An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. Web-based forums, which date from around 1995, perform a similar function as the dial-up bulletin boards and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics .

Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards (but see also dial-up bulletin boards), fora (the proper Latin plural) or simply forums.

Culture

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Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. In terms of countable posts, Japan is far in the lead with over two million posts per day on their largest forum, 2channel. The United States does not have any one large forum, but instead several hundred thousand smaller forums, the largest of which are GameFAQs, Gaia Online, and IGN. Other countries such as China, the Netherlands, and France are also home to hundreds of independent forums. Some countries such as Finland and Sweden do not have many prevalent forums despite having open and easily available Internet access. As of yet no study has been done on the prevalence of forums in countries around the world. It is also dubious as to whether any country has its own fora, as - especially in the English language - contributors to a forum often come from outside the country in which the forum is hosted. There is often not a 1-1 relationship between languages and countries: for example, English language fora are contributed to by people all over the world, whilst Japanese language fora are likely to be contributed to only by Japanese people, but Japanese people also contribute to English language fora, so there is no 1-1 relationship between Japanese language fora and Japanese people contributing to fora.

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Linux Today

Backing Up and Restoring TYPO3 Websites
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:30:12 -0000
Packt: "Depending on the operating system we are using, there are a number of different ways in which we can back up the files from TYPO3. In this article, we will look into backing up the files on Windows and on Linux. This is because Windows is the most used operating system, and Linux is the most popular hosting environment for websites."
Installing Dansguardian With Multi-Group Filtering & Squid With NTLM Auth (Debia
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:30:12 -0000
HowtoForge: "This how-to describes how to install and configure Dansguardian with multi-group filtering, Squid with NTLM auth, ipmasq, and dnsmasq to provide a full internet gateway solution for small to medium sized networks. This how-to requires two NICs in order to preform firewalling and transparent proxying."
Encrypt The System Manually Upon Installation (Ubuntu 8.04)
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:30:12 -0000
HowtoForge: "Another howto by me concerning encryption. However this one will be pretty intense on graphics. I have a step-by-step guide on how to do a manual full encryption of the system."
Linux - a disruptive technology?
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:30:12 -0000
ITPro: "Is Linux the disruptive technology, or is it the GNU General Public License which really shook up the open source world?"
Ruiz Out, Meyer In At AMD
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:30:12 -0000
ChannelWeb: "Hector Ruiz is out as chief executive at Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) as the struggling chip maker on Thursday reported its seventh consecutive quarter in the red to the tune of a $1.19 billion loss in the second quarter of this year. Dirk Meyer, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD's president and chief operating officer, has been elected by AMD's board to replace Ruiz as CEO, according to the company."
Third Annual Open Source CMS Award Launched
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:30:12 -0000
Packt: "The Packt Open Source Content Management System Award is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) that have been selected by a panel of judges and visitors to www.PacktPub.com. Now entering its third year, the Award has established itself as an important measure for quality and the popularity of Open Source Content Management Systems."

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