Depends on what exactly your looking for! You can simply take three images and put them together to creat something unique or have a web designer give you a hand.
I'm currently using Vista, I always hear bad things about Vista although I've not had one problem within the year of having it. Does anyone else have problems or opinions?
I always like to ask this question because I always get so many different ones. Will adding your site to a bunch of directories hurt or help you? I believe they help but I've gotten so many pros and cons that I don't actually know.
I used to be a Google person but the more I use Bing the more I like it. I'm kinda on the fence to be honest, Bing has some areas that drive me nuts but in some aspects its better then Google
I own a info name they aren't bad and you can currently register them for .89 at godaddy. They are generally used for informative sites. Otherwise come up with a name for your work such as work created by blahblah and create your domain name around that.
I would personally go with Godaddy.com for domains, they are pretty benefical and will be around for a long time. I currently have about 50 registered with them.
I've used a few that are good. www.000webhost.com and x10hosting.com (is under revamp so kinda messed up atm). 000webhost.com is a nice free host and you can upgrade at any time and they are fairly cheap.
Ranking is strictly about traffic and content. As long as your not deleting all your content your ranking should not be affected one bit. However if you redesign and the viewers dislike it and stop coming to the site then it will effect it in that sense.