right I know maybe this is the worng place to ask thi but i am desperate for help

I want to place a forum on my site not I have narrowed it down to two forums IKON BOARD and YABB BOARD now the thing is they are not hosted I have to do that but I have no idea how to

Now i know there are forums that you can have that are already hosted but they suck to be honest these two are really nice ones an i want one of them on my site

Now I know that it is easy for you people(people that know about servers) but to me it is a different language

Now just you saying how to do it is not going to work - you see i am new at this stuff and it needs to be explained to me slowly if someone could take the time to slowly tell me how to do this i would be thanful

I do know that it says to host a forum you need some web space but how i dont know

please help

I'm not personally familiar with Ikon board or Yabb but I presume that you will get the software for these and that you are quite happy to configure and set these up for your own requirements.

If you do not like using "ready" hosted forums, then you will have o be prepared to get your hands dirty setting one up.

Basically, forum software has two components, scripts (e.g. perl or PHP or asp) that the forum software is written in and a database to store all the posts and configuration items.

The steps I would take are as follows:

1. Pick a forum software product and establish that you are happy with. It would be very wise if you could run it up on a home or your own computer so you can test out configuration, installation etc.

2. Establish what environment is required e.g. if the scripts are written in Perl and it uses a MySQL database, then you will need to make sure that you have all the additional necessary Perl modules. This information is usually shipped with the product as "system requirements" or something like that.

3. Find a hosting package that will match the requirements for the right price. If this is a small forum, then a shared package will do the job. In fact, your existing host may be able to help. A bigger board would possibly require a dedicated or similar option like a virtual private server. The latter is more complex so I would suggest starting with a shared package.

4. The shared package must support the environment necessary e.g. Perl and MySQL and exra Perl modules as necessary. When your host has confirmed they can support this environment, then you can buy it, login and upload the software.

5. Follow the products instructions for setting up and installing the forums - you will know all this if you tried it out at home in step 1 above.

6. You can link to this forum from your website by setting up a subdomain e.g. forums.yourDomainName.com so that www.yourdomainname.com points to your existing website and forums.yourdomainname.com points to the new forum site.

7. Sit back and pat yourself on the back for setting up a forum !

Good luck. Come back if you need more help.

erm

ok you lost me there but I did read it 7 times and i think I understand it just a few things

does Angelfire have Perl 5,005? I have had this bloody forum package in my pc (it is free and i downloaded it) and it says that you need 20MEG's and must have perl 5,005 enabled if Angelfire does nto do it can you tell me who will do it?

now I need to get a FTP software now can you tell me a nice one that is so easy to use that even an idiot lkike me can use it with out deleting his files like I did last time i used an FTP software (for the record it was called CUTEFTP)

thanks for this it means a lot

Ok - fair comment. I've probably not written this very clearly. Please forgive.

First of all, are you happy with the forums package on your machine ? Check back with the forums writer and see if you have to use exactly v5.005 of Perl - I would suspect that it would work with later versions since v5.6 is the latest version of Perl.

I presume that you have an account with Angelfire. I would expect the user login page, there is a faq or some help that will indicate whether they support Perl and which version. If they say that they only support version Perl 5.xxx, then either check with the forum writers that it will work with this version or install 5.xxx on your machine and test it yourself.

I would recommend cuteftp as being the easiest to use FTP program that is free. It usually asks for confirmation that you want to overwrite existing or delete existing files before. Perhaps you set an option that stops this ? Otherwise, some others might like to chip in with their ftp program suggestions.

Getting use to FTP will involve some mistakes. Perhaps you would like to try again ?

Keep at it - you will get there. Its tough but lots of people have setup forums and I'm sure that you will join them.

I dont really have anything extra to add to Mr.Chunders response other than you might want to give cuteftp another try.
I find its the simplest, easiest ftp program out there. WSFTP is also another popular one.
www.cuteftp.com
www.wsftp.com

Im just not sure about Angelfire (Im guessing they wouldnt support Perl, but not sure) As Mr. Chunder says, check out their FAQ. Info like that should be listed there.

You might also want to do a search here in the forums (upper right hand corner, click the search button and type in 'message board') This will bring up past discussions on boards.
Good Luck!

^

Yeah, what MizMartie said!

I'll add a mention of Smart FTP www.smartftp.com which is free, not as simple & easy to use as the others, but very, very nice.

A friend of mine running a forum switched over from YaBB to Ikon because I believe Ikon is less resource-intensive on the server.

Cheerz!

Where can I find this type of forum?

For the forums discussed in this thread,

www.ikonboard.com
and
yabb.xnull.com .

If you mean this actual forum, at the bottom of the screen it is vbulletin which I understand to be the best forums software currently going.

You can find this at www.vbulletin.com

Hi,

I'd just like to add that not a lot of hosts like ikon and yabb as they are really tough on the old box. PHP/MySQL boards like vbulletin or the free phpBB2 are much more popular, from a host's point of view

And, oh yea, WS_FTP pro, extremely cool software!

I would also like to add that I think both the Yabb and Ikon forums are Excellent for their price of, Nothing!
If i was you, I'd go for both of them!

With the FTp Clients, I think SmartFTP Is Excellent, It has a Beuatiful interface and its FREE!

Im obbsessed with freebies!

Just a heads up.

Some hosts now ban YaBB and Ikonboard [including us .. hehe ] due to the extreme resource strain they put on the site.

I would recommend going for a PHP version, such as openBB.net or even YaBB PHP