[madechidna]

Hi everyone. So I made a topic about my exploits with win98 autopatcher, kernel EX, revolutions pack and such at a forum I go to, and there's been a pretty active and interested response. One of the members there suggested something that I'm seriously interested in perusing, IE a website specifically dedicated to up to date Windows 98 software. It would be a database of the last versions of software that work on 9x, and also tools and patches. I'd like it to be similar to bebits.com, is how I imagine it.

The reason I'm posting here is I need help figuring out what server side software I should use. I'm not a coder so I can't just "make" the site, I need to install something like joomla or whatever to run it. So what do you guys think would be best to power such a site?

[Kelsenellenelvian]

You mean something like this?

http://www.mdgx.com/

[madechidna]

Kelsenellenelvian, on 01 June 2010 - 03:11 PM, said:

You mean something like this?

http://www.mdgx.com/

Yeah, something like that, but a bit more streamlined. The guy who runs that seems to take the mad scientist approach and while there's nothing wrong with that, I'd prefer something that's a bit more simple that's powered by some kind of database backend and PHP rather than something that has to be hand updated, and that also supports user uploads and such.

[BenoitRen]

Unfortunately, most server-side backends suck. It's often not even a good idea to use them, as most of the content is still static, yet a lot of websites keep re-generating the same pages.

Since when was hand-crafted HTML a mad scientist's skill? How rude. I remember the days when pretty much everyone hand-crafted their pages and they got along just fine, even if not everyone had a good sense of style. Remember GeoCities?

There's a reason most websites that use a server-side backend suck; they don't know what they're doing.

[shae]

madechidna: The best way to see what works for you might be to try multiple CMS options and see which one suits you. There was also site, don't recall its name now, that allowed you to experiment with the administrator-side of various server softwares (CMSes, forums, etc). But I think you'd find more advice on that in webmaster-specific forums.

BenoitRen: It's not a bad idea making DB-based sites or using CMSes. It makes management much easier and global changes simple. There's also nothing wrong with regenerating pages if the site is responsive enough (but anyway, caching is quite common).

[Fredledingue]

I did it for w98se updates.
http://www.htasoft.c...e_post_usp4.php

I designed the php code myself, much smaller and much more efficient than pre-built freewares.
The only thing I have to do is to upload the files via HTP and they appear in the list.

If you want I can give you a slightly modified copy of this page (the php file) so that you can do the same on your website or collaborate on my website (as long as my bandwidth permits). Or both.