Blog Design Studio

In the last post, I spoke about that why one should choose WordPress as the content management system or as the blogging software and now I’d take up the slight technical issues which might give trouble to new bloggers or may be the ones who are moving to hosted solution for the first time.

Let’s start with installation of WordPress :

There are two ways of installing WordPress; automatic & manual (hah! you thought there was something else too?) Well, I’ll cover both of them to ensure that you get to understand each and every bit of it. Needless to say that automatic way is far simpler than the manual way, however manual way isn’t difficult too -

Automatic installation of WordPress -

a) Installation through CPanel : Many web hosts come with a web space management tool called Cpanel, which also has a module called Fantastico. If a web host provides Fantastico then you are game as it allows you to install WordPress in a matter of 2 minutes.

b) Installation scripts of web hosts : Few web hosts provide automatic installation scripts like fantastico. MediaTemple (MT) is one popular web host and provides such a script. Note 1 : Our blog is hosted on MediaTemple.

Note 2: Generally the auto-installer scripts install the older version of WordPress. It happens because WordPress is actively developed software and they release updated version frequently and webhosts generally update their auto installers a bit late. So check that which version is installed by the auto-installer script and that which one is the current available version.

Note 3 : You can also take the services of Install4Free, a group which does the WordPress installation for you and that too without charging you a cent. We can also help you in doing so, feel free to contact us (fill out the contact us form).

Manual Installation of WordPress -

I’ll write down a step by step guide to ensure that you don’t miss any point at all and that it becomes fairly simple for you to understand the installation too.

1. Download the latest release of WordPress from here.
2. Extract the files using Winzip or any other compression program.
3. Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php
4. Create a new database and username for database management and give it the complete rights for that database.
5. Edit the wp-config.php and make the necessary changes related to the database username, password and database name.
6. Upload the files to your desired location on the webserver (using any FTP program, I prefer Filezilla). If you want the blog on root level then put it in the folder called public_html (its not necessary that you’ll have public_html folder, however normally that’s what you get. If you don’t know that which is the public folder of your web hosting account then you’ll need to ask your web host). If you want the blog address as http://yourdomain.com/blog/ then create a new folder in public_html folder called blog and upload all the files in it.
7. Run the installation script by accessing the installation URL from your favorite web browser. If you uploaded the wordpress files on the root then point your browser to the following url : http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php
8. Follow the 2 step wizard and you’ll be done.
9. Don’t forget to delete or rename the install.php file after you’ve finished the installation. That’s advisable for security purposes.

Trust me all these steps won’t take more than 5 minutes of yours. If at all you get stuck at any point of time, don’t worry as we are always there to help you or drop your questions at wordpress forums or irc.