Gerbilkit

Hello everyone. I am looking for a fairly cheap webhost that doesn't offer too much bandwidth/space, but it must include PHP/MySQL. I will be expanding some coding projects, a PHPbb forum, and a small online community on this site. As well as some basic fan pages for different books I like. I have never paid for hosting before, as I always had good free hosting. Now though I am going to pay and I want to make sure I get a good package that is not a ripoff or swindle. Thanks.  ;D

It just seemed like it would take up more DB space, which can be limited at times. Oh well I guess I'll keep using this. I'm not the greatest at normalization and the like but I keep learning. :)

I am working once again on PHP/MySQL. And I decided to revive my old project of trying to code a blog. Problem is I'm not sure which direction I should go. Previously I stored articles directly in the database in text format. But now I am wondering whether it might be better to create a file to store the articles in and load them into a template with a PHP include statement. Any feedback or advice would be appreciated.

[!--quoteo(post=378535:date=May 30 2006, 06:10 PM:name=homchz)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(homchz @ May 30 2006, 06:10 PM) [snapback]378535[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] It can be but you should be able to limit what they can and cannot use. [/quote] I thought that was the purpose of bbcode. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/unsure.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":unsure:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"unsure.gif\" /]

[!--quoteo(post=378531:date=May 30 2006, 05:50 PM:name=homchz)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(homchz @ May 30 2006, 05:50 PM) [snapback]378531[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] If you create a db table with a text or blob, then use the nl2br() function it will insert line breaks for every return, and if you use regular html codes like <b> </b> they will work instead of needing bbcode. [/quote] But I though letting users use HTML was dangerous. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":huh:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"huh.gif\" /]

Well I guess images aren't [i]essential[/i] but they would be nice. The more flexibility they have a higher quality application it is. Of course then again all images would have to be approved by me in the first place. ;) I tried downloading wordpress but there were so many files I had trouble even knowing where to start looking. I wasn't too interested in the myraid of extra features. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":wink:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"wink.gif\" /] But the users must at least have the flexibility to create some basic text formatting, paragraphs, and headers and whatnot. I guess I'll go ahead and dig out some bbcode tutorials. Can't seem to find a better idea. *sigh* So I guess I can take heart that I am trying something worthwhile. Either that or hit myself for being insane... [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/laugh.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":laugh:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"laugh.gif\" /]

Well I am trying to code a dynamic blog application from the ground up. I am not that good at PHP/ MySQL. But I know enough to keep going. What I am totall confused on now is how you display the blog articles? Right now all I have is a query that brings out a single variable 'varchar' into one long article. Unfortunately this adds little flexibility. How do users add images, text formatting, paragraphs, headings, etc. Do I have to try some bbcode style editer where they must hope they got all their tags right? Is it normally even done with database variables? Or should the users be able to create html files. Also wouldn't it be dangerous to let users add files? As I would use an include statement and I think that makes it part of the script therefore making me susceptible to SQL injection hacks. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/unsure.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":unsure:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"unsure.gif\" /] All the friends I have asked who have more experience merely urged me to download wordpress, and assured me I was going about it too complicated. But I still want to try it on my own. So anyone who has the time I would greatly appreciate some help. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":smile:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]