Blog Ware To Use?

[FrankT]

By the way, I did a quick check of http://install4free.wordpress.com/ and I believe it's perfectly safe. You do have to give them your domain password, but you can change it when they're done.

[SharyHorton]

I wrote them yesterday and they have not yet replied. Am busy with another project right now,, but will try and get to this a little later,,, I am sure what you told me will at least help... Will keep you posted,,, LOVE your sense of humor,,, Thanks bunches,
shary

[FrankT]

Aha! My Backup Brain, which normally handles sighing, coughing, and nodding off at important meetings, just remembered how I did this thing.

I used a Wordpress help file called "Installing WordPress using Cpanel." It goes through all that SQL stuff step by step with screen shots. I think I tried the 5 minute install and spend a good forty minutes not installing much of anything.


Here's the link:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_cPanel

[Matt]

Thanks Frank!

If you don't mind me using your site as an example, I will give a brief rundown of how to install it using fantastico, which should take about 2 minutes if all goes well.

Frank - if you mind let me know and I will remove references to your site.

1) Make sure your plan has at least one available mysql database.
2) Click the fantastico icon in your cPanel.
3) Go to blogs > wordpress
4) Click "New installation"
5) Fill out the short form for the installation details. The main things that matter here are the installation domain, and installation directory.

A) Install on domain: Choose the domain you want to install it on. For those of you who do not have "addon domains" there will be only one domain to choose from.

B) Install in directory: Leave it blank if you want you want your domain to load wordpress by default. Meaning typing in www.yourdomain.com would show wordpress.

In Frank's case, if he used Fantastico, he would have typed in the word:
blog

Because the word "blog" was used for the install directory, the wordpress for his domain lives at http://www.franktuttle.com/blog/

If you had typed in an install directory called:
wordpress

Then the install would live at http://www.yourdomain.com/wordpress/

6) Admin access data. Nearly every script has an "admin" area. This area allows you to adjust the settings of whatever script you installed. It allows you to make blog entries among other things in the example of wordpress.

Choose a username and a hard-to-guess password. Don't use easy passwords for anything. You will eventually be hacked if you do.

The rest of the details on the form are basically style/customization options for how you want the blog to be named, how you want your name to appear on the blog pages, etc and are pretty unimportant in the overall scope of the process. The main things are the domain, directory, user and password.

Once you have the form completed simply submit the page and fantastico will set up your database information for you. This is what makes installations using fantastico so nice because as Frank said, it can take a lot of time to setup your database if you do not know how to do this already manually.

Then after that it will probably say something like the install was a success, click here to continue. Then it will give you the url to the admin area, and the url to the public area.

Then you can login to the admin with the details you just entered and start customizing your blog.

!!!A WARNING ABOUT INSTALLING SCRIPTS!!!
Security on a shared server is EVERYONE's responsibility. If you choose to install a dynamic website that uses PHP scripts, like ANYTHING found inside of Fantastico, you need to keep on top of updates.

Every open-source script on the face of the planet at some point will have been found to have a security hole of some sort or another. What that means is if you are running version 1.1.2 and version 2.3.5 has been released, you are at serious risk of being hacked.

You can have your entire site defaced, removed, and all of your data which took who knows how long to make, vanish in the blink of an eye.

If you install your scripts by hand, you will need to upgrade them by hand. If you install them via fantastico, and upgrade every time a new release is available, you can have the updates done automatically similar to the installation process.

However you will likely have issues trying to perform and upgrade from 1.2.3 to 1.5.8 whereas you likely would not have a problem going from version 1.2.3 to 1.2.4

You cannot upgrade scripts that were installed by hand, using fantastico. However, you can upgrade scripts by hand, that were installed using fantastico should their auto-installed fail for whatever reason or you find yourself very out dated.

A final note: Almost every script has a newsletter or announce list that will inform you of updates. Subscribe to this list if you have installed a script on your site so that you are notified via email that there are patches available.

If you are no longer using your scripts that you installed for testing or whatever reason, we recommend that you remove them immediately for the security of your site as well as any others that share your webserver.
Now somebody please post a reply so it doesn't look like I have to have the last word on every post....

