Okay, so now I have gone and bought the domain, got a hosting company, changed my MX record, I then installed drupal, created my MySQL database and finished the drupal installation.
Now I really would like to make some money off this site, but how the hell to do this - there are so many people doing it, but no-one really wants to tell you how they do it, well i will try and explain what I do and how I am doing it:
So if you would like to check out the development of my site you can either follow me on Twitter, which BTW is new to me too or go to my site http://www.scratch-2-win.com.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Domain/Hosts and MX Records
Before actually continue with my explanation of getting a local web server, here is a live problem I am having:
I have bought a new domain called http://www.scratch-2-win.com, and I want it to start making money for me, so I need people to be able to get to it via the internet, and for this I will need a hosting company. This means someone that has many computers or very big computers that have a permanent address (kind of like the White House, the preseident will always live there, and such our site will always live at the address we tell it) but how do we tell it where it is living ?
How do I put a domain I have bought on my hosting company ?
So I have a hosting company and now I need to do this, but at the moment I have no idea, luckily I have a friend who is a system admin and he is meant to call me shortly to explain how to do this, and then I can hopefully explain to you how to do this to:
O so I nearly forgot - how do I buy a domain ? Well this is easy, just type in a Google Search for buying domains and go shopping, personally I bought some from http://www.godaddy.com ok so back to pur problem:
What do you need to do to have your domain pointed towards your web server ?
You need to update the DNS records on the site where you bought your domain from. Usually you will get a login to wherever you bought a domain from, you will need to login and look how you can edit the DNS records.
Once you are there you must create what is called "A records" for mail and for the web, so you must add a New Record, for the hostname use mail.hostname.com and use the IP address your hosting company gave you. Do this for mail, then for www, then for "@"
Hope this has helped, it can take up to 48hours until you start seeing your new website.
I have bought a new domain called http://www.scratch-2-win.com, and I want it to start making money for me, so I need people to be able to get to it via the internet, and for this I will need a hosting company. This means someone that has many computers or very big computers that have a permanent address (kind of like the White House, the preseident will always live there, and such our site will always live at the address we tell it) but how do we tell it where it is living ?
How do I put a domain I have bought on my hosting company ?
So I have a hosting company and now I need to do this, but at the moment I have no idea, luckily I have a friend who is a system admin and he is meant to call me shortly to explain how to do this, and then I can hopefully explain to you how to do this to:
O so I nearly forgot - how do I buy a domain ? Well this is easy, just type in a Google Search for buying domains and go shopping, personally I bought some from http://www.godaddy.com ok so back to pur problem:
What do you need to do to have your domain pointed towards your web server ?
You need to update the DNS records on the site where you bought your domain from. Usually you will get a login to wherever you bought a domain from, you will need to login and look how you can edit the DNS records.
Once you are there you must create what is called "A records" for mail and for the web, so you must add a New Record, for the hostname use mail.hostname.com and use the IP address your hosting company gave you. Do this for mail, then for www, then for "@"
Hope this has helped, it can take up to 48hours until you start seeing your new website.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Installing a Content Management System
Hi Again,
Well this morning we will go and explain how to download and install drupal, which as I have mentioned before is the CMS that I decided to use when building my sites for immigration: Opportunity Knocks and the Hebrew one.
So first thing is first and go to http://www.drupal.org and download the latest version of drupal.
1. Make sure you remember where you have saved it.
2. Now you will need to find where you installed your webserver MAMP. On my MacBook Pro, my MAMP was installed automatically in my Applications Folder.
3. Find the drupal version that you downloaded and move it the the folder Applications/MAMP/htdocs - this is the programs folder for holding files that will be visible via your web browser.
4. Now double click on the drupal file. This file is a zipped file and will automatcially unpack itself (extract itself) into this directory.
Ok well done you have so far managed to download and install a web server and turn your personal computer into your personal web server, you have managed to download drupal and have put it in your web dirctory, but now what??
