I've hosted forums on free sites before, but I'm looking to go to the next level. I have my domains. I'll probably get vBulletin. I've felt kind of stuck on the issue of who to trust with webhosting. It seems like some of the webhosting firms may be creating their own promotional sites. This is the primary reason I felt compelled to join Digital Point yesterday. I've been visiting here for days, but I do have at least two questions that I'll need answered before setting up web hosting. 1. Which host is the best? I think I may have found a decent host in iPower, but I'm not sure yet. (I haven't signed on with them yet, or anything) 2. How much space do I need? I'm going to start off with the core of the site being about the forum. I wouldn't guess that they're necessarily space intensive, but at the same time I want a fast site. (I may be wrong here, but I believe speed is a matter of bandwidth, and less bandwidth is offered with the smaller space capacities.) Any advice is appreciated.
1. I don't think there is a "best" host, but if you're looking at vBulletin you may want to go to vBulletin.org. When I had a license, I saw a lot of topics discussing hosts that support vBulletin great. There is even a host that has vBulletin specific hosting packages. It's called URLJet, and you may want to check it out. 2. When I used vBulletin, I didn't even need 1GB of space when I started my forum. My board got roughly 10,000 posts and 1,000 members and I still had a lot of leftover space. I recomend you start small, and upgrade your server as you need to. Good luck with your forum, Alex Fraiser
(In case anyone should have a similar question to mine) From the .org site you gave me I got a link to what may be a better discussion of hosts here: vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11
You may also want to explore lovinghosting.com. Got 2 of my forums hosted here and I've no complaint so far.
Thanks Affiliategirl and Matt B. LovingHosting looks pretty good price-wise. Matt B, I was aware of those things, but thanks for trying to help. (Where's the thumbsup smiley?) I've begun to rethink getting vBulletin right off the bat. I may hold off on that cash outlay until my community develops. Right now I'm leaning towards SMF.
Yeah. LH price range is very low compared to other hosts. I think anyone who's just starting a site or forum should try their service. Anyway you can always upgrade if you want to. You're welcome. For now I think the best software there is for forums is SMF.
Oh excellent AG... hey! We have the same forum initials! It's nice to hear an endorsement for SMF. It's staggering how many different forum softwares there are. I found a site that compares them all, and SMF came out nearly parallel with the most expensive options. Do you know how I can learn to create themes for SMF? Eventually I may want different themes for the different forum categories I'm going to be setting up.
Not an expert but, yeah, I can customise a theme in SMF (I do installation of SMF with my own theme for a fair price). But it's complicated. You first have to learn basic html, css, and even a little php. I learned all my lessons at www.simplemachines.org. You can try visit it. Just use the search function for your queries. Most likely your questions have already been asked before and answered by members there. I suggest you first try your forum on a local server like xammp before migrating it to the web. That way it will be less costly both in money and time especially if you're on dial-up. Yeah, how cute to be having the same initials here. Never really noticed it.
I'm not on dial-up, but I also don't have another computer to act as a server, so xampp is probably out.
If you are looking to skin using SMF you would need Photoshop skills. You would have to learn how to make the .PSD file then learn how to code it for SMF. Check the SMF support forums out.
No, you don't need another computer to use it. you simply download it and follow the installation instructions. usually you put it in your computer's Drive C so that when you call it in your browser it would be like: http://localhost/xammp
I have never installed SMF. However have you been following a guide. They always give clear instructions.
SMF is the best forum software in terms of security and server load. For hosting, I recommend Lunarpages.
Somehow I missed this post altogether. I have Photoshop Elements, which probably wouldn't work, but I also have Macromedia Fireworks, which I bet would work. On their download page, there's a webinstaller I couldn't figure out how to work. It just opened as a Notepad file. The other options are zip files. I don't know enough about running xampp, and how to install SMF on it. I imagine and I'm hoping that it will be easier once I decide on a web host to upload it there. I ended up uninstalling xampp at the end of my experimentation. Thanks for confirming SMF is the best choice. I'll check out Lunarpages.