Let's say I want my own domain name and web hosting...

[Balog]

Nothing fancy, just want to switch ye olde blogge over to WordPress and have a place to store things online. Is there a difference between buying hosting, and buying a domain name? If it's important to me to have the name I want should I purchase the name and then seek hosting for it, or is that even how it works? Any good places to review hosting sites? I found http://webhostinggeeks.com/ but I don't know if they are actual reviews or "Good reviews are $x."

[Monkeyleg]

You're generally better off buying the domain name yourself at a company separate from your hosting company. If things should get ugly, you don't have to worry about losing your domain. There's a ton of companies who can register your domain for you. Aplus.net comes to mind.

As for hosting, you can spend a couple of bucks a month or a couple of thousand, depending upon what you want to do. I've mentioned Hosting.com before, only because I think I've finally found a good reliable company after years and years of being frustrated.

[Balog]

Is it a pretty static price to buy a domain name, or does it vary by company? If I buy it once is it mine forever, or is it a yearly renewal thing?

And like I said, it's just a personal space for a wordpress blog, and perhaps some light storage. Not expecting much traffic.

[lee n. field]

If I buy it once is it mine forever, or is it a yearly renewal thing?

It's a periodic renewal.

The whois record will show the expiration date.  Ex.:

Domain Name.......... microsoft.com
  Creation Date........ 1991-05-02
  Registration Date.... 2009-10-06
  Expiry Date.......... 2015-05-04
  Organisation Name.... Microsoft Corporation
  Organisation Address. One Microsoft Way
  Organisation Address.
  Organisation Address. Redmond
  Organisation Address. 98052
  Organisation Address. WA
  Organisation Address. UNITED STATES
 Admin Name........... Administrator .
  Admin Address........ One Microsoft Way
  Admin Address........
  Admin Address........ Redmond
  Admin Address........ 98052
  Admin Address........ WA
  Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
  Admin Email.......... domains@microsoft.com
  Admin Phone.......... +1.4258828080
  Admin Fax............

Tech Name............ Hostmaster .
  Tech Address......... One Microsoft Way
  Tech Address.........
  Tech Address......... Redmond
  Tech Address......... 98052
  Tech Address......... WA
  Tech Address......... UNITED STATES
  Tech Email........... msnhst@microsoft.com
  Tech Phone........... +1.4258828080
  Tech Fax.............
  Name Server.......... NS2.MSFT.NET
  Name Server.......... NS4.MSFT.NET
  Name Server.......... NS1.MSFT.NET
  Name Server.......... NS5.MSFT.NET
  Name Server.......... NS3.MSFT.NET

[Monkeyleg]

The price can vary from registrar to registrar, but not by much. If you pay for the domain name for, say, three years, you'll pay less than for one year.

If you should make a mistake and not renew on time, you can wind up with someone else snatching your domain name and trying to sell it back to you at an inflated price.

[Gowen]

It requires renewal every year, you might get a 2+ year auto renewal with certain web hosts.  I'm having a devil of a time with Microsoft Office Live right now.  They went from a free renewal/hosting to a paid.  Lets just say that I almost lost my .com and I have to wait till Sept to get my .net back.  The company hosting for microsoft is in Melbourne AU.  It's cost me $40 in phone calls to Australia, $50 or more to rebuild my web page, $180/2yr hosting with Godaddy, and countless hours of aggravation.  PICK A GOOD HOST COMPANY!!!  One that will be around 10 years from now.  I've been dealing with this problem since June and my site is still not back up.  

My biggest mistake, other than going with microsoft, is I put the Admin email address on site, meaning tom@mywebsite.net.  When microsoft tore down my website, I lost my email accounts.  I could not change host companies because I could not receive any Admin emails.  Keep your Admin email off site, your home ISP email address would be great.  Melbourne IT then messed up my Admin email after I changed it, so that took a week to straighten out.  I have to say that the CSRs at Godaddy have been outstanding.  They have tried to help in every way they could.  I will not blame Microsoft totally, but they sure aggravated the problem.

[CNYCacher]

It requires renewal every year, you might get a 2+ year auto renewal with certain web hosts.  I'm having a devil of a time with Microsoft Office Live right now.  They went from a free renewal/hosting to a paid.  Lets just say that I almost lost my .com and I have to wait till Sept to get my .net back.  The company hosting for microsoft is in Melbourne AU.  It's cost me $40 in phone calls to Australia, $50 or more to rebuild my web page, $180/2yr hosting with Godaddy, and countless hours of aggravation.  PICK A GOOD HOST COMPANY!!!  One that will be around 10 years from now.  I've been dealing with this problem since June and my site is still not back up.  

My biggest mistake, other than going with microsoft, is I put the Admin email address on site, meaning tom@mywebsite.net.  When microsoft tore down my website, I lost my email accounts.  I could not change host companies because I could not receive any Admin emails.  Keep your Admin email off site, your home ISP email address would be great.  Melbourne IT then messed up my Admin email after I changed it, so that took a week to straighten out.  I have to say that the CSRs at Godaddy have been outstanding.  They have tried to help in every way they could.  I will not blame Microsoft totally, but they sure aggravated the problem.

I'll blame Microsoft totally.

When I transferred one of my client's sites off of Office Live onto my own server (ahem), we attempted to transfer the domain registration to my client's GoDaddy account.  Microsuck would not release the domain unless we canceled the hosting account with them.  This meant that the website was down until the internet at large caught up with the new DNS listings, which took a few days.

[Monkeyleg]

I got caught in a situation three or four years ago where my hosting company somehow managed to switch ownership of one of my domains from me to them. I was doing freelance search engine optimization work for them, and we were having a dispute about how much I was being paid.

When I realized they'd taken control of my domain name, I had to play along as though I was bowing and scraping to them regarding pay. Once they were convinced I was their slave for life, I somehow managed to get the domain put back solely in my name. Once that was done, I ran as fast as I could.

[never_retreat]

I have good luck with 1and1.com
They will auto renew your domains also so you "really" don't have to worry about it.
Cheep packages for shared hosting and you can have as many domain names as you want.

[RevDisk]

Nothing fancy, just want to switch ye olde blogge over to WordPress and have a place to store things online. Is there a difference between buying hosting, and buying a domain name? If it's important to me to have the name I want should I purchase the name and then seek hosting for it, or is that even how it works? Any good places to review hosting sites? I found http://webhostinggeeks.com/ but I don't know if they are actual reviews or "Good reviews are $x."

Compartmentalization is your friend.  Get your domain services from one place (go with any place that's been around for a decade), your hosting from another (tons of places), and your primary email relating to the domain from another (gmail works).

I take it one step further and have my content mirrored across two hosting companies, but I doubt you have that much of a need for redundancy.