MHF How-Tos 8 Show Notes

In this episode we talked about using WAMP server on your computer. We also teach you how to install wordpress on your WAMP server.

WAMP stands for Windows, Apache(an open source web server), MySQL(the database which stores the information that PHP accesses) and PHP(the web scripting language used to access the MySQL database). It is a web server stack where everything you need to run a web server on your laptop is wrapped into one neat little package. When running WAMP server, don’t worry, your site is only accessible by you. Nobody on the web can access it. Best of all, WAMP server is free.

You will need:

- A computer running Windows(of course)

- A copy of WAMP server

- A copy of 7-zip

- A copy of wordpress

-A text editor (like Microsoft’s Notepad or Notepad ++)

Download and install WAMP Server

Open your favourite web browser and in the address bar, type in localhost(all one word)

Download and extract your copy of wordpress from the link above. You will need to copy the archive to the following location:

C(whatever hard drive your wamp server was installed in):\wamp\www(CSS and HTML files go here)and Right click on the .zip archive for wordpress and click on “extract here”. You should have the WordPress folder containing all of the files needed for the install.

Open your favourite web browser and in the address bar type in localhost/phpmyadmin. Click on the databases button shown below and you should see a field to type in the name for your new database(you will need to create a new MySQL database for WordPress). We will call it WordPress. Click the create button and you have created the database.

To secure your database, you need to give it a password. Keeping the web browser open, type into the web address bar localhost/phpmyadmin and select users from the menu at the top of the page. From there, click on edit privileges next to the bottom entry of the users table shown below.

Scroll down until you see the “change password” section of the window

Type in the password you want to use and click Go. Now you need to put the same change into the configuration file. As shown below, type in the same password you gave to the ‘root’ user earlier into the config.inc.php file. This will be found in C:(or the hard drive you installed WAMP server on)\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin. Right-click on the file, open it in notepad++ (or whatever text editor you want to use) . Hold down control and press F and type in the word password to find the area where you need to type in the password. This is shown below.

Hold down the control key and press the S key to save the document and exit your text editor.

Now to install WordPress, go back to your web browser and type in to the addressbar localhost/wordpress. You will be asked to enter in your mySQL database information that you set up earlier. This will be the name of the MySQL database(in this case wordpress), the user name for the database(in this case root) and your MySQL password(the one you gave to PHPMyAdmin).

If all goes well, you should be asked to configure the basic information for your wordpress site(including name of the site, the tagline, the user name for your wordpress site and password). Then you will be redirected to localhost/wordpress/wp-admin which is the log-in page for your wordpress site.

Let’s make the wordpress site even better by adding plug-ins(add-ons which give the wordpress site some extra functionality). Wordpress has their own plug-in directory where you can download and install your plug-ins from. Some are free and others you will have to pay for. Here are just a few of free plugins that you can use.

Blubrry’s PowerPress Podcasting Plugin - Just like this website, you can allow your visitors to listen to the podcast right from within the web browser. It allows you to create a podcast-only RSS feed and even create multiple podcast only rss feeds(which is useful if you do both audio and video versions of your podcast.

Disqus Comment System – Allows people to comment on your posts using their Facebook, Twitter or Google account. Comments can be voted up or down and the comments with the most votes will rise to the top.

Google Analytics for WordPress - Allows you to add Google Analytics(a free analytics system) to your site so you can see how many visitors are coming to your site on a daily or monthly basis, what device they are using and more. You will need a Google account in order to use Google Analytics.

Wordbooker – Allows you to share your posts to Facebook. You can choose to send them to a Facebook page or your personal Facebook timeline.

WP-to-Twitter – Allows you to share your posts to twitter. You will need to set up a Twitter account. You will also need to set up a twitter app but there are instructions within the settings for WP-to-twitter.

You can host your website at home using WAMP server. If you do so, then you are doing it at your own risk. WAMP server is meant for testing your web app locally before throwing it onto the open web for the world to see. If you want to do this, here is what you would need:

1. A high speed connection ie: Cable broadband with speeds of at least 50mbps down or higher
2. You would need to get a domain name from someone like Vidahost, Fasthosts or Hostgator
3. A static IP address for your computer within your home network
4. Enable NAT and PAT on your Router
5. Configure you router for port forwarding 80 to your server
6. Configure your router and server to allow traffic through your firewall

If you have done this yourself, then email us and let us know how you got on.

If you have a how to that you want us to do, or any questions, comments or feedback or anything that we have missed, then send us an email to howtos@mhftech.net.