Adding Plugins In Wordpress 2.8
Okay, let’s show you how to install plugins in WordPress. This is important because plugins seriously enhance the functionality of your blog. And now it’s so easy to install them. Here’s my quick video on how to do it:
Hope it helps you and let me know what you think in the comments. Be nice… please. 
All the best,
Installing and Activating Themes Using Wordpress 2.8
It’s just crazy how fast Internet technology is upgraded. And WordPress is no slouch in this category. They have made it super-simple to install new themes and plugins.
Here’s a quick video on how to install and activate themes in Wordpress 2.8:
I’ll put up a video on installing plugins here in the coming days.
Talk soon!
WordPress Tutorial
I started creating a video to show you the basics of the WordPress menu and ran across this excellent video that did it for me:
Good job on this. Saved me some time… always nice. 
Anyway, I think learning WordPress is just a matter of getting in there and poking around. It is so much easier to use now than it was even a year ago.
What I’ll do every week from here on out is show you how to use some of the important features. Installing themes will be next. For now, get in there and look around. Add a post or two. Add some pages. Check out the Widgets area. Just surf around and get a feel for it. The versatility and ease of creating a truly nice website without coding knowledge is amazing!
Onward…
Installing Wordpress Using Fantastico
This is so easy you won’t believe it.
First thing you need to do is go to your Cpanel and click on Fantastico. Just look for the smiley face.
Here’s what the page will look like. There will be a menu on the left side like this:
What you need to do is click “WordPress” and you’ll be shown the screen above. Here you’ll see all the current installations and a New Installation option. When you click on this you’ll go to a setup screen like this:
Let’s go through each area real quick:
#1 : This is where you’ll choose the installation location. There is a drop down menu that shows ALL the domains you have on the server in your account. This will include your main domain name and any add-on domains you have setup. Simply choose the domain you want to install in. You’ll notice that there are 2 options for every domain. I just use the short one. Under this you’ll need to choose a directory where you want the blog located. I always use WordPress as my main page so I just leave this blank. But lets say you want to install the blog as a part of a main website then you would simply type in “blog” here (or whatever directory name you prefer) and the install will create the directory and put the files in there (the directory name you choose SHOULD NOT ALREADY EXIST).
#2: This is where you’ll choose a Username and Password for your blog. I always use “admin” as the username. Write this information down. For every domain and blog I create I get out a manila folder and write all the information in there. Cpanel access information, blog username and password, email accounts and passwords, etc.
#3: Some of the information here will be filled in already. I always change it. To simplify things just use your first name and primary email address in the first 2 boxes. In the next 2 boxes you’ll Name your blog and give it a short description. This is what will show up as the title in your blog header and the subtitle below. Don’t worry too much about this because you can change it all very easily later. For simplicity just use your domain name as the Site Name.
Now just click the Install WordPress button and Cpanel builds your blog for you. It takes less than 10 seconds to complete.
What pops up now is a screen that says your installation was successful and it gives you the URL to your blog and the Admin Login. So you know, here’s what these will look like:
Blog administrator access using your username and password:
http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin
Or if you installed in a directory called “blog”:
http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin
That’s it. Now go to your new blog and log in and start checking out the menu system and everything there. We’ll go through all of it coming soon.
Have a great day!
Using Filezilla FTP Software
Before we get to setting up Wordpress in Cpanel, let’s get the FTP software training out of the way first.
Although you can use Cpanel for file transfer from your computer to your hosting server, I find it MUCH easier to use an FTP client.
The software I use is Filezilla… it’s free and works great! You can pick up your copy at:
http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client
When you download, install, setup and connect to a remote server the software looks like this:
The left side labeled “A” is your computer’s hard drive. The other side labeled “B” will be the files located on your hosting providers remote server. To get all this to work you have to setup the software to access your server.
Let’s do that now. First, obviously, you’ll need to install Filezilla on your computer.
Open up your Filezilla FTP program and click the “File” tab in the top right-hand corner. In the drop-down menu click on Site Manager.
The Site Manager window here where the 2,3 and 4 are shows a list of sites I have set up already. Your window will be empty. To get started you’ll need to click on the “New Site” button and then fill out the form:
#1: This is where you’ll simply type in your domain name and extension like “yourdomain.com”.
#2: Make sure the Server Type is showing “FTP”.
#3: The Logontype should be set to Normal and then type in the Username and Password you gave Hostgator when creating your hosting account.
#4: The advanced button lets you set up the folders you want to appear on your local drive and server drive when connecting. For the local drive you simply browse and choose the directory you want. The server side you’ll want to type in /public_html/ .
#5: When you’re finished be sure to click the Save and Exit button.
So you know, just below File on the menu bar you’ll see a button that opens up a drop down menu. This menu will show all your host accounts which you can easily click on to quickly connect to your hosting server.
Transferring files to and from the server is pretty easy. You can simply click and drag, or highlight multiple files using the shift and control keys. Moving around your server directory works the same as using your local drive file manager. Double-click on a folder to see its contents. Double-click the folder at the very top to move up the directory, etc.
You’ll find yourself using this software to create directories, upload reports, thank you pages, and more. Sometimes it may be necessary to add themes and plugins for your wordpress blogs too. We’ll be getting into all this a little later.
Well, I hope you’re having some fun so far. Much more to come!