GuitarDiscussion.com

[music wasn't part of me]

I just got this idea of building a forum like this with English Language Learning Theme (with hidden agendas of course, God be the Glory )

A forum for young people from non-english-speaking countries (Global but mainly indonesians), where the rule is simple, you have to write Only English, I will block any native speaking member

Although my professional background is financial planning and capital market industry, but I taught english for 2 years, during my early college years, just freelance, for companies and individuals (2001-2003) followed by another year of teaching (06-07) in a leading english course institution, this is while finishing my thesis at Univ.

I guess to explain about this idea, I should share some of my foolish past, please bear with me bec my english is a bit eerrr when it comes to past narrative :

I didn't know then but I do know now that it's God's plan to divert my career...I left banking world in 2005, after 3 years of amazing career from trainee to manager,which I was soo foolishly proud of and later after Jesus captured my heart in 2004, could see that the so called "My amazing career" was really "Jesus' amazing career" bec God showed He had accomplished everything on my behalf just so I could learn what it's like to carry huge responsibilties , to hold it accountable everytime asked, as a picture of "Those who have been entrusted with much, much more will be asked"-Luke12 . a shadow of a bigger vision which would later came to me.....

It seems for now, after graduating from Univ, God's intention towards me has been none but one theme, EDUCATION

I have met some fascinating english students, some with incredible language talent, also highly motivated students, some who maybe not the brightest but would always rise up after failing and of course smart students who just don't know what a magnificent talent God has put in them....

I have always shared God's message with all my students, one line seemed to be the most popular :
"You guys should be thankful to God for having parents who could pay for your education, many out there are dropping out of school bec their parents can't afford education. Guys, when you go out, see those poor people begging on the streets then you take a good look at yourself and be grateful to God."
It was always a so confusingly striking line for them to hear, as if they've never heard anything like that before...bec their parents are also like them, never really pay attention or have a sense of caring for others..."The fruit falls not far from the tree"-we say here.

So this is just a simple idea of teaching english for communicating and sharing many things in a forum and I would direct the forum more into mature-way of thinking, their future ahead, good money-management tips, sharing ideas and what they can create, maybe having a native-american-guest visiting the forum (Mr.Dan maybe or Mark?? ) , and so many many other things through English Study as the vehicle

Ok that's the main concept, now the questions is the How......I know many good web hosting companies here, I'm very willing to pay whatever the cost is to spread the message of God. is it like setting up a normal website to create a forum or there are steps to follow?
Any inputs I would greatly appreciate....

Many Thanks, Jerry

[markm2553]

Jerry, I must confess I know nothing about what you are asking, but I realize your heart is in the right place, and filled with the right Spirit.

So for my part, I will pray.

There are some guys around here that are pretty good with computers, I can't wait to see what they have to say.

[J Dan Brown]

Jerry, my thoughts and prayers are for you daily, as well! I think it's a very needed ministry and I think God will really bless it. In your part of the world, the portrait of "God" is more confusing than an AA meeting, and learning of the miracle of the Christ is a grand reason to learn to speak English, although certainly unnessary. May the Father touch and annoint your noble venture!
Blessed, by sensitive and committed friends all over the planet, Dan

[PunkStar]

Well, I guess this would be my area of expertise. I've built a few websites and I set up the backup forum for this board when it was down a while back.

So if I understand your idea correctly, you want to make a forum just like this for teaching English and providing some free advice on important matters? This can be done for free to more expensive methods depending on what you want.

First, some background technical information. A board like this is hosted by a web company that allocates space for a webpage on their computers, and allows web traffic (so much per month) to access that webpage. With how much computers can store and transmit, it shouldn't really be all that expensive. Also, to run a message board like this. Your web hosting company needs to be able to run mySQL and PHP. These are key technologies that a message board like this needs to work (I won't go into the specifics unless you want to know).

