RP Resources

I should totally be taking pictures of jewelry I need to sell and writing for havenwood, but this is on my mind and I know I'm not going to get any other work done until I get this out of the way, so... Here we are. For those of you who like to code and host your bios and character information off-site have, probably at one time or another, signed up for a free account at Webs.com. You'll also be familiar with just how much they like to jerk their free user base around. It's frustrating to find just how much they want to push their premium products on you and when you're like me, with a $0 budget, that's just not gonna fly. For the newbies to Webs, I can't imagine how frustrating it is to wait x-amount of time simply to downgrade your account to a level just so you can upload your crap. That's not convenient. Like... at all. So I'm gonna chime in with my two alternatives to Webs and other users can totally chime in as well with their own suggestions.

Altervista.org — It's an Italian based organization, but they do have an English language version of all their services, which I've linked to. If you need the Italian version, here it is.

Why I like Altervista — I like AV because it offers me exactly what I'm looking for: A place to upload my CSS/HTML files and it does it without me having to wait and jump through hoops. Of the perks of signing up for a free account? You, the user, get to choose whether or not to display ads on your site. Yep, you read that correctly. You can choose whether or not to use AV's ad service or Google's AdSense. OR you can choose not to have ads at all! Altervista will not ding you for your choice.

Another reason I like Altervista is the resources and tools you have at your disposal and most of it is free, with some exceptions. Starting out, you get 500 MB of space and 10 GB of traffic. You have the option of upgrading your space with an additional 100, 200, 300, or 500 MB for free. The 1 GB upgrade is available for a one time fee of a Euro amount (I'm sorry, I don't know what the USD amount would be) OR you can get it for free but you'd have to activate AV's ad earnings tool (there's that exception I mentioned). If you host your images somewhere else like Imgbox, Imgur, or Photobucket, you won't use a lot of your allotted 500 MB, but can upload images to Altervista. Right now I'm using less than 1% (specifically, 0.4% — that's not even half of 1% lol).

Included in the resources and tools I mentioned are applications such as Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and a phpBB forum — They just need to be activated and it's free. So, if you're looking to use your web space for more than just RP purposes, AV is a good alternative to Webs in my opinion.

Tumblr — A lot of IJ users are probably familiar with Tumblr, but for those of you who are not necessarily hip to newer blogging platforms... That's exactly what Tumblr is, a blogging platform.

Why I like Tumblr — An explanation of Tumblr is pretty straightforward. One of the reasons Tumblr is a good alternative to Webs is the fact that the user can create an unlimited number of pages, choose whether or not to use a Standard Page Layout (which would match your Tumblr blog's theme/layout) or use a Custom Page Layout. Choosing the custom option allows you to use CSS and HTML to your heart's content. The only downside of using Tumblr for your RP information is that you definitely have to host your images off-site at one of the suggested image hosting sites mentioned above. There aren't any ads, and there isn't any additional bells and whistles as mentioned with Altervista, so if you're looking for something with less fuss and muss, try Tumblr!

So. That's my two cents. What other suggestions and alternatives are out there?
Let us know by leaving a comment below!