So my brother is paying me to update his business' website, which has lingered in obscurity for the last dozen years. My SIL re-established it on GoDaddy with the same terrible text and obsolete photos that he had on the old site, but it needs a complete refresher.

I have poked about enough to know that I LOATHE the GoDaddy interface: it's cluttered, non-intuitive, and damned annoying. And I've heard enough to know that they also have lousy customer service.

So does anyone have any recommendations for a commercial hosting service for a small business? One that provides basic design templates and an easy interface for updating content? This won't ever be a site with a lot of traffic, but it needs to be easy to maintain and will need to have an option for a password-protected section of the site for some of the content.

Suggestions?

I have a fancy Sony DVD player that is supposed to connect with Netflix and Hulu but it has never connected for me. I've followed all the instructions to just hit a wall.

Big picture is I want to be able to get mlb.tv in my room. I know if I get a newer TIVO I can get that but I don't want to pay for another lifetime service.

You can get mlb.tv through the Roku. I'd suggest a Roku 2, there's some minor differences in the Roku 2 and 3, mostly the Roku 3 is faster, has a sd slot on it, and you can pair a smart phone or tablet with the 3 and it has YouTube, the other versions don't. But Roku plans to add YouTube to Roku 2 at some point.

You can get Netflix, AMazon Prime, Vudu, NHL, PBS and tons of other stuff with the Roku.

Consuela, have you ever dealt with a WordPress template? They're not just for blogging any more, since you can use the same back-end interface to set up static pages, connect to e-commerce, and so on.

Also, some providers offer very pro-level-looking templates with most of the grunt design work done for you, plus hosting. I haven't dealt with those much, so I don't know specific good providers, but it's something you may want to investigate.

Squarespace is good, if a little pricey.

I'm hosted through DreamHost, and I use WordPress for my sites and the sites I build for my bar owner clients who want to be able to update with a minimum of fuss.

Wordpress sounds pretty good. Can you host through WP, or is it just content-management?

Wordpress sounds pretty good. Can you host through WP, or is it just content-management?

There are two (REALLY confusingly named) options -- WordPress.com is a hosted service that starts at free and has some paid options you can add on to that; you get the choice of a hundred or so themes, many of which have some kind of customization options.

WordPress is also open-source content management software (available at WordPress.org -- see? REALLY FUCKING CONFUSING!) that you can host on pretty much any hosting service you choose. On that path, you can pick whatever themes and plugins (a.k.a. functional add-ons) you want, or build your own stuff.

I help build the core software that runs both of those options, as well as making my living building sites with it, so I'm happy to help with sorting out the confusions. Can't do anything about the stupid dot com vs. dot org naming, though.

I think I'm going to do it.

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Now, to find another G4 case, or use my G4 MDD with a bad power supply?

Decisions, Decisions.

Ripping apart my MDD G4, I have it nearly gutted. I think I can keep the MDD look with a hinged piece of mirrored plastic, or the old doors itself, with a knob where the power button was.