Check Step One’s Results
OK in the last episode we set up our domain. This means that we told the world about our domain, so lets see if that works. Go to your browser and enter the URL of you new blog. Do you get anything in the window? You should get a directory listing.

The other thing that should have happen was a new directory in your Dreamhost web directory should have been created. At this point you could fire up your favorite FTP client or SSH into you account and look to see if it exists. But if you got a directory listing from your browser we know there is a directory there.

Doing The Install
Now for the amazing Dreamhost one-click install of WordPress. Go to the Dreamhost panel -> Goodies -> One-Click Installs.

There is one-click to install but 3 steps.

The first is pretty obvious…select WordPress Weblog as the software to install.

Next select the domain name of the blog you want to install. Here things were a little weird to me. Since when I created my subdomain I didn’t uncheck for www.blog.photographerandmodel.com to work, that’s what is in the popup. May mean I have to make some changed after WordPress is installed. We’ll see.

Select your domain. Leave the field at the right blank.

Create a new database. I’m going to assume you are working on a clean install, so you need to create a database. Remember I said you need a one word tag for various things in the install? This is where I was talking about. These field are never seen by the world, but you need something you can tell at a glance what goes with what.

I’m naming my database, pmb_wordpress. “pmb” for Photographer and Model Blog, and duh _wordpress for what is going to be in the database. I’m using “pmb-wordpress” for the database’s subdomain because an underscore isn’t allowed. Make sure the popup is set to the correct domain.

I’m not going tell you either my username or password. The username can most anything and the password as well. Use something with both letters and numbers for you password.

Then you click the “Install if for me now!” button. An wah laa, you’ve installed WordPress. Or at least you’ve started the process. DH says it’ll take 10 minutes.

Dreamhost will send you an email to let you know when the install is finished. It will contain a link to take you to the page to finish you installation. Clicking on it will take you to a page where you enter the name of your blog and your email address.

Once this is done you’ll be told your password. Copy that password and log in as “admin”. Now you’ve got your blog!

In the next installment I’ll talk a little about posting to your new blog.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Dreamhost, How to start a blog, WordPress