Wordpress 3.0

[EEVblog]

I couldn't resist the temptation to push the button, I just upgraded the blog to Wordpress 3.0
Looks ok, but let me know if you see anything strange.

Thanks.
Dave.

[Rhythmtech]

can anyone explain what wordpress is and what it can do? i've heard this buzz quite frequently. if say, i want to open up a international bussiness homepage, can i use this? how to register? or are we talking about different wordpress here?

Wordpress is a free/open source web log written in PHP. So you basically get a folder with all of the source code, you stick it on your web server and modify away. The easy part is that there are a lot of already made skins and plug ins that others have written which allow you to work on your electronics project instead of your blog. 

On the flip side, it is open source so you could dive in as deep as you like and customize as much as you want.

If you were doing a professional business website, you need to look into what your needs are?  - do you need a basket purchasing application, are you going to keep user information that you could get in trouble for losing.  If you just have a website that shows what you company is, contact information, services, etc...  then wordpress could do it, but in its native form is usually setup more like blog. There are many free CSS templates that might work better for a normal business website. Wordpress requires also that you have some minor googleable skills in MySQL to setup the database for it if you set it up on your own host. Wordpress does offer freely hosted blogs, but your domain name gets a wordpress.org or something in it to do it that way.

[Simon]

another good option for a CMS (content management system as these things are all called) is Joomla! also free.

I used it for www.rotaract1070.org.uk

[EEVblog]

Wordpress requires also that you have some minor googleable skills in MySQL to setup the database for it if you set it up on your own host.

Not if you have a web host who has single click install for apps like this, and most do these days. I would not use a web host that doesn't.
My web host (HostMonster) uses Cpanel and SimpleScripts which allows me to single-click install Wordpress, this forum you are using, shopping carts, etc etc.
I know nothing about about MySQL or databases, but I set up this Wordpress blog and had it working with one mouse click and waiting 30 seconds or so. Anyone can do, no skills required.

@Shafri
Wordress is a blog script/program, it's what you see when you visit www.eevblog.com It handles everything you see on that site. It allows me to easily post new blog, add menu items and pages, allows people to comment etc
It looks like this when you first install it:
http://www.jeriellsworth.com/
I've since installed a fancy interface and added extra stuff.

Dave.

[Mechatrommer]

@Shafri
Wordress is a blog script/program, it's what you see when you visit www.eevblog.com It handles everything you see on that site. It allows me to easily post new blog, add menu items and pages, allows people to comment etc
It looks like this when you first install it:
http://www.jeriellsworth.com/
I've since installed a fancy interface and added extra stuff.

frankly speaking, for my own site, i dont like the way and look of the "single columned" website, i have this quite similar layout in my website, but i think i need more, a fully customizable menu and layout. for my web, i cant even freely position the menu (through the server user interface interactive setup), but for the cheap rate of $20/year, i just simply shut my mouth up.

now i saw another people showing their portfolio in their website with nice interface (and url name too... no blogsopt.com... wordpress.com at the end etc), when i found out, its the wordpress word, when i type wordpress in browser, it just direct me to some blogging site, argghhh!. and further i'm thinking of a site that can do carting, blogging, forum, link to paypal etc. i'm still working on it.... sorry... maybe off topic.

and sorry, i'm really suck at SQL, java, script etc. i dont think i'll have the time to learn such things.

[Simon]

well I think simplicity is key, I hate any website with more than a central panel for content and a menu either side, for me a website should work like a book: is has pages and a menu system when you have stuff all over the place and lots of colums peple start loosing stuff unless it is correctly organized

[alm]

If it's for business and you don't have the skills/time to do it yourself, you should hire someone. They can probably do within less than an hour what might take you days.

[Simon]

well I set up www.sparkylabs.co.uk quite quickly with joomla! and added the virtue mart cart shopping system quite quickly, i'm no particular expert in web stuff thats why i stopped working in HTML

[avrfreaks]

I would agree with Simon, Joomla may take a little more effort but you can customize the website better. I own a portion of wordpress and 2.5 to 3.0 is just code updating and not database related. Ideally though the only reason I don't use wordpress is because it's hackable, where as joomla or drupal is not. Take for example my search engine at robo-x.net, it can search any specific websites I set, like eevblog, robo-x,3dgameman. There are more extentions to joomla + drupal and works with both your fourm (SMF) and homepage then wordpress.

