Interested in Vbulletin
 

Hello;
I am a new to the forum industry. I am just interested in getting a forum done and would like to use the vbulletin template. My question is... Does vbulletin provide everything I would need to start a forum? I obviously would need to get a server from a farm and also buy a domain name. But is there any books or info I need to obtain before I start this investment.

Please help me out.

thanks a lot in advanced

Vbulletin is only a forum software, all of it's features are listed here. You also need a host and a domain name as you stated. No books are required to learn vbulletin, as there is a complete online manual here. If you want to learn PHP and MySQL, (The coding languages used to run vBulletin) there is a nice thread about that here. I hope that answers all of your questions. :) Oh, and another great online resource for Forum Admins is The Admin Zone

Thanks a lot. So where do I start? I need to get a server to put this on. Who can set me up with a server? How do I hook them all together? The vbulletin, domain name, and server.

Please help out.

-garrett

Chances are you won't be renting or buying a dedicated server anytime soon, the cost of that would be rather extensive. (80+ a month for low end servers). You are going to want to find a shared hosting enviroment that supports php 4.3.11 or better and MySQL 4.0.17 or better. And you would want at least 100MB of storage and to start at least 5-10gb of bandwidth.

Once you have a host, they will tell you their DNS (Domain Name Servers) servers (yes thats redundant, like nic cards ;)), when you buy a domain, the domain provider will ask you for your DNS servers, or allow you to enter them at another time. Once you put the DNS info into your domain providers database, everything is just a matter of time. :)

ahh thank you. I understand now. So how could I get a shared hosting enviroment? 100MB of storage that is all? That is a small hard drive but I guess i'll be paying by the megabyte or something like that.

Its just for starters, thats the bare mininums you will need to look for, realisticly, you shouldn';t hit 100mb in forum database usage for at least a few years unless you allow alot of large attachments :) I know my own forums are only at 30 after about 2 years.

Thank you Zachery,
I found bluegenesis.com are they a good place to get shared hosting? Wow it's cheaper than I thought. I can get shared hosting with 250mb of web space and 12gb of transfer per month or the "bronze" which actually has more of that stuff but has a hit counter.

Never heard of them, some hosts are good, some hosts are bad, some hosts offer alot and are still good (rarer) and some hosts are more expensive.

I suggest looking at webhostingtalk and see what people think, but do not take their word as pure truth, many people use wht for a spamming grounds for their hosting sites.

thanks,
I just bought the domain name today for 10 dollars at godaddy.com. Next up is getting the server. Then getting more familiar with vbulletin.

Thanks a lot for the help so far

Just as a personal peice of advice, don't use godaddy as a host, they arn't exactly the best, in any matter.