Arrow Root Media » wordpress

WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites

sfrank — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:06:37 +0000

Installing WordPress can be either an easy or difficult process, depending on which hosting company you’re working with. For people using Bluehost, Dreamhost, and Godaddy all you need to do is go into the control panel and do what is called a “one-click installation.” When running a “one-click installation” script you are basically telling the host where on the server you’d like the WordPress files to be placed, and creating a mysql database (with username and password) to house all the information that will be pulled in through the WordPress site. That is the quick and painless way to create a WordPress site, but not all hosting companies are created equal.

Recently, my colleague and I were in the market for a new company to host our client’s sites on. We were in search of a host that has great support, technology to accommodate database driven sites, respects the privacy of its clients, and has security measures in place which will prevent client sites from being hacked. After reviewing a slew of hosting companies we discovered Rackspace. Not only do sites (referred to as Cloud Sites) hosted on Rackspace run fast, but their chat support is informative and efficient. The only downfall to Rackspace is the arduous process required for doing a WordPress installation on a cloud site. Rackspace cloud sites do not have a “one-click installation” option, so to create a WordPress site you must start from scratch, and do it manually.

This post is split into four sections:
How to Create a Client
How to Add a Site
How to Create a Database
How to Install WordPress on the Server

How to Create a Client

Below is a step-by-step guide to installing WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites. It may seem like a pain in the ass the first time you do it, but, like everything else, it gets easier with practice.
_________________________________

First thing you need to do is log into Rackspace (assuming you already have an account with them, and have enough room to start adding clients and sites to that account), and find “Clients,” located on the left hand sidebar. Upon clicking “Clients” a dropdown menu will appear, and you’ll click on “Client List.”

Click “Add A Client” to create a new client.

This is where you enter all the client information. (*make sure you write down the username and password in case you forget it)

This ends the area for developers. Usually, it is developers that create client accounts and plug in all the information. But, if the client is already in the system, then he or she can log in to Rackspace and choose their own hosting plan.
_________________________________

How to Add a Site

Adding a cloud site to a client is pretty straightforward. Similar to when you’re creating a client, you click hosting on the left hand sidebar, and then click on “Cloud Sites” after the menu drops down. After you click “Cloud Sites,” you will look for the “Add A Site” button and click on that.

After clicking the “Add A Site” button, the “Add a New Website” field will pop up like a light box image. Here is it very important that you match the domain with the right client. You will click the drop down, and find the client, fill in the domain name, and click “Add New Site.”

If it is a brand new website then you go ahead and choose “I want to ‘create a new site‘,” but some people may already have a site and just looking to redevelop or switch hosting companies. If that is the case, then you choose “I want to ‘leave the domain name alone for now‘.”

What this does is tell Rackspace that you already have a domain, but would like to create a development site. Rackspace will then create a domain address with series of random characters added on to differentiate between the live site and the new development space you’re creating.

This option is for developers offering hosting plans to their clients. If the hosting plan is included in the scope of work then you want to UNCHECK Bill Client for Site. This way, Rackspace won’t charge the client directly. Sometimes it is easier this way because the client might not want to be bothered with hosting issues. If this is not the case, and the client is responsible for all aspects of hosting, then you want to CHECK Bill Client for Site.

Here is where you decide what type of hosting plan you’d like to have for the new site you’re building. Depending on how much memory your site will require or how much traffic the site will incur indicates what type of plan your site will require. Most sites do not require more than the basic plan, which also does not add any extra costs. Some of the other plans are more expensive. After choosing the plan you want click on “Next Step.”

This next screen is very important. Keep in mind that this set of instructions is for setting up a client with a WordPress installation on a Rackspace cloud site. Your process may be different for other applications, or setups. Anything different or more sophisticated may require another set of instructions. Here, you must make sure the “Microsoft SQL Server Storage” is OFF, you choose on “1 Database,” and the default technology option is set to “Linux/Apache/PHP 5.2.0.” If you choose the wrong default technology it will create a problem later in the installation process.

