afox
24 Oct 2007, 09:05 AM
I am a beginner web designer. I maintain the website for a small church.
www.spicelandfriends.org
We use Forministry.com (a free website provider for church websites) to develop the site with. Forministry's web design tool works great and is simple for beginners like me. Recently we decided to add sermon audio to the site, but Forministry doesn't allow file storage. Some of the files at 192 kbps are 85-90 MB in size. So, I purchased the entry-level account (they call it their 'Premium' account) on MediaMax. I looked at several other similar providers, but I liked how I can link directly to the file. It seemed like some of the other sites either didn't allow file sharing or required an extra step or two on the part of the user. My goal is to make the process as simple as possible when people want to listen to audio.
http://www.spicelandfriends.org/Sermons.dsp
The problem is that twice in the last 4-5 days our files are unavailable; nothing happens when you click on the 'Hi-Fi' or 'Lo-Fi' link. (I can still log in to our account and can see and access the files that way, but no one using our website can access them.) The first time I emailed their tech support (couldn't find a phone number anywhere); the problem was resolved about 24 hours later although I never got an email saying they had done anything. Now this morning it's the same thing again; nothing happens when I click on the links. The files could become available again at any time, but I want to be able to trust that they're always available. I'm confident it's not how I've uploaded and set everything up since it worked perfectly for the first month or so that I've been doing it. I've done a little more research online about MediaMax and see in various places it gets mixed reviews for file availability and customer service.
So if this keeps happening, can anyone recommend a superior file hosting/sharing provider? If I picked a bad provider once, I don't want to pick a bad one again! If I were just using MediaMax's 'Free' account, then I guess I would understand if the files aren't always available, but since I'm paying for the service, I expect better. Also, if anyone has an idea for a different way of handling the audio than what I'm doing, please let me know.
Thank you.
www.spicelandfriends.org
We use Forministry.com (a free website provider for church websites) to develop the site with. Forministry's web design tool works great and is simple for beginners like me. Recently we decided to add sermon audio to the site, but Forministry doesn't allow file storage. Some of the files at 192 kbps are 85-90 MB in size. So, I purchased the entry-level account (they call it their 'Premium' account) on MediaMax. I looked at several other similar providers, but I liked how I can link directly to the file. It seemed like some of the other sites either didn't allow file sharing or required an extra step or two on the part of the user. My goal is to make the process as simple as possible when people want to listen to audio.
http://www.spicelandfriends.org/Sermons.dsp
The problem is that twice in the last 4-5 days our files are unavailable; nothing happens when you click on the 'Hi-Fi' or 'Lo-Fi' link. (I can still log in to our account and can see and access the files that way, but no one using our website can access them.) The first time I emailed their tech support (couldn't find a phone number anywhere); the problem was resolved about 24 hours later although I never got an email saying they had done anything. Now this morning it's the same thing again; nothing happens when I click on the links. The files could become available again at any time, but I want to be able to trust that they're always available. I'm confident it's not how I've uploaded and set everything up since it worked perfectly for the first month or so that I've been doing it. I've done a little more research online about MediaMax and see in various places it gets mixed reviews for file availability and customer service.
So if this keeps happening, can anyone recommend a superior file hosting/sharing provider? If I picked a bad provider once, I don't want to pick a bad one again! If I were just using MediaMax's 'Free' account, then I guess I would understand if the files aren't always available, but since I'm paying for the service, I expect better. Also, if anyone has an idea for a different way of handling the audio than what I'm doing, please let me know.
Thank you.