When I created it in the header/footer...it made it large and kinda narrow..I had it at 300x500...wasn't sure which size to pick..I wanted it across the top..and the shoutbox was plain and boring..no emoticons showed..got it from freeshoutboxes...Did I choose right?
Decide where you want the Shoutbox to be on your forum.
In your Header or Footer: Admin > Manage Styles > Edit Header/Footer
In a board description: Create a board for the shoutbox, paste the shoutbox code in the boards description area.
Its nice to do it this way as you can limit who can see it by the boards permissions.
In a Portal block: Make an html block and put the code in there.