This is a summary of the site you’re building, and all the settings you chose. Please review this carefully. If everything is correct, click “Finish,” and voila, you have a new site on Rackspace. But before you can install WordPress on the site, you will need to create a database.

_________________________________

How to Create a Database

After creating a new client and adding a site you are three quarters of the way finished installing WordPress on your Rackspace cloud site hosting plan. The next step is to create a mysql database. This will be another area where you’ll be writing login names and passwords, so please make sure you write them down in a safe place.

To create a new database go to the hosting panel on the left hand sidebar and click cloud sites. When you see the list of sites appear, click on the new one you created. Inside the site you will see five different tabs: General Settings, Domain, Security, Email Accounts, and Features. Go to the “Features” tab. Inside the “Features” tab, you will go to the database section and click “Add.”

Here is where you create the database (db) name. It will start out with a series of numbers like “634576″ Just fill in the box with a db name that has letters and characters (just to be safe). Then click “Continue”.

This area is where you will create the database username and password. Remember to keep this login information in a safe place because you don’t want anybody else messing with you database, and you might need to back up the database sometime in the future. The “634576″ will repeat before the database username, so enter a username using letters and numbers. The password will have to be entered twice, and will require letters, numbers, and at least one upper case letter. Both passwords need to match for you to finish the database.

After a few minutes the new database will appear in the “Features” tab under “Databases” You will then need to click on the database to gather important information required for the WordPress install.

The important piece of information on this screen is the “Hostname”. Without the Hostname you will not be able to link the database to your new WordPress installation.

_________________________________

How to install WordPress on your server

Now that you’ve got your site and database setup, you’ll need to actually upload the WordPress files to your server. For this scenario, we’ll imagine that you’re installing WordPress inside of http://your-domain.com.

Most people who are doing manual installations of WordPress can download the most recent version of WordPress from http://wordpress.com/download.

However, there’s another quicker and simpler way to install WordPress on your Rackspace server.

1. Go to http://instantinstall.org

2. Download the installer. You’ll get a file called instantinstall.php. Once you have this file on your desktop, you can upload “instantinstall.php” to your server via FTP. Once the file is uploaded, you’ll simply visit the URL http://your-domain.com/instantinstall.php (just make sure to replace “your-domain.com” with your actual domain).

As soon as you run the installer you will see this screen. Because we are installing a WordPress site here you should click on WordPress, but just so you know, Instant Install works for all different Content Management Systems such as Drupal & Joomla.

Here is where you click “Install”. This will drop all the WordPress files inside the directory you’ve chosen.

At this point, you will need the following information: Database name/Username/Database Password/Hostname. (All of this information can be found in Rackspace)

As soon as you enter all the information in the correct places, you can press “Submit”

Then you will be taken to this screen where you enter all the information to access your new WordPress site. (Make sure you store the login information in a safe place, because you’ll need it to log into your WordPress site). If this is a development site, then you should UNCHECK the option to have the site picked up by search engines such as Google & Technorati. After clicking “Install WordPress” you will be prompted to go into the back end of the site.

After everything is installed you only have two more steps before your development site is ready to go. You must go back into FTP and find the WordPress installation. In the “root” folder you will see a file called “index.html” I call this the root directory because this is where your WordPress files are stored (technically, this would be your “public” root folder). Change the name of the file from “index.html” to “1_index.html”. If you do not do this, then the site will not appear. You will only be able to access the back-end. The front end will be all white.

As you can see in the picture above, you will need to manually add a htaccess file so your site has enough memory to upload media.

Click Here to view a text version of htaccess

After dropping the htaccess file on your server your new Rackspace cloud site WordPress site installation will be fully functional, and ready for all the cool content you plan on publishing. If you made it this far down the post, then you are either crazy, passionate about technology, have nothing better to do, or really care about the efficiency of your WordPress site. This post documents the hardest part of the equation. The rest is smooth sailing after you follow these steps. If you should run into any roadblocks then you can always use Rackspace’s solid chat support. They have helped me out in more than a few pinches. WordPress is a very powerful Content Management System, but depending on where you host it makes a huge difference how well it works.

