First recommendation: upgrade to .9.1! Your blog is extremely slow loading. .9.1 won't help that, but it will cut your server load considerably because of how it handles requests from spammers in your antispam table. Old way: the spammer got the whole page before being rejected as a logged hit. New way: spammers get rejected as soon as they ask for a page - they never get to the log_hit function.

Second recommendation: get rid of the banner ad underneath your posts. It took another 30 seconds for that to load AFTER all your content was displayed. Dunno if that's your server time or not, but it's a waste of your visitor's time.

Third recommendation: consider showing only 10 posts per page. Each post is a bit of a load on your server, so showing more posts means loading your server more. Along with that you might want to look into truncating the comments you've got on your right sidebar to, I dunno, 1000 characters? Actually a heck of a lot less than that, but the idea is to not have the entire comment displayed. That way your right sidebar won't be longer than your 10-post main section.

As to hosting, I use somebody. I'll find out who in a moment but they've been pretty derned good about dealing with issues and what nots. Oh yeah: real web hosts at http://www.realwebhost.net/index.php. Cute name eh? I almost didn't use them because of their lame name, but I picked them because they offered fantastico which offered b2evolution and their servers were rather close to where I lived. I didn't want stuff I uploaded to spend too long 'on the road' figuring the road gets old after a while ya know?

First I can tell you who NOT to use. Powweb and Vizaweb. Those two companies have caused me a lot of grief in the last two years. I'm on Dreamhost now, which is pretty good, but not great. They make it impossible to have two ftp users with access to the same directory, which I don't understand. Other than that, uptime and support has been great. I almost went with HostGator and I still think that's where I'll go if I have to change shared hosting providers again. I would check this site: [url=http://www.webhostingjury.com/]webhostingjury.com[/url]. Do your homework, read reviews, go read the support forums for the hostees and see if they're complaining about anything. Call the support line just to see if you can talk to a real person (or send an email, or chat, whatever they use, test it). Any web host with PHP and MySQL will be able to run b2evolution, and almost any webhost has that. Linux with Apache is cheapest and best, IMO. $175 is way too much, I agree. For that much, you could have a dedicated server all to yourself. Dreamhost has been increasing their stats lately, so they're probably worth a look if the ftp thing doesn't bother you. If you do decide on Dreamhost, let me know so I can give you my id and get referral credit :D

Is it painless? Does it override your personal skins - meaning do I need to keep them somewhere else and reimport them?

What other concerns?

Moving is no big deal.

1. Get a backup of your database. This should come as a .sql or .gz file.

2. Get a backup of your files. The skins folder is all you'll need unless you've made some core hacks, but keep a backup of all files just in case.

3. Create a new database on the new host.

4. Import the .sql to the new database using something like phpMyAdmin, or whatever way your host provides to do that.

5. Install b2evolution. You could copy your files, but it's probably a good time to do a fresh install of the latest version. Give it the info for the new database. It will just be a normal upgrade install and all your blogs, users, posts, etc will still be there.

6. Once everything is working, copy in the skin folders and you'll have your old skins back.

7. If you did have any core hacks, you can reapply them one at a time.

Painless? The only thing in life that is truly painless is death, but upgrading doesn't really hurt so much as tickle till you almost wet yourself.

Save your skin for sure. In fact ideally you've got a backup of ALL your files so's just in case you need 'em you'll have 'em. Have you got other hacks and mods you might need to recreate? Your file backup will be your friend eh?

Also backup your database. Just in case you opt to revert for some reason, but I doubt you'll need to.

Oh and especially your media folder!

I upgrade by unzipping the package locally then editing my future conf/_config.php file to show my database connection info and base url and email id, then uploading the files to my server. b2evolution says to delete everything from the server prior to upgrading. I guess that's okay but in general it's not really required. It'll ensure that you don't bloat your server with files that are no longer required, so do as you see fit.

Once the upgrade is done, which is a matter of going to yourdomain.com/install and selecting "I'm upgrading my existing installation" you delete the install folder and check out your blog. It works? Good - now upload your skin and tell the back office to use it again. It works? Good! If not you know the only troubleshooting you have to do is in your skins/skin_name folder.

