best dedicated server website host for a multipurpose site for my interests etc ....

[b0redom]

I would steer clear of dedicated hosting TBH. The overhead is way too much - can you really be bothered to patch everything constantly yourself? Are you a security paranoid who can spot rootkits which have been dropped on there etc etc.

Most of the stuff you are talking about can be managed with something like Drupal.

Do you really mean streaming audio and video, or just having it for download?

If you've got your heart set on having a dedicated box, I'd look at getting a static IP address at home and setting up your router to forward requests to it - if you're only prototyping with a few users - that could be the way forward.

One final point would be that you don't need anything even vaguely approaching a Xeon for serving. You'll most probably be using a Linux distro and Apache which will happily run with spare capacity on an 800Mhz P3....

[weebroonieuk]

i never said i needed any xeon or dedicated servers , i never said it will just be a forum either .....one minute im wanting it to do too many things the next im only wanting it for a forum ???


i cant be bothered with portforwarding through my router as the router is just a linksys wifi router its nowt special and isp is ukonline so every other month or soo it needs the plug pulled sometimes more often , hosting a site myself would only slow down my own and girlfriends experience and as for spending money on her she actually makes a hell of alot more than me and ive just got her a new convertable for her 30th so i think it will be her thats spending the cash on me for a bit as im skint now!

i said it would ideally be a social site with profiles and chat for linking up my mates and in turn them linking theres just like all the other sites do what i want for myself is a forum for various stuff

as im not much of an chatroom person myself i would use a forum more but would be nice if i could stick in a chatroom aswell

as for media streaming just wondering what kind of machine id need as obviously it will be empty till i get people online if i or anyone sticks up video clips for instance i reckon they consume alot of your bandwidth and speed , , im well aware i can run a webserver on a p3 etc , hell i could buy one the gumstix computers and use one of them or even the rj45 connector with a server built in ..... will it handle me having a small social site with a forum have seperate userspace for me so i can have proper reliable backups of my computer and store files i feel i want to keep ofline and held alot more safely than i ever could

and updating and patching ? emm thats why i would be getting a managed server as all this is done for you and make sure the whole os kernal and epps and security patches are all done for you ....... well thats what just about all the deciated sites promise for their managed servers ...

maybe now my posts are so big people arent quite reading them as thoroughly as the first few who replied


haveing been told the cost and seen it many times now and know its not exactly newbie friendly because it costs me money fact is i probably could make money with it and whatnot doesnt bother me

god a round a drinks in a club is 40 quid .....never mind everything else im very good at wasting money on

i have a thing for anything with an engine and motorsport, o shudder when i think of the money ive spent on cars tuning them or sportsbikes and ofroad bikes and quads all of which constantly lose value , become scrap when u crash them .... lol

lets say its around 50 quid less to pi ss against the wall each month and give me something to "play" with or perhaps run if it needs the work and will be something else i can learn about

[Iain M]

oops meant pxe boot atleast i think it is booting from a network connection just wondered if i could boot from my own site

It's not that I didn't understand what you meant (even tho I don't ), I don't know what PXE boot is ....

i dont particularly want to end up like faceparty theres too much competition and im most definatly inexperienced to handle something like that

I agree that competing (or trying to) would be very hard work, and would require someone with a great deal of experience, the only reason I mentioned "faceparty type sites..." is because from what I understood from your first post, was that you wanted a faceparty like site

had a look around the scaraweb like some of the power series

I've got one of there Power Series servers, and as I said I've had no problems with them

i dont think i will be advertising it inless i have a lightbulb moment and think of something usefull with potential as i know there is people who meliciously click on companys adds to add more cost to the company

I didn't/don't really advertise my site, just have a link to it in my sig on some forums, and one of my sites has done well I believe (about 50 new registrations daily, about 12,500 unique hits a month, and about 300,000 page views a month ), because this site is a unique market it gets alot of "word of mouth" advertising

There are a few people/companies who do/will try and sabotage your "business" by clicking your ads, most advertising companies can track this and you won't be charged for the "invalid clicks", that's the Internet for you...

