Like many students, I got given free hosting by Microsoft under their ‘dreamspark’ initiative. It’s a great idea, but the service is unfortunately so crippled that all it did was encourage me to go and hire a linux server and a domain! :s.

It will only execute ASP.NET code from the main folder, getting a CMS to run on it (ASP.NET CMSs are already fairly rare and delicate) is next to impossible and database configuration & any statistics monitoring is impossible.

I will continue to use it to test out ASP.NET development and Silverlight, but if you actually want anyone but you to see any of it then you’re almost certainly going to have to shell out for some professional hosting. Anyhow, this is the road that has led me to WordPress, and glad I am of that too! In just a few short hours this is all up and running and ready to splurge my thoughts out upon the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the free hosting and the idea is great; Microsoft’s recent attention to students is fantastic however in this particular case, don’t expect to actually use the page for anything but testing!

Chris