Hi, I have been tasked with creating our company website, www.discoveryflexibles.com is the current site and needs greatly updating as it looks awful.

 

I want to use Wordpress and was wondering how I go about it. I've no code experience and we use 1and1 as the host. So far I have been told that we need to upgrade the host package to a Linux platform to be able to download and use Wordpress. Am I on the right track here ?

Even though it is better to hot a Wordpress installation on a Linux server, it's by no mean needed. I run several Wordpress installs on other peoples Windows boxes just fine. 1&1 do have a habit of trying to sell you extras that you don't need so be weary, especially if what they are trying to get you to 'upgrade' too will cost you more money.

 

With that aside however. Wordpress is pretty easy to work with, some hosts even offer one click installs (not sure about 1&1 though).

It's a case of uploading the contents of the Wordpress folder via FTP to your server, editing the configuration file to reflect your servers set up (usually only a handful of lines), creating the database, updating the permissions on the files and folders and hitting 'install' and letting Wordpress do the rest.

 

You can then play around with the blogging/CMS platform as much as you want, install themes, install plugins and generally go wild.

 

Of course you know we're always here to help if things go wrong

Mike pretty much covered the basics (as usual) so not much more to add there.

 

I am however curious how you got tasked with building the new site if you arent a programmer. Looks like it would be a fairly easy theme to re-cretae the site in wordpress so have fun i'd usggest doing it on your local machine before up;loading it and fiddling on a live site though

As a company, we dont want to spend any money and I have built a few sites using templates in the past, I dont think we want anything too flashy.

 

How do I go about it from the start ? I cant download Wordpress as its says I need:

 

To run WordPress your host just needs a couple of things:

 

PHP version 5.2.4 or greater

MySQL version 5.0 or greater

 

The requirements have changed as of WordPress 3.2. The minimum requirements for WordPress 3.1 are PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.1.2.

you need to install something like xampp in order to run it locally

As a company, we dont want to spend any money

 

False economy.

False economy.

 

fun part is... when they realize the amount of work to go into it... they contact people like us to fix it.

 

although that one looks fairly simple, he should be be pretty good with html/css if he finds a good template

Okay, so what's the best thing to do, follow this:

 

http://www.kartonista.com/tech/install-wordpress-locally-under-windows-7.html

 

Then I can create the site, until its ready to go live, then what happens ?? Do I still need to change the 1and1.co.uk account over from Windows to Linux ?

Did you read my post above http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/topic/55655-company-website-in-wordpress/page__view__findpost__p__355722 ?

 

Does your server have the minimum requirements that Wordpress needs?

I've had no problem running Wordpress on various Windows servers but have not tried on 1&1. The only thing i found to be a pain (although not impossible) was getting pretty permalinks to work.

Did you read my post above http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/topic/55655-company-website-in-wordpress/page__view__findpost__p__355722 ?

 

Does your server have the minimum requirements that Wordpress needs?

I've had no problem running Wordpress on various Windows servers but have not tried on 1&1. The only thing i found to be a pain (although not impossible) was getting pretty permalinks to work.

 

I take it someone from 1and1 will have the server requirements, as its them that will be hosting it.

 

Is it easier to build a web server myself ?

I take it someone from 1and1 will have the server requirements, as its them that will be hosting it.

 

Is it easier to build a web server myself ?

 

Nah, cos then you'd have to pay colocation and deal with your own hardware problems.

 

Best leave the hardware side to a host as they have plenty of spare iron they can swap in and out.

Iv'e now installed XAMPP and Wordpress on my PC, what is confusing me is that it looks almost the same as the Wordpress blog site that you can access online. Plus all the templates look like blogs ?

Iv'e now installed XAMPP and Wordpress on my PC, what is confusing me is that it looks almost the same as the Wordpress blog site that you can access online. Plus all the templates look like blogs ?

 

 

Well, yes, it's up to you to change the look to suit.

Iv'e now installed XAMPP and Wordpress on my PC, what is confusing me is that it looks almost the same as the Wordpress blog site that you can access online. Plus all the templates look like blogs ?

 

Yes, it comes as standard with the Wordpress 2011 theme built in. You then work from this base line to create your own look and feel.

As discussed above, we are now in a position to upload our company website to the 1&1 host, but we are having problems understanding what 1&1 will be doing when we upload

 

Our new website has been designed in Wordpress, so we think it will have to be hosted on a different server to our current site. (1&1 told us we would need to change to a Linux based host to enable us to use Wordpress)

 

They currently already host our domain name and our current website plus they have something to do with our email as well, here lies the problem. We are unsure of the disruption that will occur to email etc when they change over servers ??? if any ?

 

Can anyone provide prior experience of this kind of thing ?

Yes you need linux server to host your wordpress site but it is not that you cannot host your site into windows server.

 

I am not sure what they are planning to do with your mail ID when the server changes. We have hosted our site into a different hosting company but we have not faced any problem.