This topic came up yesterday as I was having lunch with Sam Ruby, Joe Gregorio, and Stephen Granade. (Live in the Raleigh, NC area? Want to join us next time? Email me.)
If you’re in the market for a weblog-friendly hosting provider, especially if you’re on blogspot.com or radio.weblogs.com and want your own domain, you should definitely include CornerHost in your research. I’ve used them for over 2 months now and have had a great experience so far.
They run Apache on Linux, with AllowOverride All (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it’s a good thing, it gives you more flexibility to set your own Apache options). They have a range of service plans ranging from basic ($50/year, FTP only — good for Blogger or Radio users) to script ($100/year, CGI, PHP, FrontPage extensions — good for Greymatter or MovableType users), to shell ($200/year, remote shell access — good for developers). Script and shell plans also allow you to define your own cron jobs (again, if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry).
Other things I like (in no particular order): They upgraded to Python 2.2 when I asked for it. They installed ImageMagick (for some advanced optional features of MovableType) when others asked for it. They maintain an offsite blog (cornerhost.blogspot.com) for announcements, and an optional mailing list to discuss potential new features. You can host multiple domains (I have three) for no extra charge beyond the domain registration fee, and all domains share one bandwidth and disk space allotment. (My previous hosting provider wanted to open a new account and charge me full price for each additional domain.) You have access to your full Apache access logs, piped through chronolog so you get one log file per day. They don’t sell your personal information or email address.
