(c) 2006 Blogadr.com http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/ WordPress is a powerful Open Source blogging application. It is one of the best weblog software because it is free to download and use and provides a rich set of features. With WordPress you can easily customize the outlook of your website for there are lots of WordPress themes available on the Net. WordPress has intuitive administration which anyone can handle. There you will be able to compose a post and immediately publish it on your website. Blogadr.com is pleased to offer WordPress tutorials. You will be able to see how to perform routine tasks in your WordPress weblog. How To Set Up a Blog Using WordPress? Tutorial covers the following topics: en-us Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/manual-installing-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/manual-installing-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to install WordPress. If your web hosting control panel happens to include a script auto-installer, you can simply click to install WordPress automatically. Otherwise, you can visit www.wordpress.org and download/install the script manually. Save the file to your hard drive. Then use any zip utility program (eg., WinZip) to extract the files. Once the files are extracted, open Windows Explorer and rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php. You will now open this file in any text editor to configure it. Before you do this, be sure to first create a database in web hosting control panel. If you do not know how to do this, ask your Site Administrator to do it for you. Now enter your database details in wp-config.php. Great! Now open up your favorite FTP program to upload the script files to your site. If you would like to use the weblog as your main site, upload it directly to your root directory. In this example, we will create a new folder for the weblog. so in this example, the blog will be located at www.yoursite.com/blog/. Let's upload the script files to this folder. To select all the files, highlight the first file/folder... then either hit Ctrl-A or highlight the last file in the list while holding down the Shift key. Click to upload files. We're almost done! Now point your browser to the script installation page. In this example, it will be www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php. Simply proceed through a few steps to complete the installation. Enter a title for your new weblog as well as your email adress. don't worry, you can always modify this later. The database tables have been successfully created and populated. You can now login to your Admin area using the default username and password. You can do this by clicking this link In this example, the URL is www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-login.php. You can click to "remember" your login details for future visits. A few steps ago, we saw that a default username and password were automatically generated. For security reasons, it is highly recommended that you change your password. Well, that's it! Let's take a look at the weblog in a browser. Congratulations! As you can see, the weblog has been successfully installed. It is now ready for your posts. Happy Blogging! http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/editprofile_changepw-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/editprofile_changepw-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to edit your profile and change your password. The username admin is the only item in your profile that you are unable to modify. Enter your name and, optionally, a nickname. Except for your email address, all fields in your Contact Info are optional. If you like, you can enter some biographical information about yourself. When you first installed WordPress, you were assigned a default password. It is highly recommended that you change the password for security reasons. You also have the option to specify if you wish to use the visual rich editor when writing your posts. Easy. isn't it? You are now able to edit your profile and change your password. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_categories-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_categories-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to manage categories. Categories are a convenient and efficient way categorizing the various posts in your blog. By Default, a category called "Uncategorized" is already created in your weblog. Let's click to edit it. Let's give the category a new name. Leave it as "None" if you would like this to remain as a top level category. If you wish to make it a subcategory of another, select the parent category from this drop down list. You can optionally enter a description. Now let's see how to create a new category. Give the new category a name. Again, decide if you wish to make this a top level category or a subcategory. As you can see, the category has been successfully created. When viewing your site... you will see that the new category does not display. Don't worry, it will show up as soon as it is populated with at least one post. You are now able to manage categories. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/writing_new_post-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/writing_new_post-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to write a new post to your weblog. Start by creating a title for the new post. Now enter the content of your post. You have serveral options to configure when creating the new post. Decide if you world like to allow visitors to post comments and/or pings. If you password protect the post, visitors will need to enter a password to view it. You can enter a slug. This will apply if you are using Permalinks to create a link to your post. Essentially, it will remove all non-HTML-friendly characters, and it will add a hyphen in between each word of your title. You will need to assign the post to existing category, or enter the name of a new one. Draft will save the post in draft mode, while Publish will actually publish the post when you save it. Private will (obviously) keep the post private. By default, at the time the post is saved, that will be the date and time of the post. Alternatively, click the checkbox and change the date and time. All future posts will not appear on the site until that time has passed. And finally, select the author from the drop down list. You can optionally upload a file to include in the post. You can add an expert, or a teaser that is displayed on the front page of your blog as well as on archive and category pages. Trackbacks let other blogs know you're referenced one of their articles. To send trackbacks from this post, enter the URL or web site addresses in the box, separating each one by a space. You can also add custom fields. For instance, you can add a field called Mood, and as a value you can enter Grumpy and tired. At this point, you can save the post for future edit. In this example, we are done so we will immediately publish it to the weblog. Let's take a look at the results. As you can see, the post has been successfully added. Well, that's it! You are now able to write posts in your weblog. