LunarPages — one of the coolest web hosts around — has just sponsored the Tech Writer Voices podcast with free web hosting. We’ve used Lunar Pages with the Suncoast STC chapter site for 3 years and for the Tech Writer Voices podcast for the past year. They’ve been an excellent web host that I wholeheartedly recommend.

LunarPages has a Star-Trek parody audio commercial that I just integrated into the latest Tech Writer Voices podcast. Even if you’re not a trekkie, you might like this 30 second commercial:

Actually, to elaborate a little more on web hosts … When I first started the Tech Writer Voices podcast, I searched for the web host that offered the greatest amount of bandwidth and storage for the cheapest price. I ended up at Globat.com. After I launched the podcast, the site (which had almost no images) was taking forever to load pages. On average it took at least 5 seconds, sometimes 10-15 seconds, for each page to load. I canceled my account with Globat and switched to LunarPages. On the new host, the home page loaded quickly and clicking each link brought up pages immediately. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Although Lunar Pages’ bandwidth (3500 GB) and storage (350 GB) isn’t as much as the terabyte that some other hosts claim, my experience with the other host taught me that there’s a lot more to web hosting than simply storage and bandwidth. You want to be sure the web host isn’t overloading accounts on the same server, hoping that each customer will underuse their space (like overbooking 30-40 more passengers on an airplane).

Support is also a major consideration for a web host. When you call for help, is the support staff knowledgeable, or are they outsourced, poorly trained, and non-technical? How quickly do they get back to you? LunarPages support team has always been technically adept and quick to get back to me.

If you’ve been thinking about starting your own blog (perhaps moving from Blogger or WordPress.com to the self-hosted WordPress.org, or starting your own wiki), check out the basic hosting plan from LunarPages.com.