All that aside, there are plenty of companies on the internet that will happily host a message board just like this one for free (the message board software is called phpbb). All you do is sign up, fill in the information and your message board is up and running. Then you log in and set it up. That's the good news. The bad news is that it looks a little unprofessional. Your message board will be paid for with a few ads placed liberally on your board. Nothing crippling by any means, but you should be aware of it. Also, your web address will look something like www.whatnameyouwant.yourhostingcompany.com. Again, not a big problem, but it doesn't help create a professional image. It's up to you whether or not that bothers you. You can get around that though, check with your hosting company, but you can probably purchase a top-level domain (eg. www.whatnameyouwant.com) for pretty cheap and get it set up to your free message board. Then people can type the name you brought into their web browser and get to your message board without having to use the longer name of your hosting company. To find a company that will give you a free message board, go to google and type in something like "free forum hosting", and you'll get a list. Read their terms and what they offer and see if you find one you like. I'd try this idea anyway and see how it goes, if you don't like it, there is another solution.

You could pay a web hosting company near where you live to set you one up. They will get it all running and keep it running for so much money a month (depends what they charge). Obviously, if you take this route, they need to provide PHP and mySQL support. You can also ask them to get you a domain name and set that up, and it won't have any advertisements on your pages. This is the most professional way to go and will give you a message board exactly like this. You can then set up an administration account for your message board and set up forums like this board has. You can set moderators, other admins, forum permissions, ban people, and all the other fun stuff you need to do as the admin. Obviously, you'll also need to put up a post where people will see it that outlines the board's rules and lets them know the penalites for breaking them. Standard stuff really.

Once you've chosen between those two options and have a functional message board, people need to be able to find it. This is now outside the technical realms, but you need to let people know your new resource exists. So submit it to google (something a web host can help with but you can probably look it up somewhere), call English teachers to let them know about the resource for their students, whatever you need to do to get people to use it and get benefit from it.

As long as your users have access to the internet and can understand the strong english content (eg. can read enough English to sign up and participate) then you should have a really good learning community. Best of luck with it, may God receive glory from it. If need any more information, let me know and I'd be happy to provide what I can.

[music wasn't part of me]

Cool , Many thanks. Truly if we choose the right door to open, many other doors will be opened by God!

I'm so blessed to be here, this forum gave me this idea and the right man for the job is also here , PS . Thanks Brother!

I know computers very well but building a website is a little bit new, i know everything about computer basically works with quite the same or similar logical pattern. 2years ago i joined a ministry that tried to build a website from scratch, they hired a programmer to set up everything, making things very complicated.

But when i saw my mom at her comp, she's also a member of a christian forum btw, her forum's interface was Exactly Like our Forum! Hahaha....I smell rat, I knew that there must be some kind of a "Pre-Installed Script" which non-programmer-customers could use to set up their own site easily......Always like that right, there's always smart people who make difficult things easy then go out and sell it . The Beauty of Tech World!

So after posted this Topic at the lounge, i did lots of digging, got some very good tips, among them is the advice NOT to build on a Free Web Hosting Sites, so it's out of my list, dug a little more and found the Top Three Web Hosting Companies in Jakarta! I chose one that seemed to be the most friendly, understandable and helpful, YahooChat with one of Cust service and started unloading my questions. Here's what I got :

This website company, www.rumahweb.com, is pretty professional, they've been around since 1999, quite ok i say, first they guarantee 99%uptime, 24/7 Cust support, plenty of packages to choose from, SQL , PhP, Security, and......they have FANTASTICO --a pre-installed scipts facility, with wide range of criterias, like Blogs (Wordpress, B2evo) , Content mgt (joomla, xoop,etc) , CRM, Mailing list, Image Gallery, and BOARDS (PhpBB and SMF-->which i believe this forum is using ??)

I joined their free trial offer and started to make my way around the control panel, unfortunately, the trial package only gives you 15MB of space, too small to install PhpBB or SMF (Darn!) but anyway, I tried installing blogs scripts like wordpress, also joomla (Still learning it) ....basically it's simple isn't it PS? just like when you install a new software and learn how to navigate right?