[Mechatrommer]

well I think simplicity is key, I hate any website with more than a central panel for content and a menu either side, for me a website should work like a book: is has pages and a menu system when you have stuff all over the place and lots of colums peple start loosing stuff unless it is correctly organized

yup agreed with you about simplicity... but i still need freedom to do it.

well I set up www.sparkylabs.co.uk quite quickly with joomla! and added the virtue mart cart shopping system quite quickly, i'm no particular expert in web stuff thats why i stopped working in HTML

great! i've downloaded the joomla, unzip it and there a whole bunch of files, template etc.... where do i start? how do i put it in my web? hehehe sorry for being a newbie on this.

[Simon]

Well you need to upload it  and then run the install page, you will need to setup a database from your control panel first. As dave said if your host is half on the ball they will do the 30 second install which includes setting up the database.

[avrfreaks]

You need to upload the zip file to your website, and then extract it by the cpanel, rename the folder. ex. home/joomla or home/axim is mine. Which is in from robo-x.net/joomla or robo-x.net/axim

Go to the address you just put the folder there and follow the setup instructions. You will need to set up a database I would use the autmatic SQL wizard to do that and paste all your info back to joomla setup.

Rather I pay $3.00 a year and Mine has a automatic installer called fantastico or you can use softaculus.

[Simon]

I use justhost.com but would not really recommend them, their domain registration costs a bomb so use only for file hosting, probably no worse than most for service

[alm]

There are like a million of companies offering hosting, it's hard to not find one. How much time did you spend searching? There are several places that allow people to post their experiences. Shared should be fine, and is much cheaper that virtual or dedicated servers.

[avrfreaks]

need help... where can i rent for a server or webhosting that i can put in and run this joomla thing? i dont have any personal server computer

I specifically use: Bison Hosting which is unlimited everything (see below) and includes Softaculous(Automatic PHP App Installer) + Fantastico (Auto Joomla Installer) - @ $2.99  per year.

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Year-Unlimited-Web-Domain-Hosting-5-99-2-Year-/280431395848?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item414b038408#ht_5480wt_1137

http://www.netenberg.com/fantastico.php - A
www.softaculous.com/ - B

[Simon]

justhost is not bad but they have a lot of marketing shit

[Mechatrommer]

There are like a million of companies offering hosting, it's hard to not find one. How much time did you spend searching? There are several places that allow people to post their experiences. Shared should be fine, and is much cheaper that virtual or dedicated servers.

thats why, i'm confused, i'm afraid getting in the wrong direction as i already have a website (www.soasystem.com) which pretty much only for displaying something and some stupid blogging, even designing the site is limited to some stupid template. i want to be able to control down to code/script/html level including MySQL (database ) etc. i want to have a space in the net, when i logged in as admin, i can treat the space just like my local hard drive like admin/myfilehere... admin/mypicishere, etc etc... and most importantly, upload the joomla and when somebody typing my domain name, from another planet, its running and providing them with payment option, paypal etc for doing online business. i found this, its my local country site, is it suitable? for me? = http://www.malaysiahosting2u.com/hosting.html

i dont want the host, after i register, will limit me to something, i cannot do this, i cannot do that, i cannot store any database or customers password etc. i cannot run certain script or program.
and i cannot setup a forum like this "magnificent" EEVBlog!

[alm]

Sorry, I missed all that explanation about what you wanted when I read your original question.

It does help if the hosting provider is geographically close to the customers, since that means faster response (which is why big sites like Google have servers all over the world), so if your customers are mainly from Malaysia, it's probably not a great idea to use a US hoster, although that would be cheaper. Do check if it's actually hosted in Malaysia, and they're not just reselling US hosting, otherwise you might as well do it in the US yourself. From a quick glance at the specs, the do appear to support PHP/MySQL, so most CMS's should work. They appear to offer some sort of forum, but no easy setup for a CMS as far as I can see, so you do need some knowledge to set it up. The price (under US$ 20 per year) does seem a bit low, although domain registration adds an extra $14, and it's only if you pay for two years (I wouldn't without any experience). Don't have any personal experience with that hoster, can't help with that.

