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Using Wordpress for the first time, my thoughts on the process...
No, I'm not planning on moving away from my current setup to use Wordpress. I just launched a quick side project for a friend. His name is Micah Kandros and he's a Nashville area Photographer, and also one of the most talented graphic designers that I know. He called me up a week or two ago asking me to help him get a blog up and running so that he could post outtakes of photo shoots, and that sort of thing. After talking over his requirements, I suggested to him that it might be best to start with a platform that would make blogging quick and easy for him to jump into, namely Wordpress.
Since I have a local web environment setup I simply downloaded Wordpress and installed it on my Mac Mini. The process was amazingly simple. Unzip everything into into the directory of your choice, then browse to the install file, install.php. The installer will ask you for a few pieces of information such as database credentials, and then it goes and does it's thing.
Once the installation is complete, you're presented with "Your Blog", the default skin for Wordpress that we've all see one too many times. Wordpress should consider randomizing at least the colors for the default install so that not everyone is presented with that blue color. I had already whipped up the code for his custom theme so I jumped into the admin area to poke around and see what I could accomplish.
The admin area is where WP really starts to shine. What are some of the awesome things I noticed whilst fiddling about in the admin? I'm glad you asked
- The dashboard is supreme? Everything at your fingertips.
- Image management! Adding an image to a post is a cinch. Plus you can easily resize an image, add styles or classes, and meta data.
- Theme management...amazing! Every file associated with a theme is fully editable from within Wordpress itself. Change your CSS, your templates, your includes, all on the fly! Wonderful.
The most awesome thing about the process, was that GoDaddy has Wordpress built in to it's control panel. I logged in to Micah's account, clicked a button and Wordpress was all set up FOR me. That's super nice. So, that's all I really have to say about the process. I'd heartily recommend Wordpress for anyone wanting to quickly get a blog site up and running. I've definitely taking some ideas away for my blog software...now where did I put that code?
So without any further "ado", here's the new Micah Kandros Photography blog. Be patient with the content as it just launched today. Give him time to get some of his awesome work up and online.