I started Cupid Post online dating service two years ago, I need something to spend my spare time with. After months of research and procrastinating I took the plunge and launched a completely free online dating site. Why free, well how else could I compete for membership given that the internet was saturated with dating websites.
Originally I decided to build a Windows 2003 server to host Cupid Post, but eventually I decided to go with Red Hat Linux 9. The reason for my change in direction was because Linux was free and came with a lot of other free software, such as PHP, Mysql, sendmail, ftp, apache etc. Well I had never used Linux before and was pretty strong on the Microsoft platform. But I decided that I could learn as I went along, fifteen years of experienced in information technology had taught me that the beast way to learn a program is to actually do it. I decided that this would be a good way for me to finally learn Linux.
Well, I downloaded Redhat 9, burnt the ISO images onto CDs and started installing it on my newly built server. After many versions of trial and errors I finally had it installed and configured just the way I wanted. It was not an easy task, I bought Linux books, and read many documentation on the internet. The end result was a server configured with Raid 1, tape drive, Apache, vftp, PHP, mysql, sendmail and squirrel mail. It took another month of work before I had the online dating website launched.
