Posted on by Pam Van Londen

Blogs: Websites for articles, news, journals, and product offerings

Readings

The revolution should not be eulogised
Weblogs may not be as innovative as some claim but they do have real potential as a form of personal publishing, argues Rebecca Blood.
WordPress
Free Blog software configured to work on the ONID server. Provides privacy via passwords. WordPress Glossary.
Getting Started.
Downloadable templates.
Free Blog Software / Hosting
About.com. Sheila Ann Manuel Coggins, Your Guide to Web Logs. Top Free Blog Software / Hosting for Bloggers.

Examples

“Blog” is short for “web log”. The term refers to an Internet web page that is often used for personal views about a variety of topics, including commentary about other sites, world events, personal news, diaries, photos, essays, poetry and fiction.

There are several free and simple-to-use Blog sites you can belong to and use for a variety of purposes. However, if you want to customize it and not pay extra fees, you can install a ready-made open source application, such as WordPress, MovableType, and Drupal, among others. You can also learn more about PHP and MySQL and build your own on ONID.

Installing WordPress on ONID

  1. Login to ONID
    • Click Web Database.
    • Write down your Web Database host, userID, and password.
  2. Link to WordPress
    • Download the WordPress application .zip file to your hard drive (usually the C drive).
      • In your My Documents folder make a new folder called site (lowercase, no spaces).
      • Unzip the files.
  3. Connect to your ONID and click on the FTP link.
    • Using Microsoft Explorer on a Windows machine.
    • Open the public_html folder.
      • Add a new directory/folder called site (lowercase, no spaces).
      • site can be the name of your site (lowercase, no spaces).
    • Select all the files inside your site folder on the hard drive (C).
      • Drag the selected files to the new site folder on ONID, into the public_html/site folder.
  4. NOTE: Do not do this step for WordPress V 3+. On the ONID server, open the wp-config-sample.php file in NotePad, SimpleText, Dreamweaver, or Frontpage.
    • Add your database host, userID, and password (replacing the lowercase placehoder text inside the single quotes). Save.
    • Rename the file wp-config.php.
      • Or save the file with the new name so you still have the original.
    • Close the FTP connection by closing the browser window or logging out.
  5. In a Browser, navigate to your new site folder in a browser.
    • http://people.oregonstate.edu/~yourusername/site
      • This address is NOT in your FTP window, but in a new window.
      • When you hit return to run the new site folder’s index.php default page, the database will be configured.
      • Answer the questions in the install screens to activate your new web site.
  6. Continue with: