Starting a Blog : The Prerequisites
Posted by 
Cajen | Filed under blogging, tutorial series
Start.
It is surprisingly easy to start a blog. Maintaining one is a whole different story.
To start a blog you can go two routes: sign up for one through one of the blogging sites for free (Wordpress or Blogger are two of the more famous ones) or you can host one. I suggest that you host one, since you have better control over the blog plus you also have the flexibility of adding other features in the future (forums, e-commerce, etc.) since basically you have your very own website. The route I took is hosting.
For hosting, you need to understand two(2) terms: domain name and hosting. The domain name will be your hostname (yourblogname.com), or more loosely, your website’s address (www.yourblogname.com). Hosting is where your domain name points at - which is a physical server that has your website’s content. Think of the domain name as an address that points to a physical house. The physical house, or the host, has all the pertinent server specs, like speed, space allocated, bandwidth, etc. Now normally, these cost money. However, there are free webhosting sites that offers free sub domains. Yehey!
I used www.000webhost.com free webhosting services. Signing up is easy and you get these for free: 250MB disk space, and 100GB bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of disk space that you are allowed to upload and bandwidth is the amount of traffic allowed per month. It also has PHP and mySQL Support, which we are gonna be needing. Also, if you are looking to host your files locally, I suggest that you use XAMPP - you can read this post for more information. After signing up, you will have a domain name much like mine (yourdomainname.site88.net). In the future, of course, you have the option of buying your own domain name and continue using 000webhost’s free webhosting services. When I have the funds to do so, I will post a tutorial series as well.
After signing up, go to your control panel and click on “View Account Details.”
IMPORTANT: Take a note of your “FTP Upload Details” as you will be needing those information in the next step.
Next, you will be needing an FTP software to help you upload your files. www.000webhost.com provides a file manager, however I strongly suggest that you use an FTP client. I use FireFTP, it’s an extension of Firefox and very easy and convenient to use as it integrates seamlessly with your browser. By the way, you need Firefox for FireFTP, get it if you haven’t already.
Run FireFTP, again from your firefox browser, and choose Manage Accounts -> New.
Enter any name that you fancy in the Account Name (it’s for your convenience in identifying your FTP accounts), enter your FTP host name under Host, enter your FTP user name under Login, and your FTP password under password. Click on OK. Easy enough. If everything works out alright, you should get a screen similar to this:
Congratulations! You have just setup your own website with FTP support. In Part 2, we will discuss on getting your blog up and running!
End.
| 2.8 (2 people) |
Tags: blogging, fireftp, free webhosting, mySQL, php
Related Posts:
Starting a Blog : Finishing touches
Setting Up Nameservers
Starting a Blog: Setting up your blog
XAMPP: Local Testing Server
Fireworks Basics
13 Responses to “Starting a Blog : The Prerequisites”
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Starting a Blog: Setting up your blog Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 8:37 am[...] RSS ← Starting a Blog : PT.1 The Prerequisites [...]
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CajenSoft » Blog Archive » Starting a Blog : Finishing touches Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 8:15 am[...] you haven’t, please read part 1 and part 2 of this tutorial series. Now that you have a working blog, you can now start publishing [...]
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CajenSoft » Blog Archive » Starting a Blog: Setting up your blog Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 6:29 pm[...] you haven’t, please read part 1 of this tutorial series. Alright, now with our website up and running, we can start installing our blog. First, you need a [...]
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Joan (Who am I?) (1 comments.) Says:
May 12th, 2008 at 1:08 pmHi. Im wondering if i can use FireFTP in vista?
Im trying to install wordpress manually for my autoinstaller fantastico is having problems.. thanks.:D
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Cajen (Who am I?) Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 6:17 amhi Joan! Im not sure if you can use fireFTP with Vista. i tried googling andt here seems to be some issues, you can read it here: http://fireftp.mozdev.org/help.html
or alternatively, you can use another free FTP, like fileZilla -> http://filezilla-project.org/
Let me know, if you had it working. Thanks!
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Andhika (Who am I?) Says:
May 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pmHey Joan, thanx for the tutorial, i want to ask your permit to post this tutorial in my blog, in indonesian language and a bit different story telling style, so i’m obviously not hijacking your tutorial =) i just want to share it to my friends in indonesia. if its all right, i would like to use your screencap . Thanx
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Cajen (Who am I?) Says:
May 14th, 2008 at 10:09 amHi Andhika! You have my permission to use the content on this blog. Ill be honored to help you and your friends. Feel free to copy the images as well. If I may ask that you put a link back. Thanks! By the way, I wrote the tutorial.
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Mr. Sustainable (Who am I?) (1 comments.) Says:
June 13th, 2008 at 12:51 amThank you!
After looking for a whole week for a site where I can host my new Wordpress site for free and have branded email, I landed on your tutorial. I am very grateful for publishing this important content.
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Cajen (Who am I?) Says:
June 13th, 2008 at 9:12 amyou are very much welcome Mr. Sustainable. Im glad i was able to help. Do update me with the progress of your blog. id love to give your blog a visit. cheers!
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SHINGADIA (Who am I?)(new comment) Says:
August 11th, 2008 at 12:45 amGreat website and I admire your detailed tutorials. Basically, im making a ‘football blog’ for personal pleasure for me and my friends to enjoy, and in admitting im a amateur to all this…how did you make that tag cloud thing and how did you recruit adverts in your site?
Any help will be appreciated (even if its brief)
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hackyourlife (Who am I?)(new comment) Says:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:55 pmthank you for the tutorial. Is it possible to change your text to white. Very hard to read.
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swencetweks (Who am I?)(new comment) Says:
November 19th, 2008 at 9:11 pmReason why is great to be a gay
Bachelor parties whomp butt over bridal showers. It was joke
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John (Who am I?)(new comment) Says:
November 21st, 2008 at 5:57 amAs another viewer mentioned, thank you for the tutorial. Is it possible to change your text to white. Very hard to read.
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Hi there and welcome! I am an accomplished gamer, programmer and web designer enthusiast, an artist interrupted, a budding entrepreneur, and now a blogger. Through this blog, I will be sharing you my thoughts and I hope that you do the same. This blog will contain blogging tips & tricks, fireworks tutorials, photoshop tutorials, web design, graphics, and then some. As I’ve mentioned in my first post, I claim no level of proficiency in any of the tutorials that I will be posting, however, I pride myself in being a good instructor and I will try to make them as easy as possible for everyone.