With a Virtual Private Server (VPS) you are your own "master and commander." You're root.
I use linode for my VPS. slicehost is similar. They both offer decent publicly available documentation/tutorials, so if you can't find an answer or path in "your" providers docs, you can hop over to the other guy's.
With shared hosting you're a user on their (possibly virtual) server, with permission to do things. You're not root.
pair.com offers shared hosting, I used to use them, very stable and sober company.
I know a lot of people use http://www.bluehost.com/. I don't know if they're more VPS or more shared host. I know a lot of people use it to host actual businesses; a lot of those sites use Wordpress and various shopping cart and payment solutions.
I use linode for my VPS. slicehost is similar. They both offer decent publicly available documentation/tutorials, so if you can't find an answer or path in "your" providers docs, you can hop over to the other guy's.
With shared hosting you're a user on their (possibly virtual) server, with permission to do things. You're not root.
pair.com offers shared hosting, I used to use them, very stable and sober company.
http://www.lowendbox.com/ might lead you to a low cost provider, I haven't looked down that path.
I know a lot of people use http://www.bluehost.com/. I don't know if they're more VPS or more shared host. I know a lot of people use it to host actual businesses; a lot of those sites use Wordpress and various shopping cart and payment solutions.