Anyone want to help a Novice?

[N_Jay]

I could use some pointers from someone with experience in setting up a web site with a discussion board system.

Help

[krygny]

A very ambitious undertaking, if you don't even know where to start. But it is possible.

The Hard Way
I've done some web development but I've done it all from scratch, mostly for small intranet applications. Typing HTML, Java Scripts, and Perl CGI scripts with only a text editor. If that's what you want to do, you'll have to learn those languages. There is an "alphabet soup" of web standards and languages like XML, PHP, CSS, ASP, etc., but you MUST become fairly proficient with HTML. Perl is a great programming language for a beginner to learn and it's good for server side programming. Java script is also easy and very good for client side (browser) functions. Here is a site with some good tutorials on web development: http://www.w3schools.com/ (No relation to the W3C standards body.)

Easier
There are loads of software tools out there that allow you to build web applications using languages from HTML to Java where you (supposedly) don't need to be a programmer. The more powerful they are, the more expensive they are. I can't advise you on them because I've never really used them. I was disappointed with some early HTML editors and I never went back.

Easiest
Then there's finding a hosting service. This is something you may want to do first, because most of them offer all kinds of services. They sometimes have browser based WYSIWYG tools that allow you to build and maintain your web site. Or, they'll do it for you.

It all depends on whether you're looking for a learning experience and a challenge or if you just want to get the site up and running ASAP.

[bkwon]

Thanks to a large internet community of people who spend so much of their time creating wonderful stuff free for others to use. It's amazing what a website content management system (CMS) can do for you without having to write one line of code. You do need to have a webserver or a hosting service that would allow you to run the CMS. Installing and running a webserver does take some effort but isn't all that difficult ... and I'm not exactly a "techie".

There are two very popular CMS that I'm aware of. I personally use e107 which is available from http://www.e107.org

The other one is phpNuke which is available from http://phpnuke.org

If you're not up to running your own webserver, then paying for a hosting service that provides tools such as MySQL and PHP to support a CMS is the way to go. Although I have my own webserver at home, I'm considering paying for hosting service to get better bandwidth.

Feel free to have a look at what I've done with e107:

http://bkwon.dnsalias.com

[FLPilot]

Can't help you with building that kind of site, but I will recommend using www.e-rice.net for your host. I have been using them and my site has never been down. They offer great rates for alot of space.

HOST

[bkwon]

Sounds like E-rice.net offers very good value. Once you sign up with a hosting service that provides MySQL database and support for PHP, installing and running a CMS is pretty straight-forward. Having a CMS will give you a lot more than a bulletin board. You'd be amazed how simple it is to build your site and manage the content. You don't need to know MySQL, PHP or even HTML to get a CMS up and running. I don't see it on E-rice (probably due to their low price) but most of the web hosting services provide a "control panel" utility for you to manage your website very easily. It's the next best thing to running your own webserver (IMO). Most of the stuff you see on my website is up and running in a few hours. With a hosted service that provides MySQL and PHP support, you can do it even quicker. If you have questions about a CMS or are interested in using it, I'd be happy to share my experience with e107 CMS (phpNuke is very similar).

[RipRocK]

This question is probably something Admin can answer with authority, but I'll just relate what I know.

I would strongly advise against using any type of hosted boards (such as ezboard), for the simple reason that the search engines, such as google, does not consider your content yours, but rather, the hosted solution's. So, your domain is not considered to be possessing your content at all. Even if you're not going to be running a site for commercial reasons, it'd still be nice to let the world know what you have as content.

bkwon mentioned using CMS and while I don't know anything about it, it sounds like a very good tool to use. You probably registered your domain already, then choose a good hosting service that supports MySQL and PHP, just like bkwon said. I think MySQL & PHP is way to go unless you're running some big enterprise level website and even then, those two are used in many places now.

In any case, you'll never wanna write your own discussion board system. There's a pretty good PHP board, phpbb (phpbb.com). From what I read, it's load is pretty light unless your site gets really, really busy. It's also very easy to install. I think there are a number of open source or free licensing discussion/bulletin board systems out there. Check out sourceforge.net and you should be able to find open source apps you might want to use.

Even our site's board system's based on PHP, but from the looks of it, he did alot of custom coding/mods on this site.

Some of the links you might wanna have handy are:
www.webmasterworld.com
http://php.resourceindex.com
http://cgi.resourceindex.com
www.webhostinghelp.com

If you want some books on PHP/MySQL, or on any subject, just lemme know. I have tonnes of e-books you can browse through on many subjects.

[PaulV7]

as for a hosting company I would recommend Powweb. I have had my personal site on them for 4 years and my companies site for 1.5. In that time there have only been 3 times (in 4 years) that my site was down.

The one nice thing they have a forum of people that are very helpful with anything from website setup to picture editing.


Powweb


If you do use them please help me out by using my referral ID.

Powweb Referral

[N_Jay]

I have a hosting company, or actually several to chose from.

Right now I am looking at phpBB or vBulletin for the discussion forum part, and either a "portal" or CMS pakage to go around the discussion forun to serve up the mon discussion pages.

The suggestion to use e017 looks interesting, but I am not sure I want to start 'yet another hunt"!

I would prefer to stay with a package where I do not have to do a lot of manual editing of code to get the feature set together.

If anyone has more suggestions I am listening.

Thanks everyone.