hi guys.

i want to build a website with a forum similar to what mrplc is (but i would like to do one on free energy). can anyone tell me what softwares i will need and maybe a few good study books. i am intermediate at programming so it shouldn't take me long to pick it up i just dont know where to start. i already have a server i bought off ebay. i think i will have to get some changes done with my isp so that my ip adress will stay the same. Nathan and Chris you guys got any suggestions (being you 2 are like walking encyclopedias). thanks a million

free energy? I hope you're not talking referring to meter rigging .

It's not that hard to build - the effort will come in getting visitors. I personally like PHPBB or you could use vBulletin. MrPLC uses Invisionboard. You can subscribe to a cheap web hosting service that automates most of the forum setup. You'll need to do some design work to customize/integrate the "look and feel", but most importantly, content & traffic!

You certainly dont want to host it yourself, like Nathan says buy a hosting package from an ISP that allows you to run one of the boards already mentioned on their servers, i have used PHPBB before, its fairly simple to setup once you have a basic template

nothing illegal Nathan.my site will be on using solar wind and water. converting gas vehicles to electric and things of that nature. I will look in to the sites you guys mention , however I would like to have it run from my house (on solar power) as part of the theme of the site. and I prefer not to have to answer to another company. but due to costs I will have to look at all options. thanks guys

Absolute zero and u have free energy ;)

Hi David,

You should be ok with hosting it yourself as long as you are not selling anything... if you do start to sell then you may want some one else to host it for security reasons, there are a lot of board hackers out there that would love to screw with peoples sites, not a big deal unless there's money involved

David - I was just yankin' your chain! I generally hear those technologies referred to as renewable energy since you still have to purchase startup equipment. Free Energy makes me think of perpetual motion machines and the like - Maybe that's just me being weird.

Your topic sounds like it could be valuable to many, which is really the key to driving traffic. That and traffic drives traffic on forums. For example, current government rebate incentives, battery technology reviews, how selling back to the grid works, panel efficiency, maintenance and lifecycle costs, etc. Presenting useful data is going to be the toughest part by far - anyone can make a site.

On that note, a question I have about electric vehicles. How can you possibly justify them when the bulk of the energy is coming from fossil facilities? Government subsidy is not a good answer to me here. I can't imagine positive plant efficiencies over auto engines overcoming the loss in storage/transfer. The only good I see coming out of them is improving the technology for IF we ever put together a viable energy source. Gov Schwarzenegger, who is leading the nation in these sort of green initiatives, is pushing for a very aggressive goal of 12% renewable energy powering CA by 2012. While models like this set a positive example, they probably aren't cost effective. I support what he's doing, but to me it sounds like pissing in the ocean with respect to the important topics: decreasing our reliance on fossil fuel/foreign oil, controlling our hydrocarbon emissions, etc. But I'm a huge proponent of nuc plants.

It's considerably easier to host your own site these days. I would get it up the easiest possible way, concentrating your efforts on content, then work on shifting it to your own site. Heck, I have enough trouble just keeping up with a blog.

Some considerations/things to do on your own site that would be pretty much addressed with a low cost service:

1. Find a package from the above links. They're all free for you to use and don't require you to do any programming per se. I think they mostly run on PHP.

2. Install a web server (IIS comes with XP Pro) or Apache is free. Install PHP and your application.

3. Set up port forwarding or DMZ settings on your router, firewall policies, and such. You should only need one port and be able to run a firewall on your router and PC.

4. Register a domain with DNS. Ensure that you have a static IP address, or subscribe to a 'dynamic DNS' service. This allows someone to go to 'youraddress.com' instead of a numeric address.

5. Submit your sites to search engines for crawling.

David,
I would also recommend DotNetNuke. We have tried various systems over the years and it seems to be the easiest we have come across for quick updating. It is open source and free plus very easy to setup. There are modules for sale for many different uses (ie, slide shows, video presentation, ecommerce, forums, etc, etc...).

Russell