Technical Details
Technical Details
So how is this site set up? It’s a good question and one that I pondered deeply as I researched all the alternatives. In the end, I set the site up on my own server, running FreeBSD. Since I’d had the server running for quite awhile, mostly serving web pages to family and friends, it was fairly easy to install the software for weblogs and wikis.
Software Selection
So what software should I use? Since I already had MySQL and php running on my server, I searched for software that was php based. When undertaking such a task, I generally search the Internet and see what others are using, what they like and dislike, and look in the forums to see how much trouble they seem to be having. In the end, I settled on WordPress as the software of choice. I did this for several reasons: First, it was php-based software and relatively easy to install. Second, it seemed to be in heavy use (a good sign), and, third, it seemed to have relatively few problems.
I downloaded my copy and installed it. After clearing up some errors caused by permissions in my database, everything worked fine and has been working fine ever since. Now, I am exploring the finer points of WordPress, trying to become more versed in it so that I can better customize my sites.
Hardware
Since I run this on my own server, I have to solve lots of problems that you might not have to solve yourself if you use a hosting service. My server runs off my DSL connection at home. Since the IP address I get is dynamic, I use a domain name for it that is hosted by a dynamic DNS (DDNS) service. I works just like a static IP address, and makes my server accessible 24×7. I don’t have a lot of traffic on this, so that’s what enables me to continue to run over my own broadband connection. If I had more traffic, I would probably move the whole thing to the provider I use for my static web pages (1&1). For now, I enjoy running it on my own server so that I can manage all the finer points myself.
I actually use WordPress also for 4 other blogs besides this one. One of those is also hosted on this server and the other 3 are used for the classes I teach and are housed on one of Eastern Illinois University’s servers. Again, I had no problem setting up the university server blogs either (except, again, for a few permission problems that were easily solved). I highly recommend WordPress if you want to set up blogging software on your own server. I will run on virtually any platform that has php and MySQL installed, so it is completely platform independent. Best of all, it’s open source, has good support, and the WordPress community is a great place to get help.
Update
In January, 2007, I moved this blog from my home server, which is primarily a test environment, to my web host (1and1). It is now housed on a Linux server. Moving WordPress and the database was really no problem and the blog runs flawlessly on the new site.
