Creating a forum/website/blog

[xXNovaxX]

I know all of the above are different =.=* but how do you go on about it?

There's all the matters of web address/hosting etc, does anybody know of any thats free?

Was vcenotes.com created free?

Where do I begin >< I really want my own web address too, how does that work ?

Thanks

[GerrySly]

Head on over to godaddy.com / namecheap.com and buy a domain. Then search for some hosting (I think 50webs.com is free? otherwise HostGator is pretty cheap) hook it all up and you'll pay like $20 all up.

[xXNovaxX]

Thanks

[excal]

All software that is run by vcenotes.com is either open source or internally developed (by volunteers). So yes, this site was created for 'free'.

The main costs incurred by the ongoing running of the site however, are much more significant. Firstly, as GerrySly pointed out, a domain name needs to be registered and maintained (around $20/yr or so). More significantly, however, is the cost to host this website on a resilient load-balanced server setup and the associated bandwidth costs. Given the amount of traffic we see, especially around this time of year, this can be quite significant (this cost is mostly offset by advertising revenue, however).

tl;dr - running a site this size is not cheap, setting it up might be. A small sized site can be run on a shoestring if needed due to the quality of open source software available and the existence of free (or cheap) non-mission critical hosting services that operate

[slothpomba]

There are a lot of cheap webhosts out there - http://www.bluehost.com/ , ect - http://www.top10webhosting.com/ - yeah but as excal pointed out, if your site really takes off itd require quiet a bit of time and money.

[Collin Li]

For my CMS, I use Wordpress.org

Apparently Drupal or joomla are good too!

[xXNovaxX]

For my CMS, I use Wordpress.org

Apparently Drupal or joomla are good too!

Thanks for that, I found Word press really useful, made an account ><

I alos like it's layout, real professional and goodlooking, all for free ><

Ill have a look at the others.

[IntoTheNewWorld]

My website runs Wordpress as a CMS on Bluehost =] Very cheap but they love to CPU throttle.

[excal]

WP is nice and simple.

Joomla / Drupal are frameworked for bigger sites, and thus the kinds of things they are capable of reflect this. As does their complexity.