Now you need to configure drupal to work properly and this is in itself a bit technical, not to technical so dont worry.
Many will tell you to go here http://drupal.org/getting-started/install, or you can read my instructions below:
1. Start your MAMP web server.
Well this morning we will go and explain how to download and install drupal, which as I have mentioned before is the CMS that I decided to use when building my sites for immigration: Opportunity Knocks and the Hebrew one.
So first thing is first and go to http://www.drupal.org and download the latest version of drupal.
1. Make sure you remember where you have saved it.
2. Now you will need to find where you installed your webserver MAMP. On my MacBook Pro, my MAMP was installed automatically in my Applications Folder.
3. Find the drupal version that you downloaded and move it the the folder Applications/MAMP/htdocs - this is the programs folder for holding files that will be visible via your web browser.
4. Now double click on the drupal file. This file is a zipped file and will automatcially unpack itself (extract itself) into this directory.
Ok well done you have so far managed to download and install a web server and turn your personal computer into your personal web server, you have managed to download drupal and have put it in your web dirctory, but now what??
Now you need to configure drupal to work properly and this is in itself a bit technical, not to technical so dont worry.
Many will tell you to go here http://drupal.org/getting-started/install, or you can read my instructions below:
1. Start your MAMP web server.
2. The program should start and open a new web browser tab/window for you. What you now need to do is create a database to work with your CMS, now if you do not know what a database is that is okay, you really don't need to know, you just need to follow the instructions to install one and make it work with drupal.
3. On the web page that MAMP opened click on the phpMyAdmin link
4. OK now it opens up the interface to the database (MySQL), and what you need to do is create a new database in the box in the middle of the page
5. Ok now you have created a Database, but hey, who can see it, that's right - you must now go and create your self a user. So if you scroll down the page you will see a link called Privileges, you should click on this link and add yourself to the list of users.
6. Next it is to give permission on the database you created to the user you created. To do this you must click on the datbase you created
7. Once you have done this you can open a new tab and type in the following http://localhost:8888/drupal-6.14/ where I have put in drupal-6.14 you should put the name of the folder in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ and then follow the instructions.
You should now have the basics installed and can follow the instructions from drupal to finish your installation, next time we will get onto configuring things.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Installing a Local Web Server
How do I install a local web server on my MacBook Pro ?
This was the task that was set before me. I knew I wanted to make a website, but I had no idea how to make one without trying to draw it on a peace of paper :-( so I started searching the internet and there are millions of answers.
Basically step 1 - make your computer into a WebServer.
What is a Web Server?
Ok this is not a professional answer, it is my answer and I am far from a professional in building web sites, if you want immigration advice, then I am the man, I can tell you if you can get a visa to England or Canada with my eyes closed, so to answer the question "What is a webserver?" - a webserver is a piece of software that allows users to view pages that you make via the internet using HTML. Basically if you want to be able to develop a web site locally on your computer without buying a hosting solution you will need a webserver.
Now as I use MacBook Pro so I will explain how to do it on the MacBook Pro, later this week when I explain to my friend how to do it on his computer I will put int the explanation to how to do it on windows:
1. Go download the MAMP webserver for MAC from http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html.
2. Install this package by double clicking on it once it is downloaded (If anyone has a problem here, please comment and I will try and write the solution)
3. Open up the application MAMP. This should either be done by double clicking on the icon or opening up your application list and choosing it from there.
Once the program is running it will open a new browser window for you and the URL will look something like this: "http://localhost:8888/MAMP/?language=English".
Basically now you can see the "FrontEnd" of the Web Server MAMP. On the top are some links that we will use later on for our Database setup, but at the moment you can see that it is running and working. All traffic is listened to by your computer on port 8888, - what is a port - a port is like a door letting someone into your house, our computers have millions of doors and each door is usually used for a different program.
This was the task that was set before me. I knew I wanted to make a website, but I had no idea how to make one without trying to draw it on a peace of paper :-( so I started searching the internet and there are millions of answers.
