Web Talk

I have to tell you the truth. I am not that big geek I look like. Despite I manage this blog, I post dozens of articles per month and so on, sometimes I take a lot before learning something new without any guarantee to succeed. So, no wonder if after a while I quit what I am trying to do, because I loose my temper and screw things out. One of the biggest dreams of mine, when it comes to trying new things out in my blog, is to have a local WordPress blog on my PC where I can experiment new plugins and themes without being worried to make a mess in front of all my readers. I know what you are thinking about: “Hey, that’s quite easy”. Believe me, until last week, this “easy thing” used to drive me completely crazy. As a matter of fact,  I tried to use a good, excellent software called Xampp in order to have my private experimental blog on my machine, without any luck. In fact, despite I spent quite a lot of time reading tons of tutorials, the software seemed not to work right for me, and as a result it gave me a lot of database errors. Guess what? I stopped using it, but not before having tried something like one hundred times! Don’t get me wrong, the software is wonderful, but maybe it is not tailored for what I know and understand.

The light came from another nice piece of software called WampServer which managed to solve all of my issues in a couple of easy steps. This was something amazing and made me think: “Was it really so easy?”. So, let’s see together how we can set up a local WordPress blog right in your computer and have fun with it without being worried to make a mess (well,  the whole purpose of this tutorial is to have a private blog and make a mess with it!).

1. The first step is, without any doubt, to download a copy of Wampserver. I would like to remind you that this software is completely for free.
2. Install Wampserver on your computer, right in the default location which should be the root of your main partition (where your Windows is installed): C:\wamp”. The installer will install Windows Apache, MySQL and PHP which are essential services to run any CMS (Content Management System)
3. On your desktop you should now see an icon labeled Wampserver. Double-click it. A little speedometer icon should appear on the taskbar (near the clock, in the bottom right corner of your desktop). Right-click on it and select Put it online From now on your computer will act as a server.
4. Now download your WordPress copy (or any other CMS).
5. Left-click on the speedometer icon and click www directory.
6. Extract the whole WordPress folder to the www directory folder.
7. Now let’s create a database for our WordPress blog. Again, left-click on the speedometer icon and click PHPmyadmin.
8. Your favorite browser should now appear on your desktop showing you a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL (databases).
9. Under Create new database type the name of your database (i.e. wordpress) and click Create. Leave Collation option on the right asit is.
10. On the upper-left of your screen you should see a little home icon. Click it.
11. Click Privileges.
12. Click Add New User and type a username for your database (i.e. admin). Leave Use text field option next to User Name as it is. Don’t change it!
13. As far as Host is concerned, type localhost and select Local.
14. Chose a password and type it in the Password field. Leave Use text field option next to Password as it is. Retype your password.
15. Under Global privileges, leave everything as it is.
16. At the end of the page, click Go.
17. Now Go back, by clicking on the little home icon to the main page and click Privileges again.
18. Locate the username you have just create (it should be named admin). On its right you should see a small icon. Go to your pointer over it. It should be named Edit Privileges. Click it.
19. Under Global privilege, check all privileges and click Go.
20. Now return where you extracted the WordPress package, look for wp-config-sample and rename it wp-config.php. (if for any reason during the installation of WordPress, something went wrong, rename the file as it was originally, namely: wp-config-sample.
21. Open the just renamed wp-config.php file in your Notepad.
22. you should see some php code like this:
    <?php
    /**
    * The base configurations of the WordPress.
    *
    * This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,
    * Secret Keys, WordPress Language, and ABSPATH. You can find more information by
    * visiting {@link http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php Editing
    * wp-config.php} Codex page. You can get the MySQL settings from your web host.
    *
    * This file is used by the wp-config.php creation script during the
    * installation. You don’t have to use the web site, you can just copy this file
    * to “wp-config.php” and fill in the values.
    *
    * @package WordPress
    */// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //
    /** The name of the database for WordPress */
    define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);

    /** MySQL database username */
    define(‘DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere‘);

    /** MySQL database password */
    define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere‘);

    /** MySQL hostname */
    define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost‘);

    /** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
    define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);

    /** The Database Collate type. Don’t change this if in doubt. */
    define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

23. Fill in the database username, database password, MySQL hostname with the information you used during the creation of your database.
24. Save this file with the changes you have just made.
25. Run your WordPress installation by typing in your browser, the following address: http://localhost/wordpress/ wp-admin/install.php
26. When requested, fill in those fields requiring the database username, database password, MySQL hostname with the data you have.
27. Done!