Hi to Stefan Mischook and the Community

[DirkTheWebPhoenix]

Hello present-day gurus and fellow starters.

This is my first post on killersites.com. I am trying this place because Stefan Mischook is my favorite youtuber on webdev/webdesign issues (and he also in other ways feels like a kind of soulmate). I know this forum's site went through a pause and might not be back up in terms of activity that could help me, but I'm giving it a try.

I am an ancient web developer from the nineties, now trying to resurrect that career and an income. After familiarizing myself with modern HTML5, CSS3, and responsive design (and getting a little back into JS and PHP (the latter I played with a few years ago)), I have picked WordPress as a next-step specialization to pursue in order to allow me to work as a self-employed lone wolf when I may turn out too old to be hired. I just finished a course in which I built a demo WP site as a course project.

What I could really use right now would be a suitable website builder community to discuss design and programming issues as they come up.

I could also use some tips on (ideally free) hosting services where I could post my current WordPress demo site to show it to potential employers or clients (while I am still strapped for money). Obviously, my demo site has almost no traffic and a storage size under 200 MB; but I have run into a big hurdle with hosting services. I don't necessarily trust all paid-only ones just because they collect money, and those two free accounts that I already tried have had too many issues: snail speed, blocked PHP "mail ()" disabling the Contact Form, blocked *.zip files (stopping the Duplicator plugin, but luckily I could PHP-hack my way around this), blocked UpdraftPlus plugin... These hosting servers were warmly recommended by online articles that were either too superficial or too burdened with a hidden conflict of interests (earning commissions or fees from the hosting services they recommend). I will also need a place where to stage future projects while I build them, btw. Any suggestions welcome.

Digging through posts in this community, I came across a suggestion of xyz, but the post was from 2010 (https://www.killersites.com/community/index.php?/topic/3973-free-hosting/&do=findComment&comment=20670).

Thanks for any advice or tip on anything I mentioned. :-)

:-) Dirk