“What I’ve got, how I choose it, how I got it, why I think I need it and what I know about how to use it”

WOW, this WordPress is something that ticks my boxes

Why I think I need it– Briefly touched on in the previous post, in more detail. Blogging gives the interactivity that I think I need. As I’m planning to record a lot of the stuff that I do, blogging is great way to get the ideas down and build up content. I’ve found from using Blogger, as long as I’ve got something useful to say I can get some traffic (my DIY Loft conversion Blog, with very little effort is getting about 1000 hits a month). My idea is to get the bones of stuff down as I’m doing it and flesh out the information in a more structured fashion later on the actual website.

How I choose it –After reading up a bit about the “Blogosphere” it became clear that blogging platforms like Blogger are quite limited and restrictive, you are on anothers  territory and you have to obey their laws.  WordPress can be tinkered with and moulded to what you need, if you host it yourself you are king of the content and can make your own rule. Or as I am at the moment, exist in an anarchic world, the rules and structure will come later. Best of all it’s free!  The downsides are a complete unknown to me. (Please feel free to comment if you know of any)

How I got it –Another upside to the eUKhost package is a part of the cPanel called Fantastico that installs applications for you. A few clicks, another logoin etc. and there it is, WordPress and its database set up and ready to go. I’ve read, it can also be downloaded directly from  WordPress.org and installed easily on any hosting space that can handle a database.

What I know about how to use WordPress – Hey I can post, you’re reading this so there’s the proof. It does look incredibly powerful though and, I dare say, much of it I haven’t even considered yet. I do know it possible to apply templates contributed by users from around the world, the  whole look of it and the navigation can be altered to fit in or even match a website. I’ve got a long way to go but for now the “as is” will do so I can get the content down.

After skimming some of the tutorials and advice on the WordPress site, I’m confident the level of  guidance I need is available and I should progress well with it.  One minor niggle I have found is, the spell checker is a bit thick and with my level of dyslexia it can do my head in, I can live with that though.