Basically step 1 - make your computer into a WebServer.
What is a Web Server?
Ok this is not a professional answer, it is my answer and I am far from a professional in building web sites, if you want immigration advice, then I am the man, I can tell you if you can get a visa to England or Canada with my eyes closed, so to answer the question "What is a webserver?" - a webserver is a piece of software that allows users to view pages that you make via the internet using HTML. Basically if you want to be able to develop a web site locally on your computer without buying a hosting solution you will need a webserver.
Now as I use MacBook Pro so I will explain how to do it on the MacBook Pro, later this week when I explain to my friend how to do it on his computer I will put int the explanation to how to do it on windows:
1. Go download the MAMP webserver for MAC from http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html.
2. Install this package by double clicking on it once it is downloaded (If anyone has a problem here, please comment and I will try and write the solution)
3. Open up the application MAMP. This should either be done by double clicking on the icon or opening up your application list and choosing it from there.
Once the program is running it will open a new browser window for you and the URL will look something like this: "http://localhost:8888/MAMP/?language=English".
Basically now you can see the "FrontEnd" of the Web Server MAMP. On the top are some links that we will use later on for our Database setup, but at the moment you can see that it is running and working. All traffic is listened to by your computer on port 8888, - what is a port - a port is like a door letting someone into your house, our computers have millions of doors and each door is usually used for a different program.
Web Content Management System
I really love the internet and as such have always been fascinated with building web sites. Over the years I have seen the development of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Langauge) and the different tools that are used to develop web pages.
I remember the days when each time people developed web sites they did it from nothing up, today people have realized there is no need to re-invent the wheel and there are programs that do this for us like Joomla, Drupal and others.
I personally recommend drupal. I have been using this over the past few years and have used it to develop my companies website Opportunity Knocks - Immigration Specialists. We deal with all immigration matters to the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Holland, Spain and Germnay.
Anyway back to drupal, for me this system has been great, it has been very easy to install and to use and it works both on all platforms: Windows, Apple, Linux. I personally have it running on my live sites and my personal computer is a MacBookPro and I also run it on my localserver.
The first question I had when wanting to make a web site was:
How do I create a web site ?
This question has a million answers, some good, some not so good, hopefully mine will explain things nicely. In my next post I will get into the steps of getting a webserver running on your local computer, installing drupal on your local computer and adding themes to it.
So my plan that I will take you through will be the following:
1. Making your computer a local web server.
2. Installing a content management system - drupal
3. Configuring drupal basics
4. Learning some google tools and how to integrate them into your drupal installation.
Well that's it for the moment, will be back with the explanation on "Making my computer a local web server"
I remember the days when each time people developed web sites they did it from nothing up, today people have realized there is no need to re-invent the wheel and there are programs that do this for us like Joomla, Drupal and others.
I personally recommend drupal. I have been using this over the past few years and have used it to develop my companies website Opportunity Knocks - Immigration Specialists. We deal with all immigration matters to the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Holland, Spain and Germnay.
Anyway back to drupal, for me this system has been great, it has been very easy to install and to use and it works both on all platforms: Windows, Apple, Linux. I personally have it running on my live sites and my personal computer is a MacBookPro and I also run it on my localserver.
The first question I had when wanting to make a web site was:
How do I create a web site ?
This question has a million answers, some good, some not so good, hopefully mine will explain things nicely. In my next post I will get into the steps of getting a webserver running on your local computer, installing drupal on your local computer and adding themes to it.
So my plan that I will take you through will be the following:
1. Making your computer a local web server.
2. Installing a content management system - drupal
3. Configuring drupal basics
4. Learning some google tools and how to integrate them into your drupal installation.
Well that's it for the moment, will be back with the explanation on "Making my computer a local web server"
Welcome
Okay well I have heard so much about blogging, so I thought I would start my own blog that will hopefully give tips on building websites, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) basics, and just general stuff related to the web. I hope that you find it useful.
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