Creating my personal blog has been on my to-do list for over a year. Too many decisions. Too much going on.
To create a blog site like this, you have a lot of decisions to make:
- Figuring out why you want to create a blog in the first place.
- Naming your blog.
- Finding a hosting provider.
- Installing WordPress 3.0
- Writing your first Hello World blog post.
And most importantly, just doing it. If you know me, you know that I have something to say about most everything. If you ask a questions, “Well, how did you figure out how to do your list above?” Here’s my answers.
1. Figuring out why you want to create a blog in the first place. In short, this is not my first blog. I’ve created dozens before, and if you look to the right at the Blogroll, I’ve listed other sites that I’ve created. In each case, these blogs have a narrow focus on a particular mission. For example, Van Angels is a website about 15-seater van safety, so all topics on that website relate to that theme. What I needed was a personal blog where I could write about anything that doesn’t relate to a particular organization that I’m affiliated with.
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2. Naming your blog. The answer to this question is influenced by the answer to question #1. If you don’t want to be limited to a particular theme, you simply choose your name. In my case, Mark & Smith are pretty popular, so I had to add my middle name–Houston. I was named after Sam Houston, if you must know.
3. Finding a hosting provider. Search for WordPress hosting and you’ll land on this page. Perhaps these four web hosting companies paid to be listed on the WordPress.org website or their simply the best–I don’t know. Nevertheless, I looked at each of these companies. and chose Dreamhost because they supported automatic install of WordPress and they were $1.95/month for hosting. I have a bunch of website hosted on 1and1.com and plan to move them soon. 1and1.com does NOT support WordPress’s automatic updates. Practically speaking, WordPress auto updates is a big deal, so finding a hosting company on the list of tested WordPress hosted sites is important.
4. Installing WordPress 3.0. I’ve installed previous versions of WordPress numerous times, but with DreamHost, this was the easiest WordPress install I’ve experience. I just clicked advanced install and 30 seconds later, it was done. No downloads. No FTP. Done.
5. Writing the “Hello World” post. So, I want to change the world. Where do I start?
