Noobie Alert!!

RichDRichD Essex, UK
edited January 2007 in Internet & Media
Hello all,

I am about to venture into the world wide world of web! I am working for a small record production and promotions company and looking to design a site for them. I am reasonably computer literate but have very little web experience.

I have produced basic info websites and I understand the principles of basic design and web graphics etc. However we would like to add a forum which I believe is done through PHP scripting.

Anyway in short can anyone recomend any good web resources for site design and what are peoples recomendations for hosting companies. I am UK based but does it matter if I use a US host?

Thanks.

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    I would stick with UK ISPs. Many US ISPs have non-free US support numbers,
    which would yield an INTERNATIONAL phone call for support.

    Secondly, they speak American English at those American support numbers.

    Look for a host in the UK, or if not a support forum for the ISP.

    Your post appears to be from a PHP noobie. Thus the host needs to be

    completely set up for you. there may be glitches in install unless the
    personnel of the Host are good with PHP and have hosted or are hosting
    forums of PHP type (there ARE other types). And the forum will need a
    database also.

    Primesuspect knows lots of what is needed, but I need to use long distance
    to talk to him in the US. I host two sites with him. You can PM him and see
    who he might recommend, or see if Shorty here can recommend a good
    forum hosting company which he knows the reputation about.

    Note that this forum is hosted in the US despite one of the three owners
    being domiciled in the UK and and two other owners being owned in the
    US. The host company involved is one owned by one of the US owners
    who knows BSD for hosting(Prime) and the British owner
    (Shorty) did the PHP that makes this forum customized with General
    Keebler also helping with some PHP and\or Java and customizing.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    Hi Rich, welcome to the site.

    If you're looking to add a forum, I highly recommend going with a pre-existing software package like vBulletin (that's what we use here, obviously). Forum software is very complicated, and coding one from scratch would probably be a waste of resources, especially when vBulletin is a very reasonable price. I suspect you may be able to at least get them set up on your own following their instructions, though you many need help if you want to customize it extensively. Your host would need to provide PHP and MySQL database services.

    As far as web access, it will not matter where your host is located.

    As Straight_Man mentioned, Brian Ambrozy (primesuspect on this forum; one of the co-owners of this site) owns a US hosting company if you want to send him a private message for info.
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited January 2007
    Cheers for all your help. Ill look into vBulletin, but I may need some help. If anyone knows of any good online "Produce your own website" type guide sites i would be grateful to hear from you.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    I personally switched over to VB a few years ago. http://www.bttournaments.com/forum/index.php the VB help forums have just about all the info you need to customize your VB forums. I got some great help from that site, allowing me to run the forums I do today :)
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