This post has been translated by Mariam Osmann. Read her blog and follow her on twitter.

ترجمة مريم عثمان

زمان كان توزيع المنشورات ده بيتعمل في الاستخوبس واللي كان ماشي فيه ياما شاف. أما دلوقتي ده بقة العادي عشان تعلن عن فكر أو نشاط وتعرف الناس بيه، ويعتبر مهم لأي مجموعة سوا كانت اتحاد مستقل أو قوة سياسية أو حزب . ويعتبر أهم من المواقع الاجتماعية م الناحية العملية.

الورق ده كان موجود منه ع الأرض، هو أساسا ماكنش يشجع ع القراية. عشان كدة قررت أكتب التدوينة ديه عن الخطوات اللي لازم نعملها وإحنا بنصمم منشور يكون له قيمة ويقدر يوصل الرسالة بتاعتك. وحتى لو كانت الماديات مش قد كدة. دي كام نقطة لازم تاخد بالك منها لما تيجي تصمم وتطبع منشور ناوي توزعه في الشارع:

1. الإنجاز مش طالبة وجع دماغ

لازم تركز على شوية نقط من غير كلام كتير. محدش عنده دماغ يركز معاك كام ثانية على بعض، شوية وهيسرح في حاجة تانية. فكر في المنشور ده على إنه حاجة معبرة، إعلانية مش تفاصيل كاملة عن حركة مثلا. لو إنت قعدت تنتع في قلبك عشان تزنق كل حاجة في ورقة واحدة فده معناه في الغالب إنك حاطت معلومات أكتر م اللازم.

2. قطع أقل، جمل قصيرة أكتر

محدش عايز يدخل في كلام كتير. الجمل القصيرة أسهل في القراية عشان بتخلي اللي بيقرا يطنش نقط أو يقف عند نقط. يعني قمة التفاؤل لو إنت فاكر إن في كتير مستعدين يقعدوا يقروا كلام كتير ويحاولوا يطلعوا كام معلومة مهمة من وسط السطور. أحسن حاجة، إن المنشور يكون في صورة خمس نقط أساسية تحت كل نقطة سطرين شرح.

3. استخدم الألوان لو ممكن، بس من غير شخلعة

أكيد الطباعة الأسود والأبيض هي الأرخص، بس لو الميزانية تسمح ممكن تستخدم لون أو اتنين كمان، هيخلي المنشور يشد العين أكتر. بس ابعد عن الألوان المفرقعة اللي بالعادة بتضايق العين، ده غير تكلفتها.

4. مقاس A5 أحسن من A4

مش لازم المنشور يكون مقاس A4. إحنا قلنا قبل كدة الكلام اللي هتحتاجه عشان تملا صفحة بالمقاس ده هيكون زيادة عن اللزوم. غير إن لو واحد عايز يطبق ورقة بالمقاس ده أو يمسكها عشان يقراها هيعاني. أما مقاس A5 (وده نص مقاس A4) يناسب الجيب بعد ما يتنى مرة واحدة، ومكن تمسكه بإيدك بسهولة وقت القراية. ممكن تطبع على الناحيتين، وتخلي ناحية للنقط الأساسية ومعاه تفاصيل للتواصل للي عايز معلومات زيادة.

5. استخدم رسم توضيحي أو مخطط

ما تفكرش تطبع صورة. هتكون مكلفة غير إن جودتها نادرا ما هتساعدك توصل رسالتك. مع ذلك ممكن رسمة كارتون بسيطة أو كاريكاتر يشد جمهورك بطريقة تشجعهم يقروا باقي الرسالة. أحيانا ممكن المخطط يساعدك توضح وجهة نظرك.

