NameStand is an independent web hosting and custom web development company built around a simple idea: help people build something worthwhile on the Internet, give it a dependable place to live, and make the technology behind it understandable.
We’re also a local business, with a commitment to supporting the communities of Southeast Mississippi.
That philosophy has been remarkably durable. The technology has changed. The basic job has not.
Hosting and web development experience since 1999
The experience behind NameStand goes back to 1999, when website development and hosting began alongside work with an Internet service provider in Columbia, South Carolina.
This was an era when websites were simpler, connections were slower, and running Internet services usually meant understanding considerably more of the machinery underneath them.
It was also where the practical approach behind NameStand began: learn how the systems work, solve the problem in front of you, and don’t make things more complicated than they need to be.
A new name and a new home
In 2001, a move to Raleigh, North Carolina, marked the beginning of a new chapter.
The hosting and web-development work continued under a new identity, eventually becoming NameStand.
On November 18, 2002, NameStand.com was registered.
More than two decades later, that remains the name.
Southeast Mississippi
In January 2019, NameStand moved to Southeast Mississippi.
This is home now, and supporting the communities around us matters.
Local businesses, nonprofit organizations, clubs, associations, churches, community groups, and other organizations often need the same kinds of web services as much larger organizations, but without an IT department standing behind them.
Often, the person trying to get a website online is also the person answering the phone, helping customers or members, keeping the books, organizing events, and handling everything else that keeps a local business or organization moving.
That person shouldn’t also need to become a hosting administrator or web developer just to maintain a useful presence online.
NameStand can help with the technical side: hosting an existing site, building something new, improving or maintaining what is already there, managing domains and related services, or simply helping make sense of the pieces.
Our services aren’t limited to Southeast Mississippi, but this is home.
Supporting Southeast Mississippi isn’t a marketing category for us. It’s supporting the communities we call home.
More than a place to host a website
Hosting is only part of the job.
NameStand also provides custom web development for customers who need more than an account and a control panel.
That might mean building a new website, improving an existing one, developing functionality for a particular requirement, or helping turn an idea into something that actually works on the web.
The same philosophy applies to development as hosting: understand the problem first, choose technology appropriate to the job, and avoid unnecessary complexity.
A website should serve a purpose. The technology should support that purpose rather than become the purpose.
Decades of technical experience
The technical experience behind NameStand predates the commercial web.
It includes operating computer businesses beginning in 1982, followed by decades of work with computers, networking, systems administration, information security, web development, and hosting.
That background includes four years of penetration testing at U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense sites while working for Booz Allen Hamilton.
It also includes years of technical instruction, teaching certification courses covering:
- Microsoft MCSE
- Cisco CCNA
- Cisco CCNP Routing & Switching
- Cisco CCNP Security
- CompTIA A+
- CompTIA Network+
- CompTIA Linux+
The security background includes formerly holding the OSCP and more than 20 years as an active CISSP, now recognized with CISSP Emeritus status (CISSP #60945).
That’s a lot of acronyms.
The point isn’t the acronyms.
The point is that the person making technical decisions at NameStand has spent a long time learning what works, what breaks, why it breaks, and how to explain it to somebody else.
That experience also shapes how we talk about security.
No responsible provider can honestly promise that a system is impossible to compromise. Security is about understanding risk, reducing unnecessary exposure, maintaining systems responsibly, and making sensible technical decisions based on what a customer actually needs.
Sometimes that means keeping software patched and maintained.
Sometimes it means reducing unnecessary complexity.
Sometimes it means asking whether a public-facing application needs to be running there at all.
Technical experience should help us make better decisions, not produce scarier marketing copy.
Why “NameStand”?
A website needs somewhere to live.
The NameStand idea takes that literally: a stand is a place to establish a presence, set up shop, and put something in front of the world.
The stand in the NameStand logo is a visual expression of that idea. Look a little closer and the name itself does the same thing:
Name + Stand.
The concept is playful. The service behind it is not.
We Host Great Ideas
The tagline says quite a bit about how NameStand approaches both hosting and development.
The interesting part of a website isn’t the server account, control panel, DNS zone, SSL certificate, programming language, or content-management system. Those are tools and infrastructure. They exist to support whatever someone is trying to build.
A local business.
A nonprofit or community organization.
A club or association.
A personal project.
An idea that started with, “I wonder if I could…”
NameStand can help build it and give it a dependable place on the web.
Practical technology for real people
NameStand is intentionally independent.
That means the goal isn’t to bury customers under product tiers, invented urgency, vague promises, or technology jargon.
Instead, the priorities are straightforward:
- Provide dependable hosting.
- Build useful websites and web applications.
- Support businesses and organizations in our local communities.
- Choose technology appropriate to the project.
- Explain services clearly.
- Be honest about limits.
- Help when something goes wrong.
- Keep routine administration manageable.
- Understand the technology well enough to solve real problems.
Technical competence should make things simpler for the customer, not make the sales copy more complicated.
Still standing
The Internet of 2002 looks very different from the Internet today.
Websites have become applications. Security requirements have changed. Mobile devices became primary computers. Encrypted connections became routine. Infrastructure became faster, larger, and increasingly automated.
Through all of that, the fundamental purpose of the web has stayed surprisingly consistent.
Someone has something worth building and putting online.
We can help build it, host it, and give it a place to stand.