I’ve been getting a lot of questions from my buddies, asking how to actually start a blog like mine, with their own domain name and everything, so I decided to make a simple guide to follow.

1. Find a domain
   You need a domain. This is fairly easy to do:

   Think_of_a_name
   While (name_is_taken):
        Think_of_a_new_name
   Register_name
   

   You can search for names at Go Daddy, however, I don’t like their rates as much, and the entire process there is rather confusing (they try to make you buy so many things!) which is why I prefer going to Lunar Pages.

2. Find a host
   Once you find a domain name, you register and pay for it. But you still need a place to host your website. A lunar pages, they actually give you a free domain when you purchase some hosting, so you save some money there.
3. Now we get a bit technical
   Once you have a domain and host, you are pretty much set to go. You’ll receive emails detailing how to connect via FTP, upload files to your site, etc… At this point, any html file you put on your webspace will appear. However, most people don’t know a thing about HTML, and even if you did, would you even have the skills to make a site that looks good and doesn’t crash? Most likely not. This is where wordpress comes into play.
4. Wordpress
   Wordpress is the software that’s powering my entire site. Since I am in computer science, I’ve been creating my own websites for years, then just a few days ago, I played around a bit with wordpress, and realized the power I’ve been missing! It does everything for you, and for users who don’t even know html? No problem, it does it all for you! Its even easy to set up! There’s only 2 requirements:
   1. PHP
   2. MySQL

   If you have these two pieces of software on your server, then you are pretty much set. Wordpress is even kind enough to include a very awesome set of instructions that are very easy to follow. If you feel that your technical skills are up to par, try the Famous 5-Minute Installation!
   

5. Customization
   Now here’s the fun part. The default installation is rather plain, so you can try customizing the layout to suit your tastes. You pretty much download themes, unzip them, and then upload them to your /wp-content/themes/ folder.  Once its uploaded, in the Wordpress site admin, you go to Appearance>Themes and just click on the one you want for a small preview, then click “activate”. You can download themes from the wordpress site, or you can search for sites that rank them. I personally didn’t like any of the ones I found there, so I went to digg and searched for “wordpress themes“, which gave me many many resources.

And there you go, you have a blog! For most people, this would be sufficient, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I actually ended up modifying many many aspects of my current theme (gHack), mostly because I’m usually very picky. I actually ended up downloading a lot of plugins and modifying the php (which I had to learn on the go) to do what I wanted it to do.

A quick list of enhancements I’ve done:

• Added my tweeter feed
• Got Google adsense up and running (made $0.31 already!)
• Got gravatars working for everyone (globally recognized avatar)

All in all, I am quite satisfyed with my results so far. So good luck on your own site!

I’ve finally decided to start up a blog. I’ve blogged on LiveJournal for a number of years now, but I realized it sorta has its limits:

1. I don’t have my own domain.
   
   • I bought my own domain last year, and I havn’t really utilized it to its fullest potential. Its great having a place to host your files, and I used it for a while as a website for all the courses I taught. But with my own domain, it makes it easier for people to actually find me and it helps “market” myself a lot better.
2. Its not professional.
   
   • LiveJournal just didn’t seem professional enough. I mean, I still had the silly username I’ve been carrying around for years. The only people able to find/read it were my friends, and it felt more like a personal diary then anything. My friends have always been posting “diary-like” content, but I’ve always refrained from that.

After going to CUSEC, I realized that most of the speakers had a blog. These were a VERY smart group of people, and by reading their blogs, you learn so much. Some of my favourites include Jeff Atwood, Zed Shaw, Francis Hwang, Leah Culver (Co-founder of Pownce and the girl who got a free laptop by etching ads into her laptop) , Joey Devilla (He has two!)

The final straw, however, was during my interview with Direct Energy. They actually make all their employees (in their Graduate Developement Program) have a blog. Its a great way to keep track of what you’ve been learning and what you’ve been doing.

So there you have it. My first professional blog. Well not “professional” in a stuffy bureaucratic way, but in the sense that it will showcase all my nerdy ambitions, ideas, and adventures, and man do I have a lot of those.