So I was thinking i wanted to dick around with making a website. It would basically just be a personal website.
Know any good places to register a domain? Anything I should look out for? Anyway to get a neat custom email with the domain?
Dreamhost if you want everything to be easy, GoDaddy if you want +5 to great savings and a lot of helpful customer service spam spam spam
Also, I use host gator. Seems pretty good and straight forward. They have ads on their cpanel though, but its probably the same with most cheaper companies. I was required to do research on 10 different hosting services and Host Gator was at the top for me. Blue Host is also probably a good bet.
Protip: Buy web space on one site and buy the domain on a another. That way they can't hold your domain hostage if you want to switch services.
Quote from: RomanClock;1952844Protip: Buy web space on one site and buy the domain on a another. That way they can't hold your domain hostage if you want to switch services.
Yeah :( it was like $10 to move my domain when I moved from... whatever I tried before Dreamhost.
For domain registration, I recommend Namecheap or Dynadot, whichever's cheaper.
For hosting, all the recommendations in this thread look pretty good so far, except GoDaddy, which has a reputation for screwing people over. You might also consider A Small Orange (http://asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/). Their cheapest plan isn't ~unlimited~, but then neither are any of the "unlimited" hosts, really. Actually, assuming your site isn't going to draw massive traffic or do anything really CPU-intensive (read the FAQ), consider researching free web hosts such as x10hosting (http://x10hosting.com/) that offer plans comparable to some paid plans. x10 will work with your custom domain name.
Practically every web host will let you have at least one e-mail address on your domain on even the cheapest plan.
Going along with VCR mentioning GoDaddy screws people over (which, wow, didn't know but it's not surprising. I'm actually Jewish and I'm ashamed of how badly they're trying to shove useless crap down my throat), but DreamHost has (or used to?) a problem where once in a while your stuff will spontaneously vanish. Apparently this affects every one in a zillion people but I was one of them. I'd genuinely not worry about it if I was you but I'm not going back
AND SPEAKING OF FREE HOSTS, the one I used was DotEasy. Finally remembered! It was a long time ago, they might've changed, but they were actually really nice. You buy the domain then get their free hosting, and they only have links or ads on their modules you don't have to use (like an E-mail sign-in on your site--which you won't need if you use POP anyway--or their Wiki knockoff)