How much of MacRumors is customized?

I don't know for sure, but it doesn't look like there have been any mods done to me, other than a custom skin (duh).

vB3 is an awesome piece of forum software off the shelf.

 

we use vbulletin, not invision powerboard. But most php forum frontends can be customized without too much effort. most of the time it's just a matter of changing one graphic file out with another to suit your needs.

 

Slightly-related question

What kind of hardware does the site run on?

'Where' is this conversation taking place?

Just curious...

 

the conversation's all in your head.

on a couple'a linux boxes. somewhere.

 

This sadly is probably true. Macrumors probably has some company host the site with there hardware.

 

What if someone made a program where there was a central server, and millions of people hosted the site, like a RAID 5 array but using computers as web-servers? That would be neat. Hard to pull off, but neat.

Anyway. Kewl. Linux. Yeah.

 

That would essentially be a evolution of BitTorrent technology. Have a site up, and offer a link for any volunteer to download the site's BitTorrent information, and have it run on their computer, and host all the static files on their computers. The only thing the server really serves are the content. That could be cool.

 

This site needs some choice in custom skins for users.

 

phpBB might be worth looking at too. It's open source. It's popular, you see it used all over the internet, but I don't know how it compares to vBulletin feature-wise.

 

Why is that sad?

 

Guess because MacRumors should be hosting those on several XServe G5s through T3 connections!

I wish...

 

Oh, so that must be why it's always so charming, witty, informative and entertaining...

 

Kind of, yeah. A massive internet-cluster. For larger sites it would be kind of a pain to do, but you don't have to host the entire website-- just need to host, say (using MacRumors example here) two forums. Someone else picks up the rest. But there are also 100s of other people with your same files, so if your hard disk dies then the content is safe.

Updating would be a huge pain in the ass.....hehe

Wow, my conversations look reeeaallllyyy good, too.

 

What's a lot more interesting is (to me at least): How much traffic does this site generate? And do you have to pay for email traffic?

 

Is there a way with vb3 to have a page that offers a list of files for download? I'm thinking of using it for a user's group and sharing various report files.