Using For Internet Publishing Laura Solomon Library Services Manager OPLIN

The agenda today: What is WordPress & some stuff about it Comparison to Blogger Some examples of Wordpress installs How OPLIN uses WordPress Installing and working with WordPress

What is WordPress?

What constitutes a blog? Ongoing chronicle of information Frequently updated Pieces/parts: –Main content area with posts –Archive of older posts –A way for people to leave posts –Links to other sites –One or more RSS feeds

Wordpress is not… Content Management System (CMS)

What can WordPress do? Act as a supplemental section or blog Provide additional functionality

What CAN’T Wordpress do (probably)? Replace your entire web site

Wordpress is…

A little background The largest self-hosting blogging tool in the world Open source Can download and customize it

Different flavors of Wordpress Hosted Local Photo courtesty of iShot71 (Flickr)

Hosted: “No worries, mate!” ProsCons Virtually no setupLess control of the look Easy to get started Less access to plugins

DIY: Calling Bob Vila..(Local) ProsCons Total control over the look and layout Requires backend database and scripting languages support* Access to more plug-ins*Might* need a good tech in-house or to hire More easily integrated into existing sites Upgrades and backups are on your own

How does this compare to Blogger?

Blogger vs. WordPress BloggerWordPress Slightly simplerSlightly more complex Entirely hostedHosted or local installation More limited functionalityGreat extensibility with widgets No support for categoriesSupports categories

What’s a widget? Sidebar plugin Additional functionality without changing source code

Some example widgets Active Discussions - Display posts with currently active discussion threadsActive Discussions Contact - Adds a contact form to the sidebarContact del.icio.us cached++ - Create a list of the latest bookmarks on a del.icio.us account, from its RSS feeddel.icio.us cached++ Flickr Badge Widget - display your flickr photos in the sidebarFlickr Badge Widget Now Reading scroll down on that page to see the widget versionNow Reading WP Polls - a widget for WP Polls pluginWP Polls

How OPLIN uses WordPress

Actually installing WordPress Ingredients: –MySQL database (preferably with admin tool) –Web server –PHP –Download of Wordpress –Caffeine helps, I swear

Your new best friend!

Do this… Allow a really good chunk o’time

Surround yourself with happy thoughts

Be patient

Actual demo here

What to do Install XAMPP Go to the XAMPP admin panel and open up the admin interface for Apache Click on phpMyAdmin on the left and create a new database Unzip WordPress. Put actual wordpress directory in the htdocs directory of Apache (most likely C:\xampp\htdocs) so that you end up with C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress.

Take a deep breath, the hard parts are over! You’re now ready to install WordPress! –Go to –Follow the wizard –Remember, if you have (properly!!) locked down MySQL, the username and password are not “root/no password”

WordPress Resources Full list of widgets ( ) WordPress Lessons ( )

Video Tutorials WordPress.com - Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Blog ( ) WordPress Tutorial - How to Edit a WordPress Page ( ) Wordpress tutorial--installing on a local server ( ) Wordpress Tutorial ( )

Where is this presentation? Questions?