Bekka5280

Download and Install Wordpress

As a designer, I found this part rather painful. Wordpress.org does a pretty good job of walking you through step by step, but I found that there were many terms I had not heard before, and some things were just confusing. I’ll start with defining some terms, and you can refer back to this as you go through installation.

MySQL: My Structured Query Language, a Database Management System which is available for both Linux and Windows, known for being open source. This is why wordpress is so popular, because it makes managing a database and web content easy, with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. You will need MySQL from your hosting company in order to use wordpress.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol, the way to get files from your computer to a server where people can access it using the internet
SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol
SSH: Secure shell. A program that allows a user to log into another computer remotely across the Internet, while maintaining complete security.

Step 1: Download the latest version of wordpress from wordpress.org (easy right?) Unzip the folder, save it somewhere where you will remember.

Step 2: Create a database for wordpress on your web server. WHAT??? If you know how to do this, do it and move on, if not, don’t fret, I will walk you through it.

If you are using 1and1 follow these steps: Login to the 1and1 Control Panel. Under Web Space & Access click MySQL Administration. Click the New Database button. Choose a description (maybe name it the same as your blog or just ‘blog’ so you can remember). Then choose MySQL 5.0. Click Setup. Easy! Remember this is where you can find your username and password for access.

These instructions remain about the same for most host sites, the navigation may be a little different, but there you have it, your database it set up!

Step 3: Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.

I hope you can do this… this file is in the wordpress folder you downloaded, you don’t have to open anything, just rename the file. Whew… one more step done.

Step 4: Open wp-config.php in a text editor (TextMate, TextEdit whichever you already have) and fill in your database details. There are instructions inside of this file to help, but I needed clarification, so I will provide it here.

Change DB_NAME to the name you decided in step 2 (you can find this in your control panel, remember the place I told you to remember?) Make sure you just type ‘in between the quote marks’ and that it matches the name you created exactly.

DB_PASSWORD same deal, look it up if you forgot and type between the quotes.

DB_HOST for this one, go back to your control panel and look what it says for Host Name, if you are using 1and1 it will probably be something.perfora.net

SECRET_KEY between the quotes ‘put your unique phrase here’ make up a random phrase, you don’t need to remember it, it is used to generate random sequences later.

Don’t change anything else, save it (make sure you are saving the one you renamed). Another step complete.

Step 4: Upload the files. They make this sound so easy (and it is, if you have done it before). Before you start you need to decide if this is going to be the root directory of your website or in a subdirectory. If your blog is going to be at: bekkaiscool.com, then that means you will be uploading to the root directory. If your blog is going to be at: bekkaiscool.com/blog, then that means you will be uploading to a subdirectory.

To Upload: You will need some kind of FTP or SFTP (recommended) client. Some examples (links to store or download site):

• Adobe Dreamweaver can be used for FTP
• Fugu SFTP over SSH for Mac, developed by the University of Michigan
• SmartFTP SFTP over SSH for Windows

Ok, so you have downloaded and installed your FTP client. Now you need to connect to the server in order to upload your wordpress directory (for our purposes the word directory = folder). Open your new software. In the Connect to field type your domain name (you don’t need the http://). Then for username, you need to go back to your control panel and make sure you have SSH available then get your username and password from there. Type in your username and when prompted your password.

Now on one side of the window should be ‘your computer’ and on the other is your ‘remote server.’ You need to open the wordpress folder on your side (local). If you are going to make your blog on your root directory, then select all of the files from the wordpress folder and drag (but don’t just drag the whole folder) into / (blank) on your remote server. The dropdown should look like this:

If you are going to make your blog in a subdirectory do the same thing, but drag the files (not the whole folder though) into /blog (or whatever it is going to be).

You just finished step 4 (this could take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed).

Step 5: The easy part. Go to (insert your site where i put bekkaiscool.com):

• http://bekkaiscool.com/wp-admin/install.php or
  
• http://bekkaiscool.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

Follow the prompts here, like adding the title of your blog, etc. YOU ARE FINISHED (with the installation at least)!