If you are thinking of starting to get familiar with website design, blogging or internet development then without a hosting platform you cannot start. When I first started using the Internet the prices in Ireland were very high so I had to look offshore to the US mainly. Dreamhost were one of the best prices with as very good reputation and I have been using them now for over 4 years without any problems.
Since then Irish companies like Blacknight have become very competitive but I still use Dreamhost for sites that I want to target US customers and for quick sites and for experiments as I like their control panel and I can have a domain and hosting usually up an running in a morning.
I use DreamHost for a lot of my sites. They have a great support service, excellent pricing and a real easy control panel. They offer one click install for a large array of blogging platforms, applications and tools. The link above is an affiliate link so if you click on it I do make some money but I would not recommend them if I was not a fan. I have over 30 sites with them and so far have not had any problems other than ones caused by myself.
) and it is chance to have a road trip with him. We are bringing two Twitter people with us that I have never met so I have the Mace in the glove compartment !!