I want to create a website and keep much of the cost down so I'll be designing the pages myself using dreamweaver and need help with the rest.
Basically from start to finish I need help starting up my project which is a headache for me but a piece of cake for you guys. Here goes:
I have a domain name in mind, so I guess thats stage 1
From here on its a bit blurry. I want to create a website that can offer a forum, blogs and stuff alike. I guess I'll use Vbulletin and Wordpress, but is there anything that I have to consolidate with my html pages or confer with - Say "fasthost" - the server?
Please can you help, in giving me a run down on servers/hosts, wordpress and vbulletin please. it'll be much appreciate, thanks.
i recommend doteasy hosting (doteasy.com), you can get 1 year free hosting, comes with forum, and blog, (not vbulletin and wordpress though), or you can get their paid hosting and install vbulletin and wordpress.
hi there, make sure the hosting you get is a linux server, next look at having a wordpress site as a normal web site and not as a blog(removale of tages and comments in the code)
focus on one aspect at a time as it is difficult to get a blog and forums running concurrently
fantastico is a good option with cpanel as there are alot of tutorials on how to use and configure
Cheers guys! One thing I am not completely clued up on is Servers!
Can you tell us a bit more about servers and any additional ammends I have to make "my end" in order to get the site running. Like Vbulletin for example, how do I embed it on my site and server?
hi st, i don't quite understand what you mean by embedding vbulletin on the server, normally, when you opened a hosting account, you can use ftp client, such as filezilla (free) to upload all the vbulletin and wordpress files to the server, then run the installation file from the url, such as http://www.yourdomain.com/forum/install.php, or http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/install.php, then follows the step by step installation wizard.
cheers shaki, I'm slowly getting the concept. Although, what I guess I am saying is, do I need to alocate space on my webpage to allow for the wordpress to be seen. And with the Vbulletin, I guess I just make another page for it? Am I on the right track?
If the fasthost you mention is the uk based web host, I can't recommend them. My biggest client is with them and I'd move them elsewhere if only their email system wasn't so useful (only good thing about them, to be honest).
As for what you need, you need a web hosting package that includes PHP and MySQL, preferably on a Linux server. You do NOT need 5000000 email addresses and 50Gb of disk space. So don't get fooled into buying/renting a lot more than you really need.
You have to do nothing special to get your hosting package running, that's the web host's job (and you definitely don't need to rent a server!!! just some web space, say 100Mb initially). It's often a good idea for a beginner to buy domain name and web space from the same source, as then they usually set things up for you, which will save you lots of head-banging.
I can only tell you about a couple of hosts I've used.
I manage a couple of static websites for small non-profits on Network Solutions. I've read many negative comments about them online, but I have no complaints. For $120/year (or $12/month), we get more space, email, and ftp accounts than we'll use for the next century, plus scripts for things like password-protection and stats, and installs of WordPress, Joomla, PHPBB, and more. They have PHP and MySQL, though I haven't used them beyond setting up an internal WordPress blog. Our sites are on Linux/Apache, though they have Windows servers as well. I've called tech support twice, and gotten prompt replies.
Last year, I looked at some competitors (the one I recall best, Dreamhost, offered free accounts to non-profits), but I got the impression from online reviews that a lot of them were promising more than they could deliver. We've never had an uptime or server-access problem with NetSol.
Recently, I looked around for a host for someone who wanted a small personal site, but didn't have space through their ISP. There are lots of hosts offering hundreds of GB of storage, and thousands of GB of data transfer, for $100-$200/year, but hardly any offering a few MB for proportionately less. The one I chose was "Nearly Free Speech" (google for url), which is at the other end of the spectrum from NetSol as far as services and scripts. They have PHP and MySQL, but no installed scripts, though you're welcome to upload your own. I got my own account with them, in part so I could practice installing WP, etc without pre-scripts.
They charge a penny a month per MB of storage, and a dollar a month per GB of data transfer. The minimum payment is 25 cents (US). Once you've got over a GB stored, it's over $10/month, ie, NetSol's cheaper. But for 100MB, it's $1/month (plus data transfer), which is hard to beat. They're Linux/Apache only.
What server stats (minimal) would I need to set up a site with over 10,000 users per week rising to 25,000? Also I need forums, and blog space. At least 20 personal email accounts (not more than 50) over 30,000 users, accounts, (which I guess is SQL?)
Also guys, what do I need to set up a podcast?
(apologies for all the questions, my project has a lot of demand!)
if you have an url in mind, buy it asap !!! and dont check its availability and then wait - as domain registrars check their logs to see what was searched for and take anything good for themselves. Once you check and it is available buy it immediately!
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