Uploading

To upload your files to a server you generally need a FTP client. You can use the Cpanel file manager but that takes FOREVER as it uses http and is very buggy. If your host created a name for you already you should be fine. Otherwise you will have to go to the FTP manager and create a user to use.. You should be able to do this on your own.

I am writing this article on a PC so I am running windows. Which means I have a killer FTP client already. I don’t know how MAC handles FTP, and might have a bright shiny solution thats totally awesome and syncs with my iPhone. But like I said I don’t know. Another great client thats free is fireFTP. its a plugin for Firefox that works GREAT. Its not as useful as windows or a commercial FTP client, but its pretty great.

for windows all you have to do is open a folder of any sort, (or Internet explorer) and type FTP:// then your user name, then @yoursite.com so that would look like this: FTP://admin@mysite.com

it will prompt you for a password(which is the same as your Cpanel password) and it will open as if it is a regular folder. You will usually see tons of back end stuff like your cgi-bin and FTP folders. Open either the public_html or WWW folder. They are the same thing.

At this point we have an option, we can create a subdirectory for our blog like: sporky.com/blog or make it so when you login it goes straight to the blog at sporky.com

to create a sub directory in Windows right click and hit new folder and name it whatever you want. In a FTP client hit the new directory button and add a name, with all permissions if prompted.

ALMOST DONE!!!

Now when you uploaded everything we left out one important part. The WP-config.php file. I did this on purpose as I like making sure the whole site is up before I start letting it know where to look for the database. So it’s basically sitting cold. In your local version find a file called: wp-config-sample.php and open it with a text editor(remember the intro post? If not, go back and choose a editor) It’s OK to just use notepad, but notepad++ is so much nicer.

SCARRY! Not Really..

Scroll down to line 19. See where it says putyourdbnamehere? put in your database name. do the same for the database user name(mine is wpress) and the password we created.

Most likely you wont have to adjust the hostname or any of the other features. You can go HERE to read more on what these do, and if you need to change them. Basically some hosts arn’t listed as “Localhost”

Go down to where it says Authentication Keys

I wont go into much detail but these are important to have. You can type in your own but its just as easy to just go here: https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ and have it generate the next few lines of code for you. copy the code that link creates, delete the 4 lines already there(lines 45-48) and paste in the new code.

Save your file as wp-config.php and upload it to the same directory as the rest of your files.

Now for the EASY PART. Go to your site in your browser. then add: wp-admin/install.php

Follow the prompt.

Copy the admin name and password.. ITS SUPER IMPORTANT TO NOT LOSE THIS PASSWORD FOR LIKE 5 MORE MINUTES.

Now in mine it glitched out and only showed me 10 of the 12 characters.. no idea why.. But it also emailed me my password.

Now it will ask you if you want to keep that password all random or to change it. I generally leave it. I wont be doing much work as “admin”  but as DennisSmolek. So first thing is to go to the “Users” section on the left. Then click “add New” type in your user data, and make sure to change the “role” to Administrator.

note: you cant use the same email as what you did as the admin. I created a separate email account for the WordPress Admin and had it redirect.

Log out.

Test your new login name.

Congrats.. You just joined in with the Hundreds of thousands of WordPress Blog’s on the net. What you do with it is your choice. You can see mine here:

http://dennissmolek.com/sporky/

So thats it for this one.. MAN that was weird to write out like that. Next week we will go over themes and the like and really start doing the fun stuff. Hope ya’ll are ready!!

-Dennis Smolek

LEAVE ME COMMENTS YO! Got Questions? No way you don’t have questions!!