6. خليه ياخد موقف، أعمل إيه دلوقتي؟

عمر ما كان الهدف من أي منشور قرايته ورميه. دايما مطلوب يتعمل حاجة. ركز ع النقطة ديه. وخليها واضحة في آخر رسالتك (عشان ف الأول ممكن يكونوا لسة مش مقتنعين). وكل ما تكون العبارة قصيرة تأثر بشكل أحسن. مثلا عبارة “قول لأ” تعمل أثر أحسن بكتير من جملة طويلة بتطلب نفس الشئ.

7. أروح فين لو عايز أعرف تفاصيل أكتر؟

إوعى تنسى إن المنشور بيقول رسالة محددة، اللي هيتشد بيها هيكون محتاج إن حد يقول له فين ع الانترنت يلاقي معلومات زيادة. وأحسن مكان تبعته ليه هيكون الموقع بتاع الحركة أو المنظمة ع الانترنت أو صفحة ع الفيس بوك أو هاشتاج على موقع تويتر (مش لازم دايما حساب على موقع تويتر عشان تتابع الكلام المكتوب في الهاشتاج)

مثال

منشور كان بيتوزع أيام الكلام على التعديلات الدستورية، أنا عن نفسي أديله 8 من 10

Front side

Flip side

مميزاته:

1. مقاسه مثالي
2. فيه شوية ألوان من غير فرقعة
3. فيه دعوة قوية تحركك
4. جدول بيعرض الكلام في نقط
5. مفيش كلام كتير ملزق في بعضه

العيوب:

1. مش مكتوب ولا موقع ع الانترنت ولا صفحة فيس بوك ولا تويتر
2. كان ممكن على ضهر المنشور يكون في رسمة توضيحية أو ممكن استخدام ألوان أكثر شوية تعمل فرق بين نصين الجدول.

إتعلم من غلطك

قياس نجاح المنشور بتاعك هيكون عن طريق التعليقات بتاعت الناس اللي اتوزعت عليهم في الشارع. لما تبقى حتة ورقة حديث الشارع فأكيد إنت عامل حاجة كويسة. مش ضروري تكون دي الوصفة الوحيدة عشان تعمل أجمد منشور، بس أظن لو إنت جربت تطبق الكلام المكتوب فوق، فإنت كدة عرفت السكة.

Yesterday I was at Tahrir square in celebration (and recognition) of Labor Day. While the numbers were not on par with my optimism building up to the day-long event, the mood was uplifted, and the revolution’s happening. As always, I was offered a dozen different flyers by fellow revolutionaries, and I make the effort to go through each one and learn about the different political movements and campaigns taking place on the ground.

Flyer distribution had always been an underground activity that was rather risque. Now, it is the standard method of announcing and sharing ideologies and activities, and is vital for any group from independent unions, to lobbies and political parties. More so than social media, in fact.

Sadly though, the effectiveness of the papers that are tossed around don’t do justice to the level of enthusiasm and passion driving them. For that reason, I wanted to write a blog post with the steps to follow in order to put together an effective flyer that gets your message across, even on a tight budget. The following are what to keep in mind when designing and printing your flyers to be given out on the streets:

1. Less is more. More is ‘where’s the nearest trash can?’

   You should focus on a couple of points and not get carried away printing out an entire detailed manifesto. People literally give a few seconds’ worth of attention, and then will look elsewhere. Think of a flyer as part of a campaign, not a comprehensive movement. If you’re struggling to fit in everything you wanted to say on a piece of paper, chances are you’re trying to convey way too much.

2. Fewer paragraphs, more bullet points

   No one wants to go through endless paragraphs. Bullet points are easy to digest, and allow people to choose whether or not they want to read a particular point, or skip to the following one. You’d be overly ambitious if you thought many are willing to go through entire paragraphs in order to reach important points lost in the middle. Ideally, a flyer would have about five main points, with a couple of lines going into a bit more detail with each one.

3. Use colors, if possible, but no rainbows

   Black and white printing is obviously the cheapest option, but if your budget allows you add another color or two, than that would be more attractive. Don’t go overboard with colors from fantasy motion pictures, that would probably be repelling, not to mention costly.

