Blank page, MySQL Database Error?

[Kyttias]

Have you considered developing your site offline for a while? It's what I'm doing. The down side is that I can't show anyone outside of my local network, but this is due to the limitations of my router, not the concept itself (my last router worked fine, but I had a different internet service provider then). However, I've really enjoyed being able to host the site myself and work locally on it - I can even work on it without an active internet connection, which has made long waits in my car much more tolerable (since I've gone and set it up on my laptop).

I've gone the localhost route because I know my site won't be ready for launch until I've dedicated enough time to it. Once it's ready, it's as simple as backing up the database and moving files over to real hosting.

I use WAMP, because I have Windows, and there are a few simple setting tweaks I know of to get Mysidia up and running. But I've also heard of many alternatives, all ending in -AMP, standing for Apache, MySQL, and PHP, for these are the backbones of most servers. There's also LAMP for Linux, MAMP for Macs, and XAMPP which has a package for each of these and a few other flavors of OS.

As for sharing a site hosted on your own computer with others - if you've ever had to port forward through your router to get a Minecraft server to play online with your friends, the concept is extremely similar.

Anyway, this is just my personal preference as an alternative to free hosting.

It will be a long time before I'm ready to make the jump to paid hosting and I will be extremely selective about the process, as many hosts that offer free top-level domains will forever be the owners of those domain names, not you, and you will never be able to get them to relinquish your name if you want to switch to another host. Be careful out there when you agree to fine print in terms of service.