Installing WordPress

Ensure that your host has an up to date version of PHP 4.3 and that you have mySQL version 4 or greater. You can check the requirements here http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/
I used this guide to help with setting it up http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install

I’ve used Clook share2 hostinghttp://www.clook.co.uk/services/shared It has a clear cpanel and good documentation on using it- this enables you to manage your site. This is different from managing your account and has a different web address- it took me awhile to work this out doh.. I have the ability to create 4 sql databases and this is important as I wanted to run MediaWiki as well.

Problems Installing WordPress

Most of the installation went swimmingly using their quick guide but I had an FTP problem. I downloaded WordPress and opened it with stuffit (I’m using Mac OS 10 Tiger). I then copied the files not the folder (as instructed) using classic ftp. It did not put everything up and didn’t take any notice of the folder structure. I sought help and we used the terminal and the inbuilt ftp utility. It still ignored the directory structure. I then downloaded One Button ftp http://onebutton.org/ which is a free applicationOnebutton ftp and did it there and it worked perfectly.

The procedure was basically as follows (using the 5 minute guide)

1. set up hosting checking that they provided php, mysql and apache
2. Set up the database at my web host in myphp my admin
3. downloaded and unzipped the wordpress folder
4. edited the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.as instructed adding in the database details
5. Used onebutton ftp to upload the folders and went to my new site.
6. Changed the theme to one I downloaded http://wpthemes.info/misty-look/and then uploaded to the skins folder and edited the config file.

Now its installed the work begins. I need to change the picture and some of the features such as the search box position. I want widgets and plugins (not much difference it seems between what these mean and I need to think about the site organisation. Its not really going to be a blog though I may consider how that would work.