Ways to Backup Your WordPress Site

sfrank — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:42:44 +0000

Oh no! My dog ate my website! That is exactly what it feels like when you upgrade your WordPress site and your older plugins don’t exactly get along with the new software. When dealing with WordPress, it is not uncommon to run into a few bugs and hiccups. Sometimes you upgrade for security (like when a new version of WordPress is released). Or maybe the newer version of that plugin you love runs much faster or looks much sleeker than its crusty predecessor. Whatever reason you chose to modify your WordPress setup, it is imperative that you back everything up – just in case things go wrong (and they do).

So – without ado – here are a few options that will help (and most likely save) you or your client’s website.

X-CLONER

XCloner is a Backup and Restore component designed for PHP/Mysql websites, and it works as a native plugin for WordPress. It was created to create and restore the clone on any other location with the help of the automatic Restore script they provide, independent from the main package!

XCloner Backup tool uses Open Source standards like TAR and Mysql formats so you can rest assured your backups can be restored in a variety of ways, giving you more flexibility and full control.

WP Time Machine

Create archives of all your WordPress data & files and have them stored remotely. That’s right! Remote storage of…
1. Your data (from your WordPress MySQL database)
2. Your files (and Uploads) — everything in wp-content
3. Your .htaccess file
4. Instructions for a smooth recovery
5. A shell script that can help automate recovery — though this is still a “work in progress”

You provide the remote account; this plugin provides a connection to the offsite facility you choose.

You can choose to store your files on…
1. You can use Dropbox (if you don’t have a dropbox use this link): http://www.dropbox.com/
2. Also, archives can be ‘sent’ to Amazon’s AWS S3: https://s3.amazonaws.com
3. And, FTP is now supported as well (just provide an offsite host, username & password, and optionally a remote directory on that host)

Some recent improvements include:
1. A new option to exclude cache directories
2. Automatic exclusion of MySQL tables that don’t start with your table prefix

This Plugin requires PHP5 for all of its features!
With PHP4, the only offsite service capable of working at this time is FTP.
Author: Paul G Petty

WP DB Backup

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

This is a really nifty plugin for a quick and easy backup of your database. Keep in mind, though, that if you need to restore your site, you will need your database AND files (typically stored in your wp-content folder).

If you need help backing up your WordPress site, let us know – we’d love to help. And we’d love to hear how you’re backing up your site. What systems, plugins, or modules do you use?

WordPress Plugins

Jaki — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:54:14 +0000

For the past two weeks, I’ve been leading a wordpress class at 3rdWard. During the first two classes, we covered how to setup hosting, how to use a feedburner account, and how to install plugins and themes.

During the 2nd class, I also listed out a few of my favorite themes and plugins. For a review of what we covered in our 2nd Class, download this document.

In this post, I’ve included a few favorite plugins. For a list of some my favorite themes, visit this post.

WordPress Plugins

Wordtube

This plugin manages the JW FLV MEDIA PLAYER 5.1 and makes it easy for you to put music, videos or flash movies onto your WordPress posts and pages. Various skins for the JW PLAYER are available viaÂ http://www.longtailvideo.com

wordTube supports the streaming video format (Format .flv or .swf), sound files as MP3 and JPG, GIF or PNG grafic files. With wordTube you can simply insert it into your blog with the tag [media id="media id"] or as playlist [playlist id="playlist id"].

Since Version 2.0 it supports LongTail’s AdSolution which allows you to run pre-roll, overlay mid-roll, and post-roll advertisements in your media player.Â Click here to sign up for LongTail.

You don’t need to change the WYSIWYG mode or special HTML knowledge to insert such a tag. You can show a simple media file (i.e. a flv Format) or a playlist of all your media files.

All in One SEO

Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.
download the plugin or read more

Contact Forms 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

Visit the plugin site

WP-Cache

WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and the building the page from the database. WP-Cache allows to serve hundred of times more pages per second, and to reduce the response time from several tenths of seconds to less than a millisecond.

jQuery Lightbox For Native Galleries

jQuery Lightbox For Native Galleries makes the native WordPress galleries use a lightbox script called ColorBox to display the fullsize images.

