Help me get started with website hosting please!

[Jay59express]

I am thinking about making a website for my high school class (class 2000 baby ). I want everyone in the class to have an email address, i.e. First.Last@blahblah.com. I would also like to have a forum so that people can talk, and perhaps a chat.
There are ~75 kids who i graduated with (I know, tiny).
My questions are:
How much space, bandwidth? I am thinking level 2 plan from www.addaction.com?
Domain name? NameCheap.com?
Decent, free forums?
Would this allow my classmates to set up a (small) page of their own?

Any good links for first time webmasters? The only web stuff I have setup is on my universities site so I know nothing about hosting.

Thanks!
--Jay

 

[Cyph3r]

If you're gonna be running a Chat system, forums and also providing "websites" to ~75 kids or so, space and bandwith is going to have to be your priority issues. Bandwidth isn't too bad as most hosting plans usually allow for about 8 gig or more. But space is tricky thing.

So as you are looking at web host plans, be sure to look at the space available and how much it costs to add to it if you need to.

The next thing would be for you to get a plan with unlimited or a large number of POP accounts.

The forums and stuff are easy cuz there are a bunch of free forums software like phpBB, Phorum and so on that you can get.

The thing to do is to first find the appropriate hosting plan with a good hosting company, make sure that they are running scripting like PHP and so on, that will make it very easy for you to make things happen.

Next you might want to look into a Content Management System that will allow you to bring a website up very easily and maintain it nicely and through menus. Programs such as PHPNuke, PostNuke, Slash, and countless others will do the work for you.

The beauty of using these software is that you don't need to know a lot of programming, just use menus and buttons to configure and administer a website.

Regards

 

[notfred]

Why make a website for a high school class that graduated 3 years ago?

 

[Jay59express]

Thanks for all the info cyph3r! I will look into the management tools.

Notfred: I just think it would be a nice place where my classmates can come to talk with one another, and if everyone has an email, it will always be easy to reach that person. I figure the sooner I get it done, the easier it will be to track down people to tell them about it before they move away, etc.