might be wrong though but the minute i try an make money from something like that and advertising it would be just my luck for some sort of outfit to beat me to the ground as ive not had any real hands on html and running a website experience but we all gotta start somewhere

To be perfectly honest you don't really need to know HTML/coding to make money from your site, but it is a great help if you do, then you can add unique features to your site which no other sites have ,

When I started my main site, I didn't have any previous experience of running a site, I just played around on free hosts then jumped to paid shared hosting, then made a jump to dedicated, I did have a lot of trouble with shared hosting, that was mainly because of the rate at which the sites traffic was growing, I would suggest to anyone who starts (or is thinking of starting) a site, and expecting a high amount of traffic, if they can afford a dedicated server straight away then go for it...

You are correct about "we all got to start somewhere", it is the only way to gain experience...

i have a few cunning plans that i could make a nice earner if i decide to but will see once ive dipped my toe in the water

(Almost) Everyone who starts a site is really looking to make money from it, but what most people don't realise is that you have to put the money and time in, before you will earn a (fairly) decent amount...

im definately a pointy click for this kinda thing but i know you get "web templates" etc and site building software

There are a few "point and click" (WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get) template editors/site builders, I can't recommend any off the top of my head, I just code it all manually

oh for help with costs i think il be signing up for google checkout as its rates are very good and mates or whoever can chip in , or i might just leave it and take paypal donations an cash from mates

I would really too much on donations from your site, your mates would be a better option

another little thought..... now an then i logout and click some adds in here i doubt they pay for users clicks and if i logon from elsewhere i do the same, i dont do it alot as i dunno if google accept lots of clicks from the same ip address but like to put my bit in now and then , could my mates do this for me even just once when i dish out the invites to join ?

If google notice a click pattern they will ban you without hesitation, so my suggestion is to not tell anyone to click the ads, you will find it difficult to find another ad network which is as good as google.

oh and video audio streaming would be nice

I believe there is a video/audio streaming addon for vBulletin aswell

and would i be right in thinking that i could run a torrent application, probably not azureus as its getting rather bloated so something like utorrent ?

again I believe there is a torrent/torrent tracker addon for vBulletin

or maybe just plain old download links from other sights could i somehow point my server to it and have it download it onto the server ??

Ummm... I think there is a program/script called rapidleech or something which downloads files from other servers to yours, however I don't think much sites would appreciate this and may start "attacking" your server, if they find out.

currently scouting around that webhostingtalk forum plenty of decent offers but i guess i should stick with the metered tarrifs as some of them sound too good to be true sent a quick message to the planet and going to look through the beachcomber shortly

Unmettered is only really for high bandwidth sites, like rapidshare, megaupload e.t.c, so you are correct to look for metered, you get a decent amount of bandwidth with metered anyway

I think most of the offers on WHT, are genuine offers, so you don't really have to worry about "fake" offers too much.

is there any sort of dedicated ones with the metropolis features of godaddy? = free modules of which can be added fairly easily to the site i may take up there sort of thing for a month or so and get the feel of it as im sure they offer dedicated servers with this feature

cPanel/WHM have this feature, well truelly it's cPanel, but you choose from WHM which scripts you want to allow to be installed with one click via cPanel.

and seen some temptingly specced machines dual core xeons 3gb of ram 2tb of space 2.5gb transfer and so on ... i know i wont need anything like that but i am a spec freak, need to concentrate more on storage and speed!

True you definetly don't need something like that.

as im not much of an chatroom person myself i would use a forum more but would be nice if i could stick in a chatroom aswell

There are chat room addons for vBulletin


I think that's pretty much answered all your questions while I was offline, if I missed anything just say


I agree with Splash to some extent, as in you should have some sort of plan down on paper with what is essential, and what isn't. I know you have stated what you want and what isn't essential in this thread, which is good

You should have a plan with everything that is needed, when what is needed is completed and you have thought of more things then they can get worked on


Iain

[Mr Pants]

Consider a dedicated server very carefully; I got one for my clan and rent out the extra space to other clans, I just do game servers and Teamspeak.

