I've had an idea I've been kicking around for a few months. In a nutshell, it's along the lines of an online "flea market" or classified ads for computer geeks. I have many grandiose ideas for it but it will probably end up being a hobby site for me. The main idea is to put people in touch so they can unload their old stuff w/o the hassle of eBay. Kinda like an online "Goodwill" for computer people.

Initially I thought about using MySQL and PHP to create a "product database" and handcode the web site (because I'm too cheap to get Dreamweaver right now). My idea included having separate catagories for products such as Hardware, Software, and Books with subcatagories like motherboards, printers, games, programming guides, etc.

Then I thought that perhaps I'm putting too much work into it. That's why I'm asking this question. Rather than making a totally custom site, what other options are there? I'm currently thinking about using phpBB, but I don't know if a "forum" design would be ideal for what's essentially classified ads.

I'm not adverse to making a custom site. I just forgot what a pain it is to hand-code HTML and databases.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

You might check out hotscripts to see what they offer. I am sure you can find a free classified ad script that you can use / customize instead of building it from scratch.

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Corey
Merchant Accounts | Toll Free Virtual Solutions | My Merchant Account Blog

Cool, thanks. I'll look into it.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

The way I see it, you have to decide if it's a hobby site or a "made-for-money" site very early on.

If the objective is to make one that will hopefully make you some pocket-change, go the way of something already available at places like hotscripts and such.

If it's a hobby site, ALL the fun is in the creating. I love creating sites - if at the end of it the website becomes popular and takes off, it's just icing.

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J de Silva
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