So, you’ve got your domain and hosting? Well, it’s time to install WordPress. What is WordPress? It’s an extremely versatile and easy to use blogging package. WordPress is used to power a lot of blogs. This site utilizes WordPress. It’s extremely easy to operate, once you install it? Up to the challenge? It’s not much of one if you’ve ever installed web scripts before (even if you haven’t, it’s not that hard). With this tutorial, I have no doubt that you will be able to do it. Shall we get started?
First, we need to head over to www.Wordpress.org (remember, “.org”). Now click the link conveniently labeled “Download”. Now, all you have to do is click the blue button marked “Download .zip”. Just save the .zip file to an easily found spot on your computer (like your desktop). Once it’s downloaded, you have to unzip the file. On Windows XP, you right-click the ZIP file and choose “Extract All…”. Just go through the wizard (next…next…next, *yawn*). You should end up with another folder, this one named WordPress-2.2, or something of the sort. Note: If you’re using older versions of Windows, like Windows 98, then you’ll need to download a program called WinZip to extract the file.
Now, find the file called “wp-config-sample.php”. Rename it to “wp-config.php”, then open it up in Notepad, or another plain-text editor. Ah, you see? There are places to enter login information for a MySQL database. This is probably the most technical part of the installation.
Before you can proceed further, you need a MySQL Database. Any good host will offer at least one. The process to create one varies, so you may have to ask your host. Here’s how to create a database on 1and1 (which I recommend for a host).
- Login to your 1and1 account.
- Click the icon on the “Administration” tab marked “MySQL Administration”.
- Click the button labeled “New Database”.
- In 10 minutes or so, the database will be ready. All the required info will be shown on your current page (just refresh the page every five minutes or so, until the Status says “ready”).
Once you’ve obtained the database details, you need to paste them into wp-config.php. There should be a line like:
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘); // The name of the database
Just paste the database name, from 1and1 (or whatever host you use) into the spot where it says putyourdbnamehere. The rest of the line must stay intact, including the quote marks. It should look something like this:
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘db016182439′); // The name of the database
Repeat the cut-and-paste process for the rest of the configuration lines pertaining to the database. Note, where it says:
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
If you use 1and1, then this is that remaining 1%. You need to get the database host from 1and1’s database administration page.
Once you have all the info entered, it should look like the following:
<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘db016182439′); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘dbo937173535′); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘2GnBzUkE’); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘db879.perfora.net’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);
Now save the file and close it, your done editing it. That wasn’t too hard, was it? That was the hardest part of the installation, right there. Moving along.
Now that you’ve edited the wp-config.php file, you’re ready to upload everything to the server. You’ll need an FTP client, like FileZilla. You can find a tutorial on FTP here, though it’s a little old. Anyway, what you do now is you FTP the entire contents of your WordPress folder to the root of your hosting. Why the root (top level)? So if someone types www.yourdomain.com, they get your blog. This is not a tutorial on FTP (maybe I should write one…).
Are all the files FTP’ed? If so, then it’s time to start the installation wizard! We’re getting close to the finish line!
To start the installation, point your browser to www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php.
All you have to do now, is follow the onscreen instructions, which boils down to the following:
- Click the “First Step” link.
- Enter the name of your blog.
- Enter your email address (it must be valid!).
- Click the “Continue to Second Step” button.
- Wait, while WordPress does some work in the background, creating database tables. Once it says “Finished”, it will allow you to proceed.
- Note the password shown. You’ll need that to login the first time.
- Once you’ve written the password down, click the “Log in” link.
- Enter “admin” as the username, and put the random password you wrote down into the “password” field.
Welcome to WordPress! Technically, WordPress is installed. However, there’s one more step you need to do before anything else. You don’t want it to be that much of a pain to log in next time, do you? I didn’t think so. Click the link marked “Users”. Scroll down until you see the header “Add New User”. Enter a username for yourself, then fill in the name, email, and password (your real name and website are optional. You don’t have to enter them if you don’t want). Select “Administrator” from the “Role” dropdown. Click “Add User”, and you have a nice new account. Log out of the dorky “Admin” account, and you can re-login with your custom account.
Your finished installing WordPress! You should be able to access your blog by going to www.yourdomain.com. That wasn’t too hard, was it? So…what now? Tomorrow, you’ll learn how to configure WordPress’s many settings. Sound like fun? Well, I enjoy editing settings…
