How difficult is it to host your website(s) from your own PC?

The only disadvantages I can see whn doing that is electricity and possible downtime. To solve the downtime you can subcribe to some free monitoring services on the web. Electricity is not that big of an issue, if teh monitor is on standby.

I can also see an issue with an IP. Obtaining static IP can be costly.

Any of you guys ever attempted to host your site? What are your experiences?

The main concern I have personally had with this idea is I don't think most Australian providers are happy with you personally hosting commercial websites. I'm not sure about this though.

Otherwise I think it would be quite interesting - another thought possibly worth looking into is setting up your own control panel for the usual associated features.

Still I haven't but I'd like to try when I get time.

Some Tips for Hosting your website from your own PC.

1. Make sure you have cable modem, DSL or another high-speed connection. A dialup telephone modem is NOT good enough.

2. Get a DNS hostname for your home Internet connection.

3. Get a static local IP address for your computer within your home network.

4. Configure your router to correctly forward connections on port 80 (the HTTP port) to your web server. Even if you think you don't have a router, you probably do— many popular cable and DSL modems include wifi or wired Ethernet jacks for multiple computers, which means they contain a built-in router. If your ISP blocks port 80, choose an alternative port number and forward that (or get a better ISP that welcomes websites at home, like Speakeasy.Net).

5. Configure Windows Firewall to allow your web server to communicate on port 80.

6. Get Apache, a free, high-quality web server program. If you have Windows XP Professional, you also have the option of Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), which comes standard with Windows XP Professional. But that option only allows you to host one site. I recommend Apache.

7. Test your web server from your own computer.

8. Replace the default home page with your own web page. Now the site is your own!

9. Test your web server from a computer that is NOT on your home network to make sure you followed all of the steps correctly.