Lost and Confused....

They have: 21 posts

Joined: Mar 2000

Im new to this whole cgi thing and im not really sure whats going on. I need a message board for my web page thats on angelfire.com. I looked around and found one called discus. Their instructions confused me and I wanted to know if any cgi message board, counter, etc. worked on angelfire. I mean any cgi script period. Can I just cut and paste it and voila`? I need a really schweet one that has password protection. Hmmm...this message board is pretty nice. Where did you get it? Im basically a newbie at all this so I just need a simple one I can use on angelfire. Thanks.

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Apr 2001

Can I just cut and paste it and voila`?

Nope...you first have to upload the scripts to your server (angelfire) in your "cgi-bin" directory and then "chmod" the files. Only then will the bulletin board script work.

BTW...this message board can be downloaded at
http://www.vbulletin.com/

or you can find more scripts and resources at http://www.thecgisite.com

They have: 21 posts

Joined: Mar 2000

Still have no clue, but thanks anyways...
Instead of dling the board from vbulletin, I automatically transferred it to my angelfire site and took a peek inside. Looks encoded, either that or they created a new language. Sigh!!!! Any ideas what I should do?

TheGizmoid's picture

They have: 168 posts

Joined: Apr 2001

Many free hosts do not allow users to upload cgi scripts for security reasons. Some offer a limited set of commonly used scripts (counters, guestbooks and the like). Check with Angelfire about what they allow/offer.

vBulletin requires that PHP (a programming language) be available on the server, and implementing vBulletin is not for the faint of heart. Again, you would need to check with Angelfire to see if they support PHP.

An easy solution would be to use a third-party bulletin board. (Do a search at various webmaster resouce sites, there are a number of them out there but I don't recall their names off the top of my head.)

Some of these boards are very customizable as far as colors and graphics go. But as a "freebie" they usually put a banner ad on each page, that is how they make their money and can afford to offer the service for free. It's a small price to pay for the functionality they offer, IMO. All the scripts are run off their server, they host the database with all your posts and you don't have to do much more than add a snippet of code to your site.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Here's a few suggestions for remotely hosted boards - just from what I've had (limited) experience with:

Boardhost - threaded system, doesn't archive threads, banner ad at the top. I think they've recently started using pop-ups too but I'm not sure.

EZBoard - BBS style - banner ad at the top plus some seemingly random pop-ups. Has had some downtime recently.

Everyone.net - seems to be pretty good. I just set one up on there because I'm using their plug-in e-mail and I thougth I'd give the message board a try. Very customizable - lets you edit the HTML template and everything. Banner ad at the top, doesn't seem to have pop-ups. Comes with built-in chat.

It can be difficult to find a remotely hosted board that does what you want it to do so I thought I'd offer some suggestions.

TheGizmoid's picture

They have: 168 posts

Joined: Apr 2001

Just remembered another one... bravenet.com

Haven't used it, but looks like you can do quite a bit of customizing.

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