Web hosting is a completely different ball game and opens up a lot more security issues.

And its all good and well saying you can get a dedicated server for £40, but managed as well; you can expect to pay £50 to £80 for a decent managed service, you have to read the details very carefully to see what is managed.

You can get 'semi managed' services but again you have to check and see what they will provide.

[weebroonieuk]

lol thanks ian i think i will fire up vmware and see if i can trial vbulletin or as i said download some of the ready to deploy virtual machines and try administering and some cpanel demo's if possible

i dont deny the fantasy of earning millions from "just a website" but as you say and i know theres plenty crooks on the net and plenty of server attacks etc and generaly alot of peolple out to make a quick buck, i think the space for doing anything to differentiate what id like in a website and the thousands already out there

i moved too slow in this respect

if the site paid for itself i couldnt care less if there was an easy eniough billing system, i reckon a quid or 2 per month would be more than enough after i get a few mates onboard who would have no problem in helping if i needed it

also the salesmen seem to be open to a fair bit of haggling in the wht forum and some really good deals are posted and then some users hussle even more and get even better deals!

some very usefull links and advice and if this cpanel that i keep hearing about can do some 1 click install of scripts etc that would be dandy! well i know it wont be that easy but i dare say theres probably alot better tools for new uesers like myself than there ever was so i reckon i could put something fairly decent together (hopefully!)

and with vbulletin being so versatile and looks fairly easy to deploy should keep me busy !

[Iain M]

np

You can get a 24hr trial of vBulletin here: http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php

and demo's of cPanel and WHM here: http://www.cpanel.net/products/cPane...try_cp_whm.htm

also the salesmen seem to be open to a fair bit of haggling in the wht forum and some really good deals are posted and then some users hussle even more and get even better deals!

that's whats so good about WHT

some very usefull links and advice and if this cpanel that i keep hearing about can do some 1 click install of scripts etc that would be dandy! well i know it wont be that easy but i dare say theres probably alot better tools for new uesers like myself than there ever was so i reckon i could put something fairly decent together (hopefully!)

and with vbulletin being so versatile and looks fairly easy to deploy should keep me busy !

cPanel and vBulletin are great software and I find them very easy to use and configure, if you need help with anything just ask


Iain

[Tarffie]

Start small. If you're dipping your toe in, then go for shared hosting. A dedicated server for what you want to do is MASSIVE overkill. You'll find that you'll use no where near enough of the server resources with a message board and a few other experimental websites. Even if the site does get big enough to warrant a dedi. server, which sounds unlikely, then it's not hard to move it across anyway.

Be careful with WHT, I only use it to read on the user's experiences and recommendations and steer clear of the Offers forums, personally. Like the rules there state "You must have 10 (ten) posts and 7 (seven) days of membership before starting a thread within." That's nothing. Anyone can post random BS, wait a week and put an advert up.

[Mr Pants]

Be careful with WHT, I only use it to read on the user's experiences and recommendations and steer clear of the Offers forums, personally. Like the rules there state "You must have 10 (ten) posts and 7 (seven) days of membership before starting a thread within." That's nothing. Anyone can post random BS, wait a week and put an advert up.

Well yes, if someone has a low post rating and posts junk all the time then I would be very careful. If they have a proper company site and contact details, 100 posts in the offer section with decent feedback then you can be very sure that it is a proper company.

[Lourdes]

WHT is almost exclusively junk. Even outside the fofer forus there are so many fake accounts to mislead people.

[Iain M]

Be careful with WHT, I only use it to read on the user's experiences and recommendations and steer clear of the Offers forums, personally. Like the rules there state "You must have 10 (ten) posts and 7 (seven) days of membership before starting a thread within." That's nothing. Anyone can post random BS, wait a week and put an advert up.

Well yes, if someone has a low post rating and posts junk all the time then I would be very careful. If they have a proper company site and contact details, 100 posts in the offer section with decent feedback then you can be very sure that it is a proper company.

I figured the OP would have enough common sense to know that themself, which is why I didn't mention anything