But about the Traffic rate, I have no idea, there's this package I'm interested in, it offers 180 MB of space and 4,5 GB of traffic, i read traffic is more likely to be main problem instead of the space as the site starts growing? so does 4,5 GB traffic good enough for a forum ? Whats the traffic for this forum?

I wish we're neighbours.....I could just ride my bike to your place Look forward to your advice . Thanks again. God Bless You

[PunkStar]

Website building itself isn't all that hard. I can give you some quick information in the process if you want it. But if you only want to do a forum, you don't need to worry about it too much. Or maybe even do one web page that explains the purpose of the site and has a link to the forum (which is where the action will take place, since you are going for interactivity). If you want to head down that path, let me know and I can probably get something simple done for you. But back to the forum questions.

This forum is phpBB. Great bit of programming really. It also has plenty of options in the way of addons to improve functionality beyond it's already strong features.

That web hosting company looks great. Unfortunately, I don't understand a word of Indonesian. If you could translate the hosting packages to english so I can see what they provide, I can give you an idea of which one would suit you. Also, if you have any ideas how much you could spend would be nice too. Sadly, I don't think google has a translation for Indonesian at the moment.

Fantastico is a great package for easy setup and it's good they have it going. So setup will be really easy. Just use it's setup script for phpBB and you shouldn't really have a problem. Otherwise, call your webhost and they should be able to sort it out.

With the traffic rate, it's hard to say. It really depends on how many people use the site. It's really the kind of thing you have to monitor in the beginning. If you translate those hosting offers for me, I'll give you some advice from there. But I'd also consider emailing the web host's support address and asking if maybe you can get a traffic increase if your site needs it. I'd probably also ask if they can help you get a domain name.

If you need a hand with site, I can send you a PM with my email address, or you can usually get me here. But I can't imagine you'll have a lot of trouble. And really, we are close enough to neighbours, just jump in the ocean and mind the sharks.

[music wasn't part of me]

The sharks were nice and friendly, I asked your address they only replied by opening their mouths

many thanks for the reply, I feel neighbours already, I tried installing a few scripts like B2evolution, joomla, Drupal...of all those, i felt although its very easy to setup the scripts, but when it comes to content management, i was a bit lost in following the admin-menus

PS, is building a forum easier or simpler than building a full-content management website ?

I have this package from www.rumahweb.com (btw rumah=house), let me translate it :

180Mb diskspace , 4,5 GB traffic , Cpanel, 20mail acc, Anti virus&Spam, Webmail , POP-SMTP , Mail forwarder& 15 FTP acc , Unlimited subdomain, 1space for multipledomain , 3 mySQL Database , WebStats, Fantastico , Crontabs , SSH .

I kinda need the multipledomain facility bec my fiancee is going to publish her card business on the web also....so i thought it'd be more efficient....What do you think of it?

EDIT : Hey PS, I just browsed and got a matching offer here from www.ardhosting.com , basically everything's the same, Fantastico and all, but the package price is 30% cheaper and is offering Far More traffic than the 4,5 Gb, it offers 8GB, lmore SQL database space (3), less space though only 100MB and no Cust Support on sundays, not 24H on Saturdays...what do you think?


NB : Are you native australian PS ? I Just saw tennis match Mauresmo(Fra) VS Delacqua (Aus), won dramatically by The Aussie. Awesome Game! Must be making headlines there , taking down the former world No.1 and becoming the no.1 player in Aust.

[PunkStar]

Don't worry about the sharks for too much longer. With all the illegal whaling in the news here, they should be under control soon. Otherwise, I'd be happy to throw them a Sea Shepherd or two.

(If anyone doesn't know what I'm referencing, it's this. I'll start another thread on it if anyone wants to discuss it.)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ibg-iiecl794l9FUlAuU3Cq41iIAD8U81E500

Ok, yes. Building just a forum on it's own is a whole lot easier than creating a webpage with full content management. That is probably a lot more difficult than you really need. If you can find out which content manager it is, I will look into it. But all I'd do would be, make a webpage detailing what the site is about, people will see that page when they first visit your website. And on that webpage, include a link to your forum. People can interact there like we do here. That would be a whole lot easier than setting up content management (uggh!). If you want to see a rough (unprofessional) idea of what it would look like, let me know and I'll set one up tomorrow and post a link.

