I started my blogging adventure on the marvelous www.wordpress.com site; their software is really easy to learn and use, certainly not bad for free! However, as I became more aware of the wonderful world of blogging, I decided to investigate what it would take to host a blog on my own site. I like the idea of being my own independent publisher and I had a hunch the technical aspects would not be beyond me, since a lot of folks have already blazed the trail.

It’s turned out even smoother than I expected. First thing that surprised me is how much cheaper hosting services are compared with last time I looked 3 years or so ago. I’ve signed up with AN Hosting, with a deal that is costing me $69.50 for the first year, including the exemplaryvisions.com domain name registration and free renewal of that registration “for life”! That’s a very clever sales hook, especially as grabbing a new domain name is all part of the signing up process.

I went with “AN Hosting” without too much research. I got their name from the wordpress.org hosting page, and with further surfing I found some good and some bad reviews. For $69.50 and a very impressive list of features, I figured it was worth just going for it. Maybe you can find cheaper and better - I was keen to get started.

Signing up is easy, unless you have a UK phone number; there is an automated anti-fraud stage that wants to check your identity by phoning you back - however, it failed to make sense of my UK number. This somewhat spoiled the experience for me - no instant gratification. The other alternative is faxing or phoning their support number. I did the latter, and ended up in a queue for 20minutes until being told the person I am trying to reach has a full mailbox, followed by a long beep and disconnection. Not an ideal introduction to a new business partner!

Turns out my money was good anyway and my application had been accepted. Subsequent email support enquiries have been responded to very quickly and helpfully, so I forgive them.

The next hitch and cause of mild “what have I done” panic was when I couldn’t find any reference to blogging in “cpanel” which is the administration interface from which you manage your shiny new linux box nestling in a Chicago data centre. This was very frustrating - after an age of looking I fired off a missive to their customer support. Quickly a reply came back saying it’s all in “Fantastico”.

Well - pardon me - but I’ve never heard of Fantastico - here is what you see in cpanel:

cpanel.jpg

I humbly submit that this could do with having a bit of an HCI overhaul. Before users care about the “how” to do something they need to find the something. In my case the something is “blogging” and “Fantastico” is about “how” to do that. This is what the Microsoft Office 2007 GUI makeover is all about - no use having a zillion features if 99% of customers can’t find them.

Anyway, their email support is fast and helpful - so no great problem. Their only blindspot seems to be when it comes to constructive criticism; their obviously technically competent email support staff completely ignored my helpful if somewhat pained comments about their telephone automation service, full phone mailbox and the cpanel user interface. Oh well.

Installing wordpress is an automated process - it is very easy to do (no small plaudit from me - I can and do break most things with almost casual ineptness). Even transferring my posts from wordpress.com was easy, via the export/import xml file facility. The only thing that was tricky with the transfer was finding and figuring out the .htaccess file requirements for permalinking and indeed even finding the wordpress permalink options (doh - look for the Permalinks subitem in Options!) - but of course, that is all documented by wordpress. Just take your time and surf about - lots of people have done this stuff before you.

I am very impressed and look forward to playing with some of the other “Fantastico” shiny toys - if only I knew what they did!

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