shared hosting
thomasswift: I'd also give a recommendation for a vps. You get to learn some system stuff, but control over your database great. I used to be on mediatemple running a WP Blog and sometimes thing would bork the database, and it be days before they could restart it. With a VPS, I can make it happen instantly.the setup is usually easy, plenty of resources online to get you going and if you don't want to play the command-line game to get certain things on there you can usually pay the hosting company themselves to 'consult' for your vps.I'd also put my hat in for slicehost. the support is great, imo.also: buy a vps with the most memory you can afford, you can run a bunch of sites on a 256 slice, but a few rails apps can really chew that up. (don't know if you do rails or not)