I'm looking into getting myself a real grown-up website (and I know that I'd need to purchase the domain as well), used exclusively for personal use, and I'm curious as to what providers are good for this sort of thing.

I'm not too savvy on the terminology, nor do I really know if its a fantastic deal or not... So if anyone can break it down into "simple" terms, it would be much appreciated.

I've looked into GoDaddy and the Canadian "Blacksun", but I'm so totally lost when I'm reading into it.

if you're only using it for personal stuff then godaddy's lowest plan will give you more space and bw than you'll ever need (unless your idea of personal use is sharing huge files openly). plus you know you're not going to get fucked with them. at $4.08/mo you're not going to do much better. if you're looking for massive amounts of traffic go with dreamhost.com but i wouldn't think you'd need to.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I use Tripod for my site. If you're willing to deal with ads you can use their resources to build your site for free but have a domain name of your username.tripod.com; if you pay their $8/mo you get a site free of ads as well as your own domain name.

I use bluehost.com

I recommend dreamhost.com.

For domains I heartily recommend www.namecheap.com, very reliable, reasonably cheap, payments accepted by PayPal, free whois protection (so nobody can look up your details) and full DNS access allowing you to push the domain to any host at any time.

For hosting you can't get much better than www.110mb.com - free hosting (no adverts at all) with 5 gig disk space, 300 gig/month bandwidth, DNS support (1 domain max), FTP (quick and easy batch uploading method) and an easy online interface.

The actual bandwidth speed is incredibly high as well, I've gotten better speeds here than with my paid host. The only downside to 110mb is the 5 gig disk space limit- if you want to host a ton of video files or ridiculously large photo galleries or something like that you'll have to get paid hosting (for which I recommend netfirms.com). 5 gig is a lot though.

pm me if you want any help, and if you're wanting to run a webcomic I can set you up with a bunch of easily editable html templates to save you writing code.

I recommend filing cabinet to hold all your personal documents.

I recommend www.surpasshosting.com. You can get a domain with them as well. Loads of space, competitive price.. etc etc etc.