Web Hosting Confusion

I'm not sure what I want to do. To explain what I want to do, let me give one example. I want to have a website that has threaded discussions. (It isn't like a chat room where everybody sees everybody typing each time. Instead there are subject headers and replies to subjects so you can follow the conversation more easily.

There are free places to get this. Such as Bravenet. The problem is I think these are confusing. If we want to start community and create culture, the last thing we need is a confusing discussion board.

However the discussion board at Easum Bandy (which I don't think you can see without a subscription to the site) is much better. It is intuitive. It is intelligent. It is hand written.

So I find myself asking, what do I need to do? What does God want me to do? Well, I do have a college degree in Computer Engineering, and mostly I did Computer Programming with that degree. Maybe God wants me to write my own. Maybe.

I had coffee with a teenager from my church this afternoon, and while I was there I saw a guy who I had introduced myself to before. He is new to town. He looked busy, but I saw a book on his table -- Java script for something. So I went over and asked him some questions, and he explained some stuff about websites that I hadn't understood.

I really want an overall picture of what this web stuff looks like. What does it take to write my own code to do discussion boards. I even think the code used for the Easum Bandy boards is available for free and I could customize it. How much time commitment am I talking about? Is this what God wants me to do with my time? He's giving me mixed signals.

I did find this site - Affordable Internet web site hosting packages for Windows 2000, NT and Microsoft FrontPage from Winsave webhosts - that does seem to have affordable hosting with MS Access database. Do I need SQL? Will Dreamweaver write in Access? This site does support Flash, which I may be able to afford with the non-profit price.

Enough. Smoke is coming out of my ears.