Fantastico Script Installer

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The Benefits of Fantastico Script Installer
Here's another great feature from Bluehost. Using Bluehost was the first time I ran into Fantastico. Once you log into your account control panel, you can find the Fantastico icon toward the bottom, usually about the fourth row from the last. What's so awesome about Fantastico is that it allows you to install a large number of scripts by basically clicking on the script you want and then hitting install. You usually have to pick a name for the folder you want it to install in, and you have to come up with a user name and password. The hardest thing you'll have to do is choose the script, from the list of popular scripts, that you want to run on your website. After you've installed your favorite script, you should check back occasionally, as it will let you know when there are updates available and will ask you to click on the upgrade link Always back up your files! The last time I updated drupal, it asked if I wanted to backup the old setup, which I did. It was a good thing too because there apparently was a bug in the latest update. I was able to go back to the original installation, thankfully. I even backup the database sql files that the scripts usually run on just to be safe.

The Fantastico section currently has lots of great scripts, many of which I haven't even had to chance to implement into my websites. The few I really have loved is the previously mentioned Drupal. This script allows you to run blogs, incorporate news feeds, allow comment posting, and even comes with an RSS feed so you can submit your blog section to all the rss feed submission sites out there. I've even started incorporating it into my static pages using Carp, which is great for putting news feeds into your website.

Here is a list of the cool scripts you will find. For just blogs there's b2evolution, Nucleus, pMachine Free, and WordPress. For content management you have Drupal (which you can use for blogging as well), Geeklog, Mambo Open Source, PHP-Nuke, phpWCMS, phpWebSite, Post-Nuke, Siteframe, Typo3, and Xoops.

There are some customer relationship scripts including: Crafty Syntax Live Help, Help Center Live, osTicket, PHP Support Tickets, Support Logic Helpdesk, and Support Services Manager.
Here are a couple of discussion Boards - phpBB2 and SMF.
E-Commerce scripts include CubeCart, OS Commerce, and Zen Cart.

And the rest of the scripts go like this -

F.A.Q. -FAQMasterFlex
Guestbooks - ViPER Guestbook
Hosting Billing - AccountLab Plus and phpCOIN
Image Galleries- 4Images Gallery, Coppermine Photo Gallery, and Gallery
Mailing Lists - PHPlist
Polls and Surveys - Advanced Poll, phpESP and PHPSurveyor
Project Management - dotProject and PHProjekt
Site Builders - Soholaunch Pro Edition and Templates Express
Wiki - TikiWiki and PhpWiki

Other Scripts - Dew-NewPHPLinks, Moodle, Noahs Classifieds, Open-Realty, phpAdsNew, PHPauction, phpFormGenerator, and WebCalendar

Keep in mind that most of these are free, but some of these scripts have to be licensed particularly for commercial sites. My personal favorites are free though.

Here are some of the free programs I have used so far.

Drupal
You can find an example of Drupal at http://tvcrazy.net/forum/, and if you look at the home page http://www.tvcrazy.net/, you can see the RSS feed being put to good use toward the bottom. One word of warning, do not allow posting of comments by unregistered users. You will eventually be spammed big time by gambling sites. It seems that simply requiring them to register, at least so far has kept them at bay. Seeing 1,000 gambling links in your comments is not unusual if you allow unregistered guests to post comments. Here is an example of the RSS feed it produces XML feed .

Phpbb Message Board
This one is also totally free and installation, of course, is a breeze with Fantastico. Here is an example of a message board hosted on Bluehost . This is the most popular message board on the net. It's even got a bad word filter which you need from time to time with a public forum.

Image Gallery
Here is an example of a Coppermine photo gallery I haven't really done much with, but you can get the basic idea with it.

Classifieds
Here is an example of a classified ads section for cars. Feel free to post your car.

Please keep in mind, the Bluehost tech support department doesn't support any of these scripts. They are just made available for the benefit of their customers as a convenience. Like I said before, Fantastico makes installation a breeze. So playing with these scripts once their installed is all that's left and it can be a lot of fun.

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