Wordpress question

If you do an Advanced Search for Wordpress for Titles Only, you will find a bunch of threads about Wordpress. Some of them might have the answers you're looking for.

dragonangel517 said:

I just thought of something. I cannot go to any web hosting sites at work, so does that mean if I use one, I will not be able to edit my page at work? I am clueless about how all this works.

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We can't tell you; it depends on whether your work decides to block your domain or not.

There are thousands of free templates. It sounds like you want to have a WordPress Page linking to all the individual excerpts, with the excerpts being posted as Blog Posts.

Make sure that your Host supports a one-click install of WordPress; many do.

If you're using WordPress.com to host your site you won't have as much flexibility as you would if you use your own install of WordPress on your own paid for domain and hosting--but it will almost certainly cost more.

Blog posts in most of the WordPress templates have comments.

You could set up a free temporary throw-away account at wordpress.com to give it a test drive.

There is wordpress.com (what you are talking about) and .org -- which is where people download wordpress to use on their own blogs that they pay to have hosted (7 bucks a month)

If the only thing you want to use this blog for is to serialize a novel, a free hosting option like wordpress.com or google's blogger should be fine, and cheaper.

Getting a url/domain name and using it instead of the default wordpress or blogger name will look more professional, and it's only 10 bucks a year.

I'm not certain about your work blocking things -- if you can access other wordpress.com (or blogger) blogs it should be fine. When you work on your blog you are essentially going to the site like anyone else, but accessing the admin section. (All my experience with this is with a blog I own myself, however, and perhaps blogger and wordpress.com behave differently, I can't say with absolute certainty either way).

You should be able to do the table of contents linkage no problem. What you would do is set up a 'page' on your site for the table of contents, and just add links to it, and lay it out however you want. You can even make the table of contents your 'landing page,' ie. the first thing people see, while the rest of your site behaves like a blog.

Unlimited pages, pictures -- effectively, yes. Freehosts probably have a limit on uploads and bandwith, but it will be several orders of magnitude greater than anything you've mentioned.

Comments on each chapter, yes -- Each chapter is basically a blog post, comments are enabled as a default.

Good thing is you can essentially experiment with this without much hassle -- buy a domain name at somewhere like domain site or godaddy, then sign up for wordpress.com or blogger. If you find out for whatever reason that you need to get a monthly hosting package you can point your domain name to that, and transfer your content (which won't be a whole lot, based on what you are saying).

Have looked a bit into Wordpress myself. I believe that it is basically a blog site, with generally up to five pages, or thereabouts.

ATP said:

Have looked a bit into Wordpress myself. I believe that it is basically a blog site, with generally up to five pages, or thereabouts.

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What on Earth are you talking about?

WordPress is a CMS a Content Management System. It is quite capable of running an entire site, with both blog posts and static pages.

Are you confusing the free hosting site at WordPress.com, which uses a customized version of WordPress?

Using the free wordpress.com and running your own install of the free WordPress app are not the same.

the things about WP free that i didn't like is that you're part of the network. if you have a tag (keyword) on you post and someone clicks it to find more, they are show that tag in ANY free blog.

You can also try the free one for a while and then export the blog and import it to a privately hosted site

dragonangel517 said:

I cannot access anything with blogger or wordpress in the addy. Likewise I cannot go to an actual webhost site, like bluehost, which Black Alice uses. I am assuming since I can go to Black Alice, I would be able to go to mine, but what I need to know about is editing it. Would I log in to it through the webhost? If that is the case, then I would not be able to get to it at work.

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There's no way to know that in advance; we don't know what blocking criteria your workplace uses. Presumably they are blocking sites because at work you're supposed to be, well, working. I'd be cautious about working on my own stuff; jobs are a bit scarce.

dragonangel517 said:

I think I will do as Medi suggested and get a throw away tonight and play with it to see what I can do with the free version. Like I said, the actual serial is nowhere near being ready, I was just looking at my options.

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Keep in mind that by posting your serial you are using up first rights, the most lucrative rights for a publisher; it can hurt your chances to publish later.

I recommend stablehost. Check the reviews at that forum. It's cheaper than the big companies too (hostgator, bluehost, etc).

In general you'll want to stay away from any host offering 'unlimited' disk space and bandwidth. You'll probably never hit the limit, but it's good to know what the limits are. 'Unlimited' is a gimmick. Not that the hosts are bad or anything.

This might give you a good general idea of what Wordpress is and can do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress

I think the best bet would be to get a wordpress.com site - go there, sign up. Your URL would then be (yoursite).wordpress.com.

If you bought a domain - which looks more professional - you could link that to your new blog so when someone typed in (yoursite).com they'd get to it. I'm guessing you'd be able to get to this at work.

However, to update wordpress.com sites like this you would have to log in through wordpress.com. So I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to get to it at work. However, Wordpress has a nifty feature that allows you to email an email address that is linked to your account. You email to address and it will publish straight to your blog. No need to log in through wordpress.com.

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The other option...
If you did go with wordpress.org you would need your own hosting and domain, as you can't get to hosting sites you'd have to sort this out at home. Look for hosts that state they can have wordpress installed. Someone mentioned Bluehosts.

They'll probably sort out a domain for you. When you want to update your site it would be by going to (yoursite).com/wp-admin. I'm guessing that you'd be able to get to this from work but don't quote me on it. If your work sees you constantly going to that domain then they might block it too. Again, you can still update via email.

Both wordpress.org and .com have tutorials, FAQs etc on their sites. Check it out.

dragonangel517 said:

Thanks Cuppa I will check it out. As far as unlimited, I just want unlimited "pages".If I post once a week for 52 weeks, that will be 52 chapters or episodes or whatever I decide to call it. I want to be able to link to them on the first or home page,in a table of content, and not have 52 tabs across the top. I wasn't sure(still not) how that would work on WP. The other tabs or pages would be for things like my blog, and pics relating to the story.

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That's doable, all of it. You may have to try a couple of themes until you find one you like.

That said, I'm seriously in love with one called Atahualpa, because it's extremely flexible, even without knowing CSS.

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/atahualpa

dragonangel517 said:

Thanks Cuppa I will check it out. As far as unlimited, I just want unlimited "pages".If I post once a week for 52 weeks, that will be 52 chapters or episodes or whatever I decide to call it. I want to be able to link to them on the first or home page,in a table of content, and not have 52 tabs across the top. I wasn't sure(still not) how that would work on WP. The other tabs or pages would be for things like my blog, and pics relating to the story.

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You can create as many pages as you want. When you create a page you have the option to give the page a parent (ie top page). The menu system will then list that page under the page you specified. Each page is a tab on the menu.

Some advice.

Don't buy your domain name from your host, even if the host is trustworthy.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/registerdomain.shtml

My personal preference is to register the name directly with a domain name registrar rather than through my web host. I've heard stories, in the past, of less-than-reputable web hosts that registered the domain under their own name, making them the owner of the domain rather than you (although I don't know if such web hosts still exist today).

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Better safe than sorry *shrug*. I recommend namecheap, which has coupons if you search for 'Namecheap March 2011 coupons'. Up to you.

Oh and you'll install Wordpress in Softalicious in your CPanel. It's easy to figure out, but just make sure you change your domain name when installing wordpress from http://www.whateverlox.com/wp (i think it's that by default) to http://www.whateverlox.com (without anything after .com), or else wordpress won't show up on the latter. Easy to reinstall though.

Heh, no problem.