I need your help in a creative process. I’m tired of all these remarks and emails in which people are telling me that “ISP in a box” is not a proper description. An ISP provides people the actual internet access which I don’t. I just explain people how to build a proper web and mailserver on which they can multiple domains for friends or family. Although I’ve got some small design/hosting firms which use this setup as well for hosting their client sites and email addresses.

I knew when I started this that the title wasn’t 100% correct, but when I started this documentation process Ward Mundy gained a lot of attention with his NerdVittles.com blog where he launched his ISP in a box series which basically did the same as I’m doing but in a more simplistic manner. Without giving it too much thought I copied the title for my own use.

I’ve decided to change the naming of the documentation series. Even though this might cause some confusion and it will change some of the URL’s in the future I’m willing to give it a try. But I’ve been struggling for some time to come up with a better title that covers all the topics discussed and properly addresses the audience. The series is targeted at Mac users, even though I’ve found out that people using a different OS have found some of the documents very useful it is still only targeted at Mac users.

So a title like “webhosting in a box” just doesn’t do it for me. It’s missing the mailserver component and does not define the target audience. I kind of like “DIY hosting” as it is a Do It Yourself exercise but it misses the Mac audience. Calling it “DIY hosting on a Mac” just doesn’t have that same ring to it.

Or should I just drop the effort to find a name/title that covers what I’m doing and use a name that doesn’t mean a thing and is possibly hard to pronounce but has a great logo to go with it ;-)