I was wondering where I could acquire a website like this one with a search engine and database...

Sorry for off-topic of mining, but am hoping Simon will reply

Kind regards Tin Miner

I was wondering where I could acquire a website like this one with a search engine and database...

Sorry for off-topic of mining, but am hoping Simon will reply

Kind regards Tin Miner

Acquire? A website will only be as good as whatever content you put on it, and the content will by and large dictate how the thing is built. WordPress is a pretty good, free, customisable system that covers most bases. But depending on what's going to be on the 'website' there could be loads of other free systems that might be better suited to whatever your need is.

Or you can joining the murky world of coding and forget what it was to have a social life and write one from scratch! 😮

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Thank you for your reply. I'm after one similar in style as this site as it's easy to navigate. I am looking at building a database on it and storing images. I'm happy with coding...

Any pointers and advice most welcome - thanks in advance

Regards Tin Miner

Well this one was built by Simon ( and Miles built his.)
If you want to just build a website with images, that is easy.
If you want a forum platform then you can buy software / hosting.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=36179 

If you're happy with coding then get coding :thumbup: :)

Choose your platform. PHP and MySQL or .NET and MS SQL. Neither is "right", neither is "wrong". It just depends where you learnt.

If you want to do it in a half baked way install Wordpress and then endless plugins until you've got something that's approximately what you want. But if you got that way accept that the finished site will always be a bit of a compromise and.

Also remember you'll have certain legal obligations such as the requirement to state your cookie policy and obligations under data protection such as safeguarding users' data.

And if you're accepting user content then be absolutely sure you've got a good system of server backups in place. You can't rely on cheap hosting for this. The server AN sits on has a service level agreement for the hardware and the operating system; and a backup system that backs the entire machine up every night; with multiple restore points and the facility to do everything from a bare metal reinstall to restoring a single file.

And then - as ebgb says - prepare to give up every free minute of your life :lol:

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For what is worth I use old copy of Microsoft Frontpage and Microsoft Expression Web for uploading.
Anyone who tells you it wont work is talking rubbish because I do it.
For Frontpage to work as is, the server will need Frontpage Server Extensions installed on an (expensive) Windows server.
Expression Web will upload to a now cheap Linux server. I rent from easily.co.uk for £25 a year. The difference between £25 "Beginner pack" obviously no good because the nice salesman tells us its for beginners, and "Professional" check book out pack is the disk space you get. None of my webs use a fraction of the available diskspace.

However, its obvious that if you are running a forum this requirement will increase but you can start with El Cheapo and upgrade later.

Important with my system is to do everything even the slightest update in FrontPage and ONLY use Expression to upload, else Expression will screw things up.

One of the best ways to learn anything is by experimentation, beats all the text book theory in the world.

This methodology will enable cost effective presentable webs, but remember that you will never get the standard that a web profession such as Simon produces. There was a thread on this a while ago if someone can put the link in.

EDIT
Interleaved with Simon. There you are, advice from a pro

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Visual Studio Community Edition - completely free, and perfect for web projects:

https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx 

SQL Server Express Edition - completely free

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/server-cloud/products/sql-server-editions/sql-server-express.aspx 

All the tools you need for MS based web development.

Similar exist for LAMP based development.

Or start with something like Wordpress, it's a quick and easy fix. If you can live with all the issues.

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Disc space 🙂

199 Gb site files

450 Mb database files

:o

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Or start with something like Wordpress, it's a quick and easy fix. If you can live with all the issues.

I think its all part of a wider issue of attempting to dumb down processes that need a degree of skill, be it simply editing a photograph or professionally developing a website, to a degree where anyone can do it. Except that it all goes bottom up.

Evidence, uploaded photos that are on their side, and websites with empty bullet headings and "State" and "Zipcode" for an address in Hampshire UK.

This post could start something!

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Wordpress is OK. It probably represents half of all web sites deployed these days.

It's out of the box security is poor, and it has a terrible database structure - it was only ever conceived as a blogging platform.

If you just want a basic web site then it's easy to install and easy to start blogging / adding articles. You could be up and running in half a day. There are a million and one themes out there that can be installed - some bad, some good and many excellent.

But if you want to do anything clever with it you will still need to be halfway decent at HTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL. Ditto if you want to create your own theme and don't want your site to look identical to 10,000 other sites.

But WP + stock themes ain't web design. Far too many people out there now calling themselves designers and developers doing nothing more than creating shoddy sites using stock themes. If you want something to do something very specific then bespoke development is still the way to go IMO.

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But WP + stock themes ain't web design. Far too many people out there now calling themselves designers and developers doing nothing more than creating shoddy sites using stock themes. If you want something to do something very specific then bespoke development is still the way to go IMO.

the only way to go really.

Wordpress is the best of a bad bunch really. All the online website builder things are appalling (wix, moonfruit that sort of thing) and should be avoided

ultimately what we all want is control, the only way to get control is indeed to do it yourself from the ground up. Although I do get a miffed when things like php suddenly decide to depricate things I've liked and used for years!

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Many thanks for the advice... very much appreciated

Regards Tin Miner