Going to ‘press
How to Install WordPress on your Midphase Website…
Choosing a web host is a challenge at the best of times, but it’s made considerably harder if your website has to meet certain technical criteria. This is true of many programs and applications, even relatively straightforward ones like WordPress.
Now entering its second decade, WordPress has become the world’s most popular blogging tool. It’s also a fine example of open source architecture, having grown from a single piece of code into a diverse and complex CMS with millions of adherents. Because the code can be freely modified, the uses of WordPress are increasing by the day. The developers claim it can host anything from a comedy website to a multinational corporation’s online presence, but inevitably there are technical criteria that have to be met along the way.
Below, we consider the main requirements for a user to run WordPress, as well as explaining why they are necessary…
- A recent version of PHP. At the time of writing, WordPress 3.2 requires PHP 5.2.4, enabling it to read and process PHP scripts. This scripted language is used on hundreds of millions of websites to display advanced content, such as the results of database interrogations or apps. Many sites aren’t PHP compatible, but those that are can perform far more complex functions than HTML-only sites.
PHP is necessary for WordPress because many of the package’s functions and tools are underpinned by PHP, such as visitor numbers and comments. For instance, after writing a blog on WordPress, PHP will upload the text when it’s submitted. There are also tens of thousands of plugins offering greater customisation, and this is heavily dependent on web servers being able to handle PHP processing.
- MySQL version 5.0 or above. Short for Structured Query Language, this open source database management package provides a wide array of database applications. WordPress is powered by one of these databases, enabling swift execution of tasks such as changing multiple records with a single request. A typical example of this might include deleting spam comments – the scourge of many a blogger.
Although the WordPress team direct users towards leading servers like Apache or Nginx, they acknowledge that any server supporting PHP and MySQL should be sufficient. It’s also worth pointing out that the wordpress.com site is effectively a low-calorie version of the WordPress program – it enables near-instant blogging, but loses a great deal of functionality and complexity compared to the full WordPress system.
You can set up WordPress on your Midphase blog in a matter of minutes. Just log-into your CHI account. Go into your hosting tab and select the account you want to install WordPress on. Then click on the c-panel tab and look for the ‘softaculous’ icon in the software/services section. Click on this and you can install WordPress from here.