studionashvegas | design and social media

In our last session, we covered the basics on what WordPress is and why it’s better than your standard, run-of-the-mill static HTML site.  And now, you want to go out and switch every site you have to a dynamically driven platform.

Hold on there, turbo.  We still have a few things to go over.

For example, if you’ve had a static site on the same server for more than 5-6 years, you may be surprised to know that not all servers are running the latest and greatest technology.  Your server may not even have the right stuff to run WordPress.

There aren’t that many requirements, but you at least need to have the following items:

• PHP 4.3 or greater
• MySQL 4.0 or greater
• The mod_rewrite Apache module

I promised you this in English, so here’s a little more standard information on the server, breaking down the techno speak.

A server environment is either going to be Windows based or Linux based.  Typically, Windows servers are optimized to run .NET and ASP server languages.  I won’t go into detail on these two because they aren’t important to getting WordPress to run correctly – just know that if you see these on your server, there’s a chance it may not run WordPress.

On the other hand, an open source server setup usually consists of 4 components: a Linux Operating System, the APACHE server model, MySQL, and PHP.  If you ever hear a technogeek talking about “The Lamp Stack”, that’s what they are referring to.  This setup can run literally thousands of open-source software packages, and WordPress is definitely included in that list.

The ones we want to focus on are PHP (Personal Home Page) and MySQL (my structured query language, pronounced MY-SEA-QUILL), which are the primary components of how data goes from point A (the database) to point B (the page you bring up).

Basically, instead of content stored in the page, the content is stored by ID number in the database.  WordPress runs a query, which is a test run against the database to determine which content to pull (the default query is the last 10 posts, newest first).  If there are posts, it displays them.  If not, it shows an error message.

PHP4 will work, but PHP5 will allow you to use some of the latest plugins that have taken advantage of the new language. 

If you aren’t sure if your host has it, just send them an email asking them.  If they value your business you can either 1) get them to install it or 2) let you know how to take care of it on your end (if they allow you to).

If your host doesn’t support these technologies, or won’t help you, then here are some great alternatives.  These don’t have affiliate links; I recommend them out of the goodness of my heart, because they work.

GoDaddy

If web hosting is like real-estate, then this would be the college apartment.  It does the job, has a lot of cool features, but you never know who your neighbors will be (porn, spam, etc).  Most of the time that’s not an issue, but sometimes you will run into someone who’s made Google mad, and they take it out on the whole IP server.  However, I still use them for some sites, and it does work well.

MediaTemple

This is more like the condo of the web-hosting world.  It has great customer service, a really snappy interface, and lots of excellent features.  I’m actually switching over to them for most of my web-stuffs.

Next time, we’ll actually go through the install process, but for now, go out there and double check your hosts to see if they can support it.  If so, get it ready for Session 3, because that’s when the real fun starts!

Tags: GoDaddy, Media Temple, WordPress, WordPress 101