[SharyHorton]

Matt;
Do you have to create these directories in advance or are they created when you do this?
I am a little confused on this issue.
I have the main domain which I am using basically my public_html for picture hosting at this time.
I really do not want to change that as it would mean changing the links to all of the pictures.
Where do I create these links or folders when I do this,, is it within the public_html?
Are you saying that wordpress should be installed independently of other sites or folders?
What is the security issue on scripts?
Sorry to sound so dumb,,, but in this I am.
Thanks,
Shary

[FrankT]

Aha! Now I have the last word!

Thanks, Matt! Excellent post!

EDIT: No, don't remove any references, it's cool.

[FrankT]

I created the blog directory, I think. I went into my public_html directory and then clicked on the 'create new folder' line at the top left. I did this before I started installing any WordPress.

[Matt]

Thanks, Matt! Excellent post!

Thank you Frank.

Do you have to create these directories in advance or are they created when you do this?

Shary, no, you do not need to create the directory first.

If it were my domain and I was hosting images, I would have a folder called public_html/images and all the pics would go in there. It keeps your site clean and modular. As a matter of fact, we do have a folder called just that! http://www.glowhost.com/images/

But you can't see what we have in there. but you can see what our homepage looked like in December of 2002 LOL>>>

Then your images would be at:
http://yourdomain.com/images

and your wordpress could be at
http://yourdomain.com/blog

and your calendar could be at:
http://youdomain.com/calendar

Just like organizing file on your home computer.

Are you saying that wordpress should be installed independently of other sites or folders?

No, I am saying that is a matter of preference. Frank installed his independently. If you want to install it in public_html that is fine too. But public_html should be pretty empty of files if you choose this location because in the "off" chance you already had files named the same thing as the files that come with wordpress, or images with the same name, you might end up inadvertently overwriting your own files with those from wordpress.

I believe that:
1) You choose to use fantastico to install your scripts
2) you choose to use public_html as the install directory
3) you already have a folder called "images" (/public_html/images) that the installation of most every script will fail because /images is the way nearly everyone in the world writes their website. There will be a conflict. So if you are new to it all, choose a subdirectory until you are a "medium guru."

What is the security issue on scripts?

Same thing as your home computer. Scripts can be thought of a set of instructions for a computer to perform. Even your home computer has lots of scripts. Think of actors and how they have a "script" they need to read. Computers read these scripts too. The only difference is actors might purposely ad-lib to a script, where as ad-lib in computer talk is unintentional 100% of the time.

If any of these are poorly written, (like a cheap romance novel) and someone figures out how to hack these instructions, you risk damage to your website (or home computer if you never update. Shame on Windows 95 users!)

Windows and most PC operating systems including Linux have some sort of program built into them that they will usually download and apply the patches for you. This keeps your home computer up to date.

With websites, no one really has invented a good way to fully automate this process because of the high levels of customization and uniqueness that each site on the web has. So writing a patch that works well for everyone would be pretty impossible with today's code standards.

Plain HTML websites are generally not affected by security issues. When you start getting into dynamic websites that use programming languages like PHP, PERL, ASP, JAVA, etc etc etc then you always run the potential for being exploited. Even IF you have the latest scripts available, there is a very off chance your site could be hacked.

So the point there is keep on top of updates and you should be fine. If you slack on this, you will be hacked.

Okay thats it for me for now!

[SharyHorton]

I think I have it,,, all of my images are just in public_html and there is no folder,,, which was my mistake in the first place.
BUT,,, all of my web sites will be using the same pictures, so no chance of overwriting without wanting to do so.
So, this is what I am wanting. I need a web site to introduce my program, one to have a sales page and a blog.
So I should create 3 seperate folders within Public? Is this right?
I do not have ANY folders in public at this time.
Thanks so much again,
Shary

[FrankT]

I believe so, Shary. One for pictures, one for the blog, one for the sales. That's pretty much the way my pages are organized -- one for fiction, one for art, one for blog, etc.