An hour TOPS unless you're on a really crappy dialup connection.

I ran my website through firefox... (which tells you what is loading) - it was unbelievable... Not only was the banner taking time, but I had a Yahoo news script that took longer. Also had images that were being called from other websites as well as a hangup from the Truth Laid Bear website that puts a ranking on your site (ugh)...

I did some tweaking, and I bet if you reloaded it now... it would be cut in 1/10... Not lightning... but much better. The longest wait is getting to the server (when it is not down?)

http://www.coldheartedtruth.com/

You might try my host. He has prime speed and personalized attention.

http://1plan.net/

I've been using hosting provider called Crazy Web Hosting.

They handle numbers of b2evo clients there with no problem including my blog.

www.crazywebhosting.com

gwlj

I recommend my host (don't we all)

http://hostony.com/hosting.html

I run the SPECIAL plan at the 48mo price, I haven't run anywhere close to my limit of bandwith or diskspace, plus they provide a free installation of b2evolution, which is how I heard of the software.

Over all a great place.

Be careful about commiting to a web host for 4 years. A lot can change in that amount of time. If you do, make sure you can get a refund if you need to leave them.

We use http://www.101sitehosting.com/Hosting_Plans/

They are pretty good. The $29.99 per year program has carried us along pretty nicely. [url=http://www.theChristianAlert.org]Our Site[/url] has been down maybe a total of 2 days this year. They had a hard drive crash. This is really not that bad for our money - considering our site is not mission critical. Their Tech Support seems to be always online, and when they are not, i usually get an email response w/ 24 hours.

I've done some comparison of the hosting providers on this trail and it looks like for anything over 100MB storage & 5GB transfer, one is likely to pay over $90.

http://www.101sitehosting.com has an 'advanced' plan for $108. I think they're worth it.

we're up for renewal so we'll probably renew w/ them based on the pricing and past experience.

Edgar,

There is a long list of hosts tested to be running b2evo just fine here: http://manual.b2evolution.net/Tested_hosts

(and check out those discount coupons: http://manual.b2evolution.net/HostIcan )

I've been for two years now with [url=http://www.anhosting.com]ANHosting[/url] . They have fantastico and installing from there is easy. You can then restore your database backup from your previous host provider. I've had only one problem once, somebody apparently had a killer application puting under heavy load the Mysql server (or so they said, I don't know). My blog slew down, but in a couple of hours the problem was solved. I don't know which version of B2evo they have available on fantastico. Since I have SSH access I do everything from my shell :-)

Customer service has been fast and right to the point, so far. Never been close to the I-don't-now-how-many-GB-limit on bandwidth, but I think it is something like 500 GB/month.

If you finnally decide for ANHosting, let me know to give you a referring link, and I get a commision on that.

Since yesterday i'm hosting at [url=http://b2evolution.net/news/2006/08/10/b2evo_hosting_at_hostican]HostICan[/url].

I can't say mutch about the hosting itself, but I do know that the techsupport is brilliant.

I was recovering from a major hack on my former server, so it had go very quick and dirty.
David Miller from HostICan spend almost 2 hours online with me to solve the different problems.

I'm definitvely in favor of them.
They are not the cheapest, but I know what it is allready to be hosted at the cheapeast.
So as soon as your site has high google rankings, consider this host.

Talk to [url=http://www.straussconsulting.com/portfolio/contact.html]StraussConsulting[/url] he hosts many many sites, these are just a few.. quite fast.
[url=http://www.apple-group.com]Apple-Group[/url]
[url=http://graphate.com]Graphate[/url]

Well, looks like it is my turn to look for a new host.... :~(

Any suggestions on a good host that will make the transfer as pain less as possible.

I have a backup from my 'former' provider, which might be all I can work from....

The Dreamer.

I've been with midphase.com for almost three years now, using b2evo from the beginning and virtually problem-free. When I switched to midphase, I had a backup of my DB from my previous host. I just installed the latest version of b2evo they had available with Fantastico and then restored the DB from the Mysql dump. In less than a day I was up and running.

Currently they have b2evo 1.8.6 available this way, however I run 1.9.1 installed manually (I have ssh access, which makes everything easier and more secure).