In reply to:
1. Does Dreamhost have an FTP that is easy to understand. My old host was Angelfire and loved their upload feature, which was online through their site.
Yes. More to my liking, Dreamhost supports scp - secure copy, which is very efficient, fast and secure. Much easier for me to just type
scp -C foo.html myftpuser@mysite.com:mysite/
than spend ages clicking in some GUI. I have a connection to the Internet that carrier pigeons and pack mules could outrun.
In reply to:
2. Dreamhost sounds wonderful, but I am interested in what you think is wrong with it.
They don't send free pizza with announcements. Seriously, I've had one gripe with the service so far and that appears to have been a very unusual event. They went through some bad downtime back in March. Living up to my alias, I emailed support with some very harsh criticism. They took it in the midst of what must have been a very hectic time, apologized, and even offered me a full refund even though I was well outside the time period for such a refund. My annual renewal will be coming up soon. I continually research possible hosts, but I will be renewing with Dreamhost. I'm grouchy and picky.
In reply to:
3. Alright, I have only had a site for a little over a year, so I am very new to this. Is Dreamhost easy for a beginner?
Don't know. Their "Web Admin Panel" was a very new thing for me. Since I didn't know what to do, I just clicked on lots of the handy help links sprinkled around the thing and made use of the "Top questions" links that appear with each "tab". It's like having a FAQ customized to suit every action on the panel.
What I really appreciate about Dreamhost are:
(1) Much of what I need to do to maintain my sites, I can do from a term. I can work very efficiently remotely because the Dreamhost Admins have a real clue; they don't block secure access.
(2) They don't hide from their mistakes. If they mess up, they tell you about it and they fix it. This is not very common among hosters, sadly. It's one of the reasons my emailed complaint in March was so harsh, I was accustomed to "tech support" that stalls or shifts blame until cornered. Dreamhost doesn't do that, so I had to eat crow. (That doesn't mean I won't fire up the flamethrower again if they start acting like so many of the others).
(3) They use Linux and know how to use it. That makes it robust and flexible. My sites do not get knocked off the Internet every time some dysfunctional juvenile spreads another piece of malware for MS. I'd rather pay my hosting fees to people who get the job done rather than license fees and license audits and virus recovery costs and forced upgrades associated with software that routinely breaks.
(4) They are not afraid to change things to remain competitive. I have received upgrades to my hosting plan without request. Sometimes I think they've set up a web-cam over my shoulder and take notice of when I start thinking about trying out some other hoster's deals.
(5) When you ask Dreamhost support a question, you get an answer. Ponder that one for a minute.
I won't name names, but I have been hosted by some very well-known businesses where "tech support" routinely meant a boiler-plate response, heavily sprinkled with links to more boiler-plate which usually had nothing to do with my question. Problems that didn't fit their automated replies simply went unsolved.
Dreamhost has a very extensive "Knowledge Base" that covers an incredible number of questions, but they will answer support email.
I'm still hoping for the free pizzas with announcements, though.