[avrfreaks]

There are like a million of companies offering hosting, it's hard to not find one. How much time did you spend searching? There are several places that allow people to post their experiences. Shared should be fine, and is much cheaper that virtual or dedicated servers.

thats why, i'm confused, i'm afraid getting in the wrong direction as i already have a website (www.soasystem.com) ...  and most importantly, upload the joomla and when somebody typing my domain name, from another planet, its running and providing them with payment option, paypal etc for doing online business. i found this, its my local country site, is it suitable? for me? = http://www.malaysiahosting2u.com/hosting.html

i dont want the host, after i register, will limit me to something, i cannot do this, i cannot do that, i cannot store any database or customers password etc. i cannot run certain script or program.
and i cannot setup a forum like this "magnificent" EEVBlog!

If you go with is hosting provider realize that it is limited to 4GB-20GB, no fantastico, no automatic scripts.

[Mechatrommer]

If you go with is hosting provider realize that it is limited to 4GB-20GB, no fantastico, no automatic scripts.

so far, what my instinct can tell is that i'm not going to use all the 4GB, i dont think will put many fancy fancy big videos, multimedia etc, only some textual or encrypted database inside (and of course! some static bitmap or jpeg images), but.... i dont know, not really sure.

no automatic script? what do you mean? i need something like... i upload the index.html, then it is the welcome screen for my site, inside there i can put anything script, java, flash etc that will in turn be run and popped out in my site. isnt that it should be like that?

@alm = thanx, i was not aware of the hoster's geographic thing. as a starter, i think $20/year is suitable for me, then it will depend on how it will progress, but i dont want a cheapy that limit me to some b*llsh*t, that i cant run what i want to run. maybe asking the support from the hoster will help, i already did yesterday, still waiting for the answer.

[avrfreaks]

You can check out the link I gave you above. I run all my site from this good hosting company and 24/7 live support.

[Mechatrommer]

thanx freak! err... avr. i just noticed, but... linux? i'm a sh*t in it! its interesting... if i register in, will you help me if i got stucked somewhere? i'm a total blind in this. and one more thing... does it provide a domain name like myname.com? i want to transfer my existing .com to this hoster.

[EEVblog]

Watch out for the "unlimited everything" plans, it's almost always bullshit.
I use HostMonster.com for all my sites including this one and it is supposed to be unlimited everything. But I find myself running into all sorts of limitations.
The latest one is the number of files on the server. Over 50,000 files and they won't do the automatically daily backup and may close your account.
I've hit this wall now and may have to get another host for my other sites. The forum image attachments are actually now the largest number of files in a directory on my server.

You can't store any non-website related files either (no using it as a personal backup system), and you are actually limited in peak bandwidth even though they don't mention it, so my server gets throttled a few times a day etc.

As I said, make sure you get a host that provides SimpleScripts or Fantastico or some other system. I installed this forum with a single click.

Dave.

[Simon]

Basically you never get free cake, I run all my stuff of just host but I'm that small that no limitations are evident as of yet

[Mechatrommer]

ooo. like that aaa? thanx for d advice. i surfed the bison site, the basic cheapest is $19.99/year, 2GB only, no fantastico, no simplescript. but in ebay the avrfreaks gave is $5.99 for 2 years, got fantastico and all bunch of the stuffs that dont read in my mind. avr? any advice? do you have your own name.com? carting etc?
@simon: maybe dave has bought a cake for a decent price, that the seller said it has every peanuts in it. but it turned out, it only has couple or two.

[EEVblog]

@simon: maybe dave has bought a cake for a decent price, that the seller said it has every peanuts in it. but it turned out, it only has couple or two.

Not really, I just run a lot of websites (half a dozen), a LOT of bandwidth (streaming video from here, hundreds of thousands of hits a month), dozens of databases, 10's of thousands of files etc. So I'm pretty much taxing out what a shared server is capable of. I'm surprised it holds up at all actually!

Dave.

[avrfreaks]

thanx freak! err... avr. i just noticed, but... linux? i'm a sh*t in it! its interesting... if i register in, will you help me if i got stucked somewhere? i'm a total blind in this. and one more thing... does it provide a domain name like myname.com? i want to transfer my existing .com to this hoster.

avr, may i look at your web?

My website is www.robo-x.net, I have 3 wordpress sites, running a chat, and a complex fourm.

A. No it does not, you have to register the domain with Godaddy or another provider that does domain registration; usually it costs $6.99 for two years.
B. Yes Shafri, Also there is a limit of 1TB of space and 999 MYSQL, ect. (Like dave said above. nothing is unlimited)
C. Linux actually is faster than all the other OS, yes I would be willing to help setting up Wordpress or Joomla but I believe you should be able to customize it after it's set all up the right way. Also I been a web provider for years, you choose whats best for you; you might consider dave' s host and yes it is more expensive.....
D. If you want both the domain and the hosting to be on one bill. I suggest you you go with a provider like Dave has.
E. Yes there is eCommerce with this, all the automatic scrips can be found at:
http://www.softaculous.com/ - Looks like 144 so far.....