To create the below gallery, all you have to do is upload a few photos to your post, and insert into your post’s content area. No modifications are required to get the Lightbox working.

WP-Ecommerce

This is my go to plugin for any ecommerce site built using wordpress. It has everything you need to get your store up and running.

Visit the plugin site
Download the plugin

Watch how to setup the plugin

Watch the Overview

MyFTP

If you need to access your host remotely (away from your desktop or laptop, this is the way to do it. It is a WordPress FTP like plugin that can be used to manage folders and files via the WordPress admin panel.

Google Analytics for WordPress by Yoast

This plugin easily adds your Google Analytics tracking code (the new ga.js one!) to all pages within your blog. That’s it’s main functionality, it adds a few “extra’s” though.

Visit Yoast’s site to find out what those extras are. You’ll also learn a crapload about wordpress.

Find your Google Analytics Account ID

Upcoming : WordPress Workshop @ 3rd Ward

Jaki — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:28:01 +0000

Here’s a freakin’Â awesome dealÂ from 3rd Ward : Sign up for theÂ WordPress WorkshopÂ (section starting 6/13),Â Illustrator IntensiveÂ (6/13), ORÂ Intro to After EffectsÂ (6/19) and get aÂ FREEÂ Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse.

Starting June 13th, I will be leading a 3 week workshop on WordPress. I’ve helped many organizations build their sites using WordPress and simply love the platform (in fact, this site is running on WordPress). It’s great for blogs, portfolio sites, and creative folks. You can even run ecommerce sites using WordPress.

Go on. Register for the class

A bit about the class :

You’ll learn the in’s and out’s of setting up, customizing and running your own website using WordPress, the most popular blogging platform.

WordPress is used for top blogs like CNN Money, all the New York Times blogs, and many non-profit arts websites. Simply put, WordPress makes publishing your website much easier.

We’ll start off with the basics (like setting up your own hosting) and then move to more advanced topics like customizing a theme (through the WordPress template engine), and inserting plugins for Twitter and Facebook. We will also set aside some time to review content strategy, site architecture, and look at popular plugins to help you sell your products online. This class will work well for both beginners and experts.

You can register for the class by clicking this link.

And to learn more about wordpress, visit my wordpress archives. Really. Click on that link. Or, you can take a look at some sites I’ve built using wordpress.

WordPress Resources

Jaki — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:57:50 +0000

This past September, I led a Blogging Workshop at the Brooklyn Food Coop. I covered lots of material and thought I would post a collection of wordpress resources.

Some of you are already blogging and are familiar, while others are just getting started.
Either way, I would encourage you to explore the resources below, and feel free to contact me with any questions.

Enjoy!

WordPress Themes

There are a whole host of wordpress theme respositories

Here are a few blogs that usually have good wordpress resources:
Smashing Magazine | http://www.smashingmagazine.com/tag/wordpress/
Noupe | http://www.noupe.com/category/wordpress
Blog Perfume | http://www.blogperfume.com/category/wordpress-theme/

Premium (paid) Themes

WooThemes | http://www.woothemes.com/themes
Elegant Themes | http://www.elegantthemes.com/
Graph Paper Press | http://graphpaperpress.com/

And my favorite and most recommended theme framwork | Thesis Theme

Portfolio Themes

If you are a designer, photographer, or want to showcase your portfolio, there are a whole host of good Portfolio themes
Here are a few good posts with nice pre-built portfolio themes

http://www.jeffhendricksondesign.com/portfolio-wordpress-themes/
http://designm.ag/freelance/wordpress-portfolio-themes/
http://www.themescloset.com/2009/03/15-best-premium-wordpress-portfolio-themes/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/29/ultimate-guide-to-using-wordpress-for-a-portfolio/

WordPress Video Tutorials

If you’re looking for good video tutorials, take a look here:

http://wordpress.tv

I’ve also posted wordpress resources here
http://www.arrowrootmedia.com/tag/wordpress/

