newbie basic questions

[sw]

I'd like to establish a forum website for people in our neighbourhood
to leave and read information. I have some web space from sympatico
and was wondering if that would support the forum concept.

Is it necessary to set up a web hosting arrangement prior to doing
this or does it depend upon the amt of traffic expected?

Also, could anyone recommend a book or web site to demonstrate the
forum concept?
Thankyou in advance.

 

[J.O. Aho]

I'd like to establish a forum website for people in our neighbourhood
to leave and read information. I have some web space from sympatico
and was wondering if that would support the forum concept.
Is it necessary to set up a web hosting arrangement prior to doing
this or does it depend upon the amt of traffic expected?

Much depends on the web-space provider, one of my ISPs (have one modem based,
in case I would get trouble with my broadband) offers a number of features
that you can add to your homepage, like gallery and web forum.

For the best forum scripts you need both PHP and MySQL access, of which MySQL
access is rarely given out for free. You can use less advanced forum scripts
that uses plain text files to store the data. I do suggest you take a look at
freshmeat.net for forum scripts and check which script languages your web
space provider allows you to use.

Also, could anyone recommend a book or web site to demonstrate the
forum concept?

One of many forum scripts: http://www.phpbb.com/
Wikipedia about the above forum script: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpBB

 

[sw]

Much depends on the web-space provider, one of my ISPs (have one modem based,
in case I would get trouble with my broadband) offers a number of features
that you can add to your homepage, like gallery and web forum.

For the best forum scripts you need both PHP and MySQL access, of which MySQL
access is rarely given out for free. You can use less advanced forum scripts
that uses plain text files to store the data. I do suggest you take a look at
freshmeat.net for forum scripts and check which script languages your web
space provider allows you to use.


One of many forum scripts:http://www.phpbb.com/
Wikipedia about the above forum script:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpBB

Much appreciated!