Hmm, multiple domaining for two ideas on the same account. I haven't set anything like that up myself, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Again, any difficulties, your host should be able to provide support. So don't be afraid to ask them, it's what they are there for. I'd have to look into it, but I can't see it being a problem. The only thing is, I presume we are talking about a business here. You'll probably need to tell me more about what the business website will do. It may or may not complicate the process. But since you have a background in financials, do some study on e-commerce software (and see if Fantastico has anything for setting up an online business, it may have some techical needs to consider too). But if you find down the track you have to move the business to another web hosting account, it's no problem really. You just set it up elsewhere and change the URL of the business domain to the new account. Only thing I'd worry about would be moving any stored customer information, but that is a minor issue and can probably be easily dealt with, so don't worry about it.

If you are going to run two ideas from the same web account and considering a business with an undetermined need for traffic, I'd go with more traffic just to be on the safe side, and that extra SQL could be useful. Really, 100 MB is a lot, especially considering a pure HTML webpage is only a couple of KB. So I wouldn't worry about that. Support is always nice, but I wouldn't base my decision on it, it's really only minor anyway. To summarise, I'd go with ardhosting from the options you've given me.

Regarding the tennis, I see it myself, but the brief info I saw on a news website is making quite a big deal of it. And yes, I'm a native Australian, but I never worried much about sport. And you can see, I am clearly a geek.

[music wasn't part of me]

[PunkStar]

Well, you know there are easier ways to create a website. Search google for "free wysiwyg editor" (wysiwyg = what you see if what you get). You can use those, basically like a word processor and it will write all the web code to make the page for you. Then you just upload the pages to your web hosting account. All you'd have to do is create a page to display pictures of the cards themselves. There may even be an editor in Fantastico somewhere.

[music wasn't part of me]

Hello Australia

I've been doing a lot of asking and a lot of experimenting with some webhosting companies, praise God i met very helpful salespersons....but still, they're selling...

so I thought I'll discuss more with you, hope it's not troubling you PS , it's about the server location, my target audience is non-englishspeaking-countries, from my exp, that means ASIA (I could be wrong cause i don't know a thing about europeans, my mom said europeans are very proud with their language and culture, cause she works with european people). well anyway, they say if i use a server located in Indonesia, it would benefit people in indonesia but rather slow for other countries. Is it true? and how significant could it be?

Thanks again PS. God bless you

[PunkStar]

To be honest, I wouldn't really expect it to be a problem. I don't know a lot about the quality of indonesia's data cables, but I wouldn't think they would be so bad in comparison to anywhere else. Your main concern is that people who want to use the website, can. As long as your website is on the internet, it shouldn't be a problem.

This would be the way to test it though. Find a web host that runs their servers in Indonesia, and one that runs them somewhere outside Indonesia and see how long it takes their website to load. Then post those websites here and I'll take a look and how long they load for me and tell you if there is any difference. Tell me your internet connection type as well (I'm use ADSL).

But really, I wouldn't worry about this. As long as your website is on the internet, it should be quite available to anyone anywhere.

[music wasn't part of me]

thanks PS for the tips. I've come to realize that connections here in Indo are quite slower than abroad. ADSL has been spreading for the past 5years, especially the big cities. some are still using dialup

I guess it's better to build it in indonesia, bec global communities have a much faster and more advanced connections, even if indonesia based server gives them slower access, their higher speed should take care of that , they won't even notice i guess. Thanks PS

Since this website will be mostly just forum, i won't need to set up a portal will I ? nothing to put on the portal page but Forum i imagine...
does this forum use a portal page? is the first page a portal?

[PunkStar]

A whole portal may be overkill. I'd probably just do a normal webpage with a link to the forum. That's pretty much what the front page here is.