A lot of questions re: VB

[StampBears]

i am sorry if i seem a bit new to this (well ok i am still new to this) so please bear with me.

i currently operate a forum utilizing a free forum provider. while this has served our community well for 2 years i am considering future growth and would liek to have some of the perks that VB has to offer.

however, i have a lot of questions before i make the jump and i am hoping that this community can help me as i go along.

at this time ni order to maintain my URL i pay around $25 per year and to keep the site advertising free an additional $20 per year.. not bad but i would like our funds to go further since we are growing and would like to maintain our "free to all" attitude.

this said i understand that once you buy VB there are no other fees. is this correct? if not what are the fees?

having moderated at a VB board before i am somewhat comfortable with the controls so i am sure my mods would adapt nicely but some of the members are a bit "computer challenged" and like some of our standard features - such as a side bar displaying the last 30 posts, buttons to see posts since last visit, or threads with out reply's - are these options that are included with VB?

at this moment that is all i have for questions (but i assure you there are more) please help a newer guy out and thank you for your time!

[BirdOPrey5]

Once you buy a VB license (these days it's a VB5 license) you will never have to pay again to use VB 3.x, 4.x, or 5.x on one site.

You will get all future updates to VB 3.x, 4.x and 5.x free of charge.

However you still need to pay fees like web hosting and domain registration. Those are unrelated to vBulletin.

VB has similar options, I'm not sure there is an option to see threads without replies in VB5 yet however. It is possible in VB4 with a custom search string.

In both you can have a sidebar with recent topics/posts/threads whatever.

Both VB4 and VB5 have built in options to see all "new" posts since the last visit. (So does VB3 but I wouldn't suggest you start a new site with VB3 these days.)

[StampBears]

Great !! thank you very much.

this is where being a new guy gets to be a royal pain! i think i can get the domain name form my current provider.

Hosting i am unsure about. (again the provider i have pretty much does this all in one spot) i will need to research this more.

if you have suggestions (or even a basic type of explanation) that would be very helpful.

thank you for dealing with my new guy questions ..

[BirdOPrey5]

Most hosts do offer domain name registrations but it is better to keep these are separate places IMO.

In my experience you may changes hosts much more often than domain registrars and you don't want a domain name tied to one host.

[StampBears]

interesting.... i just looked up a host that would transfer my domain name for a one time fee and roll the name and hosting into one package for a good price.

why would i change once set up with one host ? as i am setting up a forum i would assume that the transfer once will be a huge and hard process to start with i certainly dont want to do it more than once LOL.

[Lynne]

You may find that you don't like your host. They may not respond to your requests very fast or they may have put you on an oversubscribed server or they may experience a lot of down time or ??? There could be many reasons why you decide to move hosts.

[StampBears]

oh thank you !!

do you (or anyone else) have suggestions for a host? i am running a world wide stamp collecting forum

[Lynne]

You may want to read some of the reviews/comments in this forum - vBulletin Hosting Options (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/general/vbulletin-hosting-options)

[StampBears]

GREAT !! thank you so much.. i know i am a pain... you all rock!!

[Zura1337]

Thank you man :)