Finally, you can take a look at wordpress’ resources.
They have great resources, tutorials, forums, and examples
http://wordpress.com (Setup your own wordpress site for free)
http://wordpress.org (Read more about wordpress)

If you have a great wordpress resource or find a great theme, please feel free to let me know if the comments below

How To | Writing and Publishing a Post in WordPress

Jaki — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:52:31 +0000

Writing and Editing in WordPress

Take a look at the video below to get a sense of how to publish posts + update content on wordpress

For other great wordpress tutorials, visit WordPress.tv

Inserting Media Into Your Post

view this video in a larger format

Best New WordPress Themes

Jaki — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:01:19 +0000

I was looking around for some new wordpress themes, and remembered the one I used for a recent site for Little Big Pictures. The theme was Oulipo and was designed by Andrea Mignolo. One of her themes was recently among the themes named “Best WordPress Theme for 2008″

Hereâ€™s bestwpthemes.comâ€™s selection of the best themes of 2008. There are 45 themes in all, divided between free and premium themes. I’ve selected just a handful. For the full list, visit the bestwpthemes.com site.

The best free WordPress themes of 2008

Typebased

Andrea

Charade

Revolution White Canvas

Revolution Album

Elegant Grunge

Carrington

Sirup

Equilibrium

Blass2

Upstart Blogger Swiss

Vostok

See the rest of the themes at bestwpthemes.com

WordPress Tutorials, Video Mode

Jaki — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:35:38 +0000

I found a GREAT repository for video tutorials on wordpress – I’ve listed a few below, but make sure to visitÂ SpeckyBoyÂ for theFULL LIST of TUTORIALS.

Adding Images to your WordPress Pages and Posts

Jaki — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:19:02 +0000

This video tutorial will show you how to add, edit, and mange images within your posts.
Watch it below, or watch it here.

WordPress Tutorial (2.6.1): Image Upload, Edit, Align and Captio

You can find more great video tutorials at Likoma.

We’ve launched Daniel Gwirtzman’s site!

Jaki — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:32:33 +0000

I’m happy to say we’ve officially launched Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company’s new site!

Actually, I’m quite impressed with the final product we put together for the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. With the help of great media all around, we were able to piece together a photo gallery, a video gallery, a new subscription system, and even an SMS delivery system for his audiences.

It’s really been great working with Daniel and his company. They really did a phenomenal job in gathering their assets, organizing their content, and creating compelling videos. Congratulations, Daniel! It’s exciting to know I’ll be able to continue to help you communicate your wonderful work!

If you like this, take a look at my other work.

[screenshots follow]

About Page | Features: Large Image on each page, drop-down navigation, links to video gallery, customizable sidebar navigation

Home Page | Features: Slide show, customizable footer area, drop-down navigation bar

While launching the site, I found this guide to be particularly useful:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

I initially setup this wordpress site in a subdirectory ( /wordpress ) so that I could develop things without affecting their active site. After the wordpress site was all setup, I needed to make the switch. The article above did the trick for me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts – share your ideas and leave a comment!

Arrow Root Media » wordpress

WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites

How to Create a Client

How to Add a Site

How to Create a Database

How to install WordPress on your server

Ways to Backup Your WordPress Site

WordPress Plugins

WordPress Plugins

Upcoming : WordPress Workshop @ 3rd Ward

WordPress Resources

WordPress Themes

Premium (paid) Themes

Portfolio Themes

WordPress Video Tutorials

How To | Writing and Publishing a Post in WordPress

Writing and Editing in WordPress

Inserting Media Into Your Post

Best New WordPress Themes

The best free WordPress themes of 2008

Typebased

Andrea

Charade

Revolution White Canvas

Revolution Album

Elegant Grunge

Carrington

Sirup

Equilibrium

Blass2

Upstart Blogger Swiss

Vostok

WordPress Tutorials, Video Mode

WordPress 2.6 Video CollectionÂ

WordPress Video CollectionÂ fromÂ siteground.com

WordPress Video CollectionÂ fromÂ killersites.com

Adding Images to your WordPress Pages and Posts

We’ve launched Daniel Gwirtzman’s site!