Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: JamesV6CDX on 16 October 2008, 16:21:54
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I want to create a small website to have my own presence on the web, and as part of that I also want a very small forum where people can log in and leave feedback / comments.
Any ideas on a good hosting solution, and a (pref. free) forum package to suit?
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For a simple FREE web presence have a look at freewebs.com
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Just to add my bit mate.... No idea..... Sorry about that! My wife pays £5 a month for a forum. Will ask her when she comes in. :y
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I use to host my own, Website/forum and irc chatroom.
as long as you have enough bandwidth it's easy
as things stand at the moment i have 2 small severs sitting redundant
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There may be a free hosting soluyion (often with ISP) but these commonly have their name in your URL. e.g bandit127.ntlworld.com
I use Godaddy. They're cheap and have good storage and bandwidth allowances. It's not the best site, but mine is here for an example: http://www.bandit127.com
For forum software, why not YABB? It's free and it runs OOF.
http://www.yabbforum.com/
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Ask Jaime :y
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Very good people are smfnew.com
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I cant comment on the location or ISP but as a personel preference you can write simple codes with vcbscript and manage every kind of forum needs..(yep..may not be very prof looking but not necessary I think)..
And also you will need a small database manager if you decide to go deeper..
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mine was running MS server 2003 as the OS, using IIS, phpbb for the forum and mysql for the databases
The irc was using anope for the chat services and unrealIRDC for the chat room.
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Very good people are smfnew.com
O by the way my son uses this for his forum you can see it here (if thats ok) ssclan.smfnew.com
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Before picking a host, you need to decide on technologies used - for example, if you're using ASP or .NET, it makes sense to host on Windows (the unix type asp solutions are not the most compatible, and .NET isn't yet available (stable) for Unix). If you're going down the php/MySQL route, obviously a Unix or Linux solution is the way to go.
I run both Windows and Unix webservers, and the technologies they run all have pros and cons.
Decide the technology, then pick the host.
As to forum software, I like access to source code. Whilst I really do like YaBB, its architecture really sucks, and the next major version (not the interim one due now), which is supposed to reengineer this massive issue, has no release date. Not even a timeline. May appear next year, may be 5 years, who knows. Based on that, I cannot recommend it.
I quite like the old forums.net software, which has morphed into Community Server, but with each new release, it seems to be going away from its original market of free, open, forum, and getting more and more commercial with tighter restrictions on what you can and can't do.
I detest phpBB with a passion, more bugs that a Libyian coffe shop, and more holes than a box of Polos. Too common, too sloppy, too much hassle.
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But whatever you choose, ensure you use your own domain. Not doing so will screw you over big time.
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But whatever you choose, ensure you use your own domain. Not doing so will screw you over big time.
Couldn't agree more there. I have my own domain for my IT business and because I spend all my time working on it I run my website in Lotus Domino.....sadly it is NOT something for beginners(although you can download the software for free on unlimited evaluation ) but if you know what you are doing you can get some seriously featured websites on it including forums etc.
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But whatever you choose, ensure you use your own domain. Not doing so will screw you over big time.
Sorry TB. not clear on that. Do you mean register your own domain name, like theboy.com would be registered to you?
Or do you mean host theboy.com from your own server (which would be home based for most of us).