[Mechatrommer]

ok an update. i've manage to get control of my domain name, and subscribe to another hoster, thanx guys for your helpful advice.
as a tryout, i tried to install the "blank" (unedited) wordpress in it, but when opening the website www.soasystem.com... its still empty! need help... what next?

[avrfreaks]

Ok, It looks like you are using bisonhosting:

Step 1: Log into cpanel --->http://www.soasystem.com:2082/ , A username and password was sent to you via email.

Step 2: Find the icon under: Software + Services > Softaculous

Step 3: Find the program you want to install, and click it on the left.

Step 4: Hit Install on the right bar above the program clicked on.

Follow the rest of the directions, leaving the database alone and supply username, password and directory.

There are a few things to consider: you can find your root of your homepage under public_html - so if you inputted public_html/blog under directory it redirects to soasystem.com/blog

You can find all your files manually:
CPANEL > Files > File Manager > Webroot > hit ok.

I remove this entry if you need. Hope this helps.

[Mechatrommer]

just remove the cpanel link, port 2082 thing, i know now how to cpanel login
but leave your notes as is. so i can refer back to it.
yup, bisonhosting. you are fully responsible for this robo!
Cheers

[Mechatrommer]

oo ok, i've installed a wordpress and a gallery, some progress here , but i dont get it. Dave said, during first install, it looks like:
http://www.jeriellsworth.com/

but what i got is this:
http://www.soasystem.com = root web
http://www.soasystem.com/blog = the wordpress
http://www.soasystem.com/gallery = the gallery

they are really empty.
how do i edit from there? maybe i should download the script, modify it and re-upload?

[EEVblog]

oo ok, i've installed a wordpress and a gallery, some progress here , but i dont get it. Dave said, during first install, it looks like:
http://www.jeriellsworth.com/

but what i got is this:
http://www.soasystem.com = root web
http://www.soasystem.com/blog = the wordpress
http://www.soasystem.com/gallery = the gallery

they are really empty.
how do i edit from there? maybe i should download the script, modify it and re-upload?

Go to http://soasystem.com/blog/ and click "log in", that gets you to the admin panel.

Looks like you didn't install wordpress into your root directory, any reason for that?
If not I'd uninstall and reinstall in the root.

Dave.

[Mechatrommer]

Looks like you didn't install wordpress into your root directory, any reason for that?
If not I'd uninstall and reinstall in the root.
Dave.

in the main page, i want to have some buttons "blog", gallery", etc. many sections that the user will freely choose to go to. just like you Dave, tha main page is the videos, and then there are menu for "forum", mechandize", "about", "wiki" etc.

sorry if you have to answer kiddy questions.

[Mechatrommer]

man! i need ALOT! to catch up. any reading material on this thing? an ebook? so i can print out and read at once (hate to read from internet)

[EEVblog]

Looks like you didn't install wordpress into your root directory, any reason for that?
If not I'd uninstall and reinstall in the root.
Dave.

in the main page, i want to have some buttons "blog", gallery", etc. many sections that the user will freely choose to go to. just like you Dave, tha main page is the videos, and then there are menu for "forum", mechandize", "about", "wiki" etc.

My front page IS wordpress. The Forum and other links are just menu options (or "pages" within Wordpress).
That's how most sites like this operate.
You can do it your way, but you'll need a normal index.html page in your root folder.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

But Dave... how do you maintain the same UI of your Web "before" and "after" the Wordpress installation? what were you using? do you have to manually re-edit all those setting in Wordpress?

Go into the Admin screen and use the Backup command.
Presumably you can then restore everything after a new install, but I have not tried this.

Dave.

[avrfreaks]

This is used for all directories.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Host: I am assuming you are using CPANEL...

Step 1: Create a backup with your old host first. CPANEL > Backup > Full Backup > OK - You have to wait until it is finished otherwise the file will not be there.

Step 2: Find and download the backup using File Manager. CPANEL > File Manager > ROOT > backup-xxx.tar

Install on New Host: bisonhosting

Step 3: Upload a backup: CPANEL > Backup > Full Backup > Add File should be on the right. Add the file and hit upload.

