When I was first learning ASP, one of the things that frustrated me most was that there were no live Internet sites where I could go to create and test ASP pages. I was using Personal Web Server, but I wanted to try using IIS, and actually create an ASP site that people could visit. I looked at GeoCity like sites, but could not find any free ASP community sites. There are a plethora of free sites on the Web that let you create your own home pages. Unfortunately, many of these sites - such as GeoCities, Tripod, Xoom, etc. - support only static HTML pages. That is, you cannot create ASP pages on these sites! Of course you can create ASP pages on your own machine. If you have Windows NT Server or Windows 2000 you will most likely already have IIS installed, from which you can create your own ASP pages. Even if you have Windows 9X or Windows NT Workstation you can use Microsoft's Personal Web Server (PWS) to create and run ASP pages from your local machine. (For more information on installing Personal Web Server be sure to read this FAQ.) While installing either IIS or PWS on your Web server will let you create and run ASP pages locally, it would be cool to create ASP pages on an Internet-accessible site, so that you can create a real ASP site and have from all over the world be able to visit it. Fortunately there are a few sites that offer free ASP homepages, akin to the GeoCities and Tripods of the Internet. The best free ASP hosting site, in my opinion, is Brinkster. Brinkster offers a free General Membership. Once you've signed up for this membership you get 30 MB of disk space, ASP support, no popup ads or any other sort of annoying advertising push, and, best of all, you can use Access databases! Brinkster also offers an ASP.NET Testing Membership, for those interested in playing around with ASP.NET. (To learn more about ASP.NET be sure to read the 4Guys ASP.NET Article Index!) For $10.95 a month you can upgrade your Brinkster account and receive 60 MB of total disk space, 25 POP3 email addresses, your own domain name, and access to a number of popular ASP third-party components. There are other free ASP Web hosting sites other than Brinkster. For example, WebHostMe.com offers ASP support with Access database support, but each page on your WebHostMe personal Web site automatically adds an advertisement. DomainDLX offers a similar deal - free ASP hosting, but required ads. For a complete listing of free ASP Web hosting companies be sure to check out the ASP Free Hosting Index. These free Web hosting sites don't always offer the best service or features, though. After all, you are getting what you pay for! Alert 4Guys reader Bas D. shares his experiences with Brinkster: "I have had an account with Brinkster for a few months now, and I do admit it's VERY nice to have a site where you can play www15.brinkster.com/worldfair . One thing you ought to have mentioned however, is that connect times for non-premium members can be HORRIBLY slow at times. I mean, slower than the slowest thing imaginable, and then some. Other than that, you're right, it's hard finding a free web host that offers that much disk space, no ads, easy file management, etc."


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