Tutorials are also available at the ds106 class at the University of Mary Washington.
First, find a hosting company. You want an inexpensive, reliable host. The easiest is likely Hippie Hosting. I can also recommend Lunarpages or Bluehost, though in your country there may be other options. |
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Get your own domain name. You can purchase this through your hosting company, but it's cheaper to go somewhere like GoDaddy. A .net account will do. When you register an account, I recommend using your work address and phone, since domain name information is public. Once you have your name, pay attention to the nameserver instructions given by the company that sells you the domain. The idea is that your domain has to be "pointed" to your hosed account, so that the account will come up as your domain. The format is something like: NS1.LUNARPAGES.COM Lunarpages sends you these when you sign up. |
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Install Wordpress. In your C Panel, there will be scripts (at Lunarpages it's in the Fantastico package; at Bluehost it's Simple Scripts). You can install Wordpress directly from these packages and they will create the files (a database and the web pages) for you. For Hippie Hosting, Martha Burtis at UMW has made a screencast tutorial (just ignore the references to summer camp - this was for a summer class). |
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Make yourself administrator with a new account. Log in as admin, but add yourself as a User with administrative privileges. Then log in as that new user, and erase the "admin" user - this is for security. |
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Play with your Wordpress. Log in as administrator, and take a look at different themes. You can download various themes and try them till you get the look you want. Do this before you add too much content. |
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