Wanting to learn to create websites/forums

Hey Everyone,

I was wanting to create a website and possibly make on of the sites have a forum as well for both my city hockey league that I am in as well as for my music. I have never made a site and dont know much about it as of now and was wondering if I could get any advice, tutorials or at least learn the basics of what to do and hwere to start. I have Frontpage, but have never used it...suggestions or help please. thanks!

www.w3schools.com for basic tutorials in HTML.

forum you don't have to create..

you can get one, there's free forum board out there, phpBoard, invision board

FIPG is using phpBB its really friendly

remember you need a Webhost that supports php and SQL to install the forum

Will I need to have SQL installed? Will SQL Server 2005 Enterprise work? It allows up to a 4 GB limit on databases? What is PHP? I am new to this and looking to get all teh info I can, If someone would be willing to discuss it with me over a messenger too I would really appreciate it.

thanks for all the help guys!

PHP, or "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor", is a commonly-used open-source scripting language. phpBB is written in PHP and requires the PHP runtime engine to be installed and properly configured on the server phpBB is run on. For more information about PHP, please see the PHP home page.
www.phpbb.com/support/documentation/3.0/glossary/terms.php

I feel your pain, I'm in a similar situation. I have my own post, but I hope you don't mind if I put my questions here too.
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I'm working on a site (not a freebie site) and I have a php with Joomla hosting and I can't figure out how to do anything with it. If anyone is familiar with this and would like to offer some support, please let me know.

This is what I need to figure out, can I do it myself or would I be better off paying a professional. I have designed a website before (with a program), but this type of site is totally foreign to me. However, I consider myself to be very teachable.

OK, I need to know how to

Create categories and subcategories.

Create member logins.

Each member would need to have their own email alias that would be routed through my site but actually go to their own email. This way their actual email address would not be displayed on the site.

The members need to have the ability to post in different categories and upload pics.

I would like to have a search function that the member can put in their zip code and have the ability to search within 10 miles, 25 miles, 50 miles, etc. of their zip. That, I assume would probably be the most complex part.

I would like for the members to be able to be charged a recurring fee (subscription) without me manually billing each member. Some type of automatic billing that would just come out of their bank account or credit card, paypal account, etc. either on a monthly, semi-annual, or annual basis.

It would be great if the member had the ability to print out a document that could be used for tax purposes. However, I don't want people to be able to abuse this. That is an issue that I don't know how to deal with. It would take too much time to do it manually.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and +karma will be given!

If this is something that would require a professional, then what can I expect to pay to have this done?

Thanks,
Michelle

This looks it might be another great resource for you.

http//www.phpbb-design.com/faq/what_is_phpbb.php

Joomla is so confusing, I tried to use it in the past and I gave up. You can always post up what you need on a site like RentACoder.com and then get quotes/bids on your project. If you like the prices, you can accept a bid but if you don't then you can continue trying to do it yourself.

As for the forum, phriq, you have to buy a server. Hostgator.com has one that's $9.95 a month and you can probably find a coupon to cut down the cost of the first month. Once you have that, just follow the install instructions for phpBB with an FTP username and login.

Do you know anything about siteground.com? That's where I purchased all that they said I needed. I guess, a PHP site with the Joomla script. I can have them uninstall the script if I want to. What script would I need to use?

I have a meeting with some webdesigners from goidp.com and if the price is right, I'm just going to have them do it for me!! Luckily, our partner is a friend of theirs so I think they will cut us a good deal. And, what would take me probably months to do would take them hours~lol!

its easy to install phpBB i can install it for you if you want ) but i will have to MOD on your forum in return haha im jk but i can install it for you let me know

If you need help with forums I can help as well. I've run many forums in the past, and they all used phpBB.

I did major modding as well for addons and stuff.