pics usually require a fair bit of space, but not as much as video or audio. Your host can probably tell you how much space your site is currently using and that should give you some idea.

Another important consideration is the bandwidth, this is the amount of information that will be leaving your site each month and will depend on the number of visitors you have. Most 'hosting solutions' give you a limited amount of bandwidth. Your current host can also tell you how much you use.


Question #2: What is MySQL, and why would I need it?
It's a database management system. Basically, what it does is it takes information and arranges it in neat tables and rows and lets you access them with sentence-like commands.

It's very important for certain websites because it would allow you, for example, to search for houses with three bedrooms in a certain part of town and in a price range.

It's usually combined with the PHP programming language. Both are almost universally provided by Apache powered hosts, but you can find other powered by MS IIS which may or may not include them but will almost surely replace it with ASP.net or something.

You may have to deal with this depending on whether your site is designed and maintained in-house or through an external company.

That is $50 monthly.

I doubt we will have any audio or video, but we will have up to 100 pictures.

I will call the present provider and see how much memory and bandwidth we use.

As for MySQL, I doubt we will go to somebody for it, but is it possible to get a program or template so that I could simply create a database and not have to code it into the webpage?

That is $50 monthly.

I doubt we will have any audio or video, but we will have up to 100 pictures.

I will call the present provider and see how much memory and bandwidth we use.

As for MySQL, I doubt we will go to somebody for it, but is it possible to get a program or template so that I could simply create a database and not have to code it into the webpage?

I entered real estate web site templates in google and a lot of hits came up, but I couldn't tell you whether they're easy, costly, featured, etc.

You should determine what you want from the website first. Is it just to have a website, or do you want to use it for anything (if so, what).
Are there things that change often (like news)?
Do you want interactivity (as mentioned before)?

You should determine what you want from the website first. Is it just to have a website, or do you want to use it for anything (if so, what).

It will be used mostly to advertise our rental properties.

Are there things that change often (like news)?

Property listings will change weekly.

Do you want interactivity (as mentioned before)?

Not particularly, just want them to be able to download an application and possibly contact me through email.

In that case, a database would probably be usefull, for the property listings. It should make it easier to manage.

Looking at the current site, you might need a lot of room for the images, since some are over 1 Mb. With up to 100 pictures, you'll need that 100 Mb.
However, if the images are resized before they're uploaded you can save a lot on disk space. It will also safe on bandwidth, which can be further improved by using actual thumbnails, instead of the actual image shown smaller by the browser. (You'd think that a provider specializing in such websites would have tools to do such things automatically)

*snip*

2. you'll want mysql if you want to have an interactive, dynamic site which people can search, request data and do all that kind of crap on in real time. its a method of communicating between a database and website... don't know any more about it cos its a new language and i'm only just getting to understand html lol

MySql is actually an open source solution for those unwilling to by MSSQL or any other SQL using database solution.

It can be run on a desktop if you want. It isn't a language, just "storage" device. It uses all the same parameters as SQL, it's just freely available.

2. you'll want mysql if you want to have an interactive, dynamic site which people can search, request data and do all that kind of crap on in real time. its a method of communicating between a database and website... don't know any more about it cos its a new language and i'm only just getting to understand html lol
SQL is new? What are you smoking? It was invented in the 70s.

As for MySQL, I doubt we will go to somebody for it, but is it possible to get a program or template so that I could simply create a database and not have to code it into the webpage?

Judiging from you responses sofar you will want to use a content management system (CMS) instead of designing the site yourself[1]

These systems almost always require an underlying database server (or at least offer far superior performance when one is available) - and all the code to actually use it is already integrated. You would not have to concern yourself with it; just use the interface.

MySQL is quite universally supported and therefor a safe choice.

[1] Looking at the site you may also wish to fire the person who designed this one. Unless you like having an amateurish look.

Looking at the current site I'm willing to bet that it currently uses some sort varient of SQL (Structured Query Langauge) in order to Query a database. The database probably holds all the information about each rental, when you click on "Avaliable Rentals" the page will Query the Database using SQL in order to retrieve a list of all Rentals which an ASP (active server page) transforms into HTML to be displayed by the webpage.
I'm guessing at the moment that all of the above is provided by the specialist hosting - the fact the the Property Listings page is contained within a 'Template16' directory leads me to beleive that the hosts are doing alot of the work for you. Unfortunatley for you this means that it won't be a simple case of switching hosts since alot of the site seems to be tightly binded to the current host. To switch somewhere else you'd probably need a complete redesign (which involves paying someone who can setup the database and create the asp pages).
My opinion is that $50 a month (it is per month right?) is probably cheaper than the cost of a redesign + reduced non-specialist web hosting. This sort of thing can be very expensive, I myself have worked on a site redesign for a property company that cost in excess of £50,000.

My opinion is that $50 a month (it is per month right?) is probably cheaper than the cost of a redesign + reduced non-specialist web hosting. This sort of thing can be very expensive, I myself have worked on a site redesign for a property company that cost in excess of £50,000.

Then again - the new site would probably not have framed navigation menus that require both right and downscrolling (e.g. the community information section) on 1024x768 resolutions...

To use a cheap pun,which I however fear is literally true: the site seems to be designed in the last millenium.