You feel like getting your own domain, and you signup for a hosting plan. You want a WordPress blog but don’t know where to start. Now what? You can always download the latest WordPress release and upload to your host. And start to do the installation manually, just like how you setup a WordPress blog in your own local computer.

Most hosting plans include a bundle of pre-install scripts in your control panel (eg. CPanel, DirectAdmin). There are several script library like Fantastico, Installatron, etc. (depends on your host provider). To make life easier, you can always install your WordPress blog via the script installer. Learn how to install WordPress using Fantastico. It’s more or less the same for other script installer.

Now you have WordPress installed, and you probably don’t want to stick to the default K2 theme, which looks so plain and not attractive. Although content is the king, first impression is also very important. What to do next? Search for your desire WordPress theme! There are plenty of free themes available. But please beware of free themes provided by less trustful source. (hacker can encrypt codes in the theme and easily access your blog.) [...more]

Tags: tool

Did you buy a domain and get your Wordpress blog hosted there? It is always a nice idea to also make your computer a local server, and install Wordpress in it. I always encourage my blogger friends to have Wordpress installed in their local computer.

Why? Because you can easily customize your theme, test out plugins and other features of Wordpress, before you upload the whole thing or implement the plugins that you are going to use, to your host. You can see the result almost instantly, as localhost connection is always faster.

If you ask me how do I customize my blog theme, I will tell you that, I have a local server installed in my computer which is not open to public and I can just preview any changes I made easily without disturbing my current online blog theme.

All you need is a web server application, Apache, MySQL database and PhpMyAdmin application.  There are several open source all-in-one web server application you can choose from. I would suggest you to use WAMP or XAMPP. [...more]

Tags: tool