I've read great things about Joomla and am considering installing it on my hosted account (using the Elefante Script installer).

My host provides a limited number of MySQL databases, so I thought I'd do well to see whether Joomla would manage the design of multiple websites from a single MySQL database.

At this point, the only websites I've ever designed have been from hand-coded HTML and PHP. They have been very rudimentary. I want to see if Joomla will help me design and build a website that allows authorized individuals to post their own content without me having to do it for them.

I googled and found JMS. My question is this: is there anything I need to be aware of when installing the original Joomla script to ensure that JMS will work properly for multiple websites hosted from a single MySQL database.

I have ZERO experience with Joomla (haven't even installed it yet). I just want to make sure I head in the right direction right from the start.

Thank you for your advice.

Before starting, I suggest that you start to have a look in the different video present in the tutorial. www.jms2win.com/tutorial
The video in step 0 present you the concept of Joomla Multi Sites.

For a quick start and see the installation of a Joomla on a master website and after that for a demo, I suggest that you have a look to the video present in the tutorial step 17.
tutorial.jms2win.info/jms11x/hostgator/d...1xInstall/index.html

This is video that show the installation JMS 1.1.x for a demo website and that use a cPanel interface.

You have also screenshot of demo installation present in www.jms2win.com/documentation/doc_downlo...tallation-version-11

When working with a single DB, the key element during the installation of Joomla is the usage of a specific table prefix (ie. master_) instead of the default one 'jos_'.
This is recommended to avoid that you destroy in the future the master website in case where you forget to specify a table prefix for a slave site.

Thank you for your advice. I'll read what you suggested before proceeding.

By the way, my websites are hosted with 50webs.net. Are you familiar with their services, and do you think their infrastructure can support multiple websites hosted from a single MySQL database?

All my websites are very small (the most popular rates a "3" on the Google scale) so I'm hoping their servers can handle the load.

Sorry but I don't know 50webs.net.
So I can not tell you if their infrastructure may work.
I suggest that apply the "hello world" procedure as described in the tutorial step 7
See www.jms2win.com/tutorial/75
This will help you identify if they accept the Symbolic Link

Second element that you have to check is the type of MySQL they use. Is it a MySQL 5.0 or higher ?
If YES, this mean that theorically the JMS sharing functionality could work.

Does they use cPanel product for the hosting administration or does they use their own tools.
Standard cPanel tool has a bug that does not allow define MySQL user with enough privileges to share MySQL table. When working with cPanel and that you are not the administrator of the server, you may have to request the hosting company support to grant your MySQL user manually with enough privileges.

Concerning the workload, JMS has not a very high overhead as the decisiion are prcompute when the slave site are defined.
JMS can very quickly take the decision in production.