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/writing_comment-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/writing_comment-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how your visitors can write a comment. You can specify which privileges you wish to extend to your visitors. Basically, you can allow anyone to register/post, or you can require that someone must be registered before they can post a comment. In this example, let's not select either one, and let's see what happens when an unregistered visitor tries to post a comment. The visitor will click to read a post and then try to post a comment. You will see that since this is an unregistered user, the comment has been accepted into the database, but it will not be published until Admin moderation. When you login to your Admin area, you will now see that one comment requires moderation. At this point, you can email the visitor... or edit the comment... or view the comment... or delete this specific comment... or, if you have several comments to moderate, you can apply a bulk action to all comments. Let's take a look at the results. As you can see, the comment has been successfully added. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_users-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_users-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to manage users. By default, you will already be set up as a user with the Administrator privileges. Let's create a new user. Note that provided you have your setting in Options configured to allow it, visitors can register themselves as users on your site. The new user is given subscriber privileges by default. Let's change the user's role. You are now able to manage users. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/configuring_options-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/configuring_options-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to configure option in your weblog. Most of the settings were set by default when installed the weblog, but you can edit them at any time to better suit your specific needs. For instance, you can specify membership requirements before a visitor can post a comment. You can also set the default role when a new user account is created. You can set your preferences for time and date display. Specify your preferences for when posts are written. Posts can be added by email by using a secret account with POP3 email access. Similarly, set your preferences for when reading posts. This section basically focuses on what types of notifications will be automatically generated when posts are made in a discussion. Note that these general settings will be overridden by any specific rules you set up in individual articles. You can also develop a blacklist which will prevent certain words from being posted to your weblog. Permalinks allows you to provide links to your articles that are more user friendly and forward compatible. You can even create a custom prefix for a category URL. And finally, you can specify where and how you want uploads to be stored on your site. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managepages-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managepages-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to manage pages. Pages, unlike posts, reside outside the blog chronology. While posts are date driven, pages are static informational pages that you add to your site (eg., Policies, About, Copyright, Contact, etc.). Let's go ahead and create one now. Start by giving the new page a title and adding content to the page. Specify if you wish to allow visitors to add comments and/or ping the page. Visitors will need to enter a password to view a password protected page. Specify if the page is top level page or if it is a child page to an existing one. You can use the default template, or you can automatically format the page as an Archives or Links page. You can enter a slug. This will apply if you are using Permalinks to create a link to your page. Essentially, it will remove all non-HTML-friendly characters, and it will add a hyphen in between each word of your title. Specify an author for the page. You can specify the order in which pages are listed. You can optionally upload a file to be included in the page. When you're done, click to create the new page. Let's take a look at the results in the site. As you can see, the new page has been successfully added. At any time, you may return here to create a new page... or view an existing one... or edit an existing one... or delete one altogether. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/modifying_header-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/modifying_header-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to modify your header. As you can see, you can make changes to the text color as well as the background colors. Let's try it out. Make your color selection from the color pallette. As you can see, when you mouse over color, the hexadeciaml code is displayed here. Alternatively, if you have specfic hexadecimal codes you wish to use... you can enter themusing the Advanced tab. At any time, you can also click to go back to the original default colors. You can also click to "revert" to the last color, but this will only go back one step and will not work once you have saved any changes. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click to save the changes. Let's take a look at the results in the site. Here is the original design, and on refreshing the page... we now see the modified header. Note that aside from text and background color, you can also change the actual text. You can also change the tagline that appears under the main title. As you can see, the text has been successfully changed. You are now able to modify your header. http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_plugins-wordpress.html http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/free-wordpress-blogging-tutorial/managing_plugins-wordpress.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:39:29 GMT Video Content Include: This tutorial will show you how to amnage plugins. Plugins are convenient tools that extend the blog's functionality. They offer custom functions and features that can help cater to your specific needs. For instance, Akismet helps you intelligently control and manage spam entries. The Hello Dolly plugin will display random lyrics of the song Hello Dolly in the upper right portion of your Admin panel on every page. You can find additional plugins on the WordPress site. You will need to upload new plugins to the wp-content/plugins. You can also click a plugin to visit the author's site to learn more about it. Let's go ahead and activate the WordPress Database Backup plugin which provides you with on-demand backup of your database. You are now able to manage plugins.