Our first project is in the can! I call this project “Make a Website, Start Following Through on Your Development Plan.”
The first step was to find a domain name using Instant Domain Search. I’ve been using this site for at least 5 years and it remains the fastest and simplest way to find a domain.
I then bought the cheapest hosting plan on Bluehost after hearing an advertisement on The Bill Simmons podcast. Like Instant Domain Search, I have at least 5 years of experience with Bluehost. I wanted a hosting plan that was basic, but would let me fully manage and run my own server including giving me the ability to experiment with a variety of programming languages and databases. I bought the bear minimum services, opting for just a domain name, some basic hosting, and for 99 cents a whois proxy to keep my personal information safe.
The next step was to delete the default WordPress installation that Bluehost sets up, because of Rule #1: We prefer to build our own and then I uploaded my own version of WordPress. I used cPanel to builtd a new database for the WordPress install. For some reason, the user privileges on the default MySQL database on Bluehost were not working. So I created a new database then created a new database user, linked the two together, and completed the World Famous 5 Minute WordPress install.
After some customizing and minimal-izing, here we are. Along the way I had an impossible time getting the FTP Client to work on my Chromebook so I upgraded my Chromebook to Ubuntu (more on that in a few days). I also introduced some horrible password and identity management behavior by reusing a subset of the same username and password combination to try to work fast, a violation of Rule #4. I plan to clean that up in a future post when I explore using a password manager.
According to Rule #2: we always beep our costs low. I fared quite well in this area walking away with a year’s worth of this website for $71.28.
On to project number two in a few days: detailing how I installed Ubuntu Linux on my Acer Chromebook.