I have longed, as many of you may know by now, to start a website dedicated to the queen of passion: Danielle Steel. Indeed, the site has not come to fruition, as the economic circumstances surrounding my life are tenuous at best, but I remain dedicated. Those of you who have heeded my advice and embarked on the heartache and triumph of PASSION’S PROMISE are to be applauded. Read on and then read the 1989 classic, DADDY. I know I could be guiding you all via my own website, but I’m broke.

A host — a good host — is the main ingredient when it comes to getting a website going. Well, that and a catchy name. I have decided www.steelladyofletters.com is not catchy enough to make the finicky rounds on Digg and the like. What can I say; I’m a social media junkie. I was playing with www.steelshavings.com. I think it is manly enough to give my fandom some semblance of credibility.

Now, recall my real estate analogy with respects to having my potential website carried by a reliable host service. My San Simeon is still nothing more than a set of blueprints, but with the right host, I can start to lay all the necessary foundations. The right host, my loyal few, is a reputable DNS provider. Stay with me and don’t panic.

A DNS provider worth its salt will always make sure people can find your site, regardless of the ever-shifting IP naming conventions. Think of them, to use another analogy, as a luxury liner, getting people to your site no matter the conditions at sea. You want a host that has the reach to make sure fans across the world always find www.steelshavings.com, no matter where they’re connecting from.

If this entire DNS thing is still a bit over your head, let me dredge up my previous analogy (you can tell I love analogies). A DNS provider is something like a fractional-reserve bank for your domain name. Just like a bank lends money not based on the actual amount of cash in the vault, but on the collateral it recall, so too a powerful DNS provider can make sure you site is always found, regardless of whether or not an IP address goes down. So if my IP address is ever changed or deleted, a good host can always deliver fans to my site. All that’s left to do is squirrel away my pennies for the big plunge.