All your settings and directories from your old host will be restored.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now you can do it this way if you just want a particular installation only like joomla:

Step 1: Copy the folders using File Manager or FTP where the installation is located, I assume www.soasystem.com/d/ from when I last looked.

Step 2: Install the directory on the other server using FTP or File Manager. www.soasystem.com/xxx

Step 3: Now just upload the database, find the database and download it. CPANEL > Backup > Databases > joom-xxx.tar

Step 4: Now upload the database, CPANEL > Backup > Databases > upload joom-xxx.tar

You need both the files and database.....

[Mechatrommer]

i prefer the existing thread rather than creating a new one, it will keep all the previous info intact, so sorry for bumping this old thread...

just want to tell that my hoster, bisonhosting is playing kid with me, last time i remember it was 1GB space available, now its 32MB only! sent them an email yesterday asking why, still no respond... not a 24/7! so here minutes ago i think to find another hoster. my domain name is in godaddy, so i'm thinking godaddy hosting so i will not run around to find my domain and my web what do u think guys? which package should i opt for ... http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx?ci=9009 i'm thinking economy, how about you? and also which host's OS should i use? linux or windows? i'm a windows user

[tyblu]

What are you going to be hosting?

[Mechatrommer]

just my personal stuff... mainly:

1) people's wedding and landscape/photography pictures that i took (gotta find better photo gallery/flash for this, i'm working on it)
2) info sharing to the world (about myself, my stuffs etc, nothing really fancy )
3) possibly online selling, if i can find and design an ee niche product
4) possibly foruming, cant think of any subject yet.

CMS could be a good idea, but i dont think i'm good enough at content "management" or gathering myself #3, #4 could become bigger and bigger (in term of bw and space demand etc if i have more customers, but much depends on success or failure) but this is just a start, so i prefer starting small.

[tyblu]

GoDaddy is a good match, then. I'm using one of their "Ultimate" packages (note: no package is ever unlimited, no matter what anyone says) and ended up paying somewhere between $300-$350 for half-a-dozen domain names (get the .com, .ca, .net, .org, etc...) and some other crap, good for 3 years (2.5 left). It looks like they have even better deals, now. I use the linux-type server because I'm used to UNIX commands and believe they make my life easier; it may be worth digging into the differences, as a poor interface will make you feel like crud every time you use it.

Click Products, stop staring at Jillian or Danica, click Hosting, then click "Plan Details" in either the Linux or Windows alternatives.

[GeoffS]

I pay just under $10 per month (12 month prepaid) for my webhosting. For that I get:

Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited email/ftp accounts
Up to 5 domains per account, unlimited subdomains

[I'm sure that there's some limit to unlimited but I don't know of anyone who's been kicked off because they've exceeded it
I think there is a limit to the maximum size of a single MySQL database of around 400MB]

The cost of a domain was on top of that but only about $22 for 2 years. Depends on the TLD you want to register under.

It's a shared server (Linux)  running under CPanel but sufficiently configured so that I've never noticed any performance issues.
It's an Australian based service but you should be able to get a similar price from a US based hosting company (someone like fatcow.com)

[tyblu]

The softaculus script, Joomla CMS, and simple WP installation is available. I don't see fantastico. Pretty standard stuff. Their site has all the details, and there are plenty.

You can use godaddy's "Hosting Control Center" if you want:
http://www.tyblu.ca/misc/godaddy_snap1.png
http://www.tyblu.ca/misc/godaddy_snap2.png

There's also the "Dashboard", which is all about making $$ (bleh). This is their "Getting Started Guide":
http://products.secureserver.net/guides/sharedhostinggsg.pdf
I didn't notice or have it when I started, so I'm not sure how it is.

There's Google Webmaster Tools, which isn't working atm (wtf). The cron manager is great if you're familiar with UNIX and your favourite language (python), and is one of the big reasons I chose the UNIX platform. This is another:
http://www.tyblu.ca/misc/godaddy_snap4.png
I'm not sure why, but I appreciate ssh access; it's not always appropriate (eg. writing WP post), but always useful.

I'm sure most if not all of this is typical of modern hosts, but it was a bit better than the competition 6 months ago. I like it. I'll take a peek at the competition again in 2013 when renewal comes around...

<edit> My sites are http://trajctrl.tyblu.ca , http://blog.tyblu.ca , and http://tyblu.ca . They are nowhere near complete, and each is just a standard WP installation. Basically just dumping content onto the server, and will organize later. (hah!)