4. Consider A5 over A4

   There’s no real need for an A4-sized flyer. The amount of content required to fill it up already deems it ineffective. Besides, folding it up or trying to keep hold of it is a bit of a tough task. A5 (which is half the A4) is small enough to fit in a pocket after just a single fold, yet spacey enough to carry your message comfortably. You can always print on both sides, dedicating one side to the main points, and the other to more detail, as well as where to go for more information.

5. Include any basic illustration, or a diagram

   Don’t try to print images. They’re not exactly cheap, and their quality rarely does your message any justice. However, a simple cartoon, or caricature could grab your audience’s attention long enough to generate interest in going through your message. Sometimes a basic diagram can go a long way in illustrating a point.

6. Always have a call for action, what are we supposed to do?

   Never is the objective behind a flyer to read it and toss it. There’s always an action that is required. Focus on that aspect. Make it loud and clear, and at the end of your message (because you want to persuade people first). The shorter it is, the more effective. ‘VOTE NO’ yields results that a call for action two sentences long wouldn’t dream of.

7. Where do I go for more information?

   Remember a flyer carries a specific message. Those who are interested need to be directed to websites where they can learn more about the subject. Ideally, you would provide a website of the movement/organization, a Facebook page, a twitter handler (in some cases there’s a hash tag to follow without an actual account), and most importantly, a phone number.

An Example

This was a flyer that was handed out in the days leading to the constitutional referendum. I would personally rate it 8/10:

Front side

Flip side

Advantages:

1. Ideal size
2. Some color, but not too much
3. Strong call for action
4. Table organizing points
5. No paragraph text

Disadvantages:

1. No website, Facebook, nor twitter
2. The back side could use an illustration, or a bit more color to distinguish

Learn from your mistakes

The success of your flyer is directly related to the feedback you get from recipients on the ground. When a piece of paper sparks conversations with fellow citizens on the streets, then you must be doing something right. There might not be a precise winning formula to putting together an effective flyer, but I think if you stick to the points above, you should be in good shape.

For any campaign to be successful, you and your team need to be dynamic, and react to the events as they unfold. In this post I will continue the case study of the live Social Media campaign against Marks & Spencer, focusing on the Facebook cause, that we have decided to replace with a Page.

Creating a Facebook cause for the campaign was attractive for many reasons:

• A ‘Cause’ seems much more appropriate than, say, a ‘fan’ page
• You ‘join’ the cause, as oppose to ‘like’ing something (especially if talking about a sad/dramatic cause!)
• Facilitates donations to the cause (if applicable)
• Shows the recruits carried out by the active members, creating a mini competition that is beneficial for the campaign overall
• Offers various ways of communicating, including bulletins, posts and messages

Create a Page on Facebook

For those reasons, we chose to create a cause and attempt to spark enough of a buzz around it to make it go viral. However, we hit a bit of a wall with the following:

• The layout and interface are confusing. Regardless of your level and familiarity, you’re bound to feel lost and insecure
• To join a cause, you have to first authorize Facebook to allow it to connect with your account – a page that inevitably throws people off and scares them away (the huge majority do NOT have the application installed on their Facebook account beforehand)
• The cause takes you to another domain, and it takes a few witty clicks to make your way back to Facebook, which is like asking for people to be without air for prolonged periods of time
• You can only invite 75 friends per day, which inevitably hinders your expansion efforts

After some thought, we decided to start a Page and called it Stop Marks & Spencer in Egypt. Now the following are the advantages that you will encounter in Pages in comparison to Facebook Causes:

• Very familiar interface, very easy to use
• Allows you to invite all of your friends (albeit selected one by one)
• All it takes is a little ‘Like’, without authorization, requests, or anything of the sort
• After 25 Likes, you get what Facebook calls a vanity URL, which basically means a slug to make a user-friendly domain (in this case, facebook.com/MarksAndSpencerEgypt)
• It offers you the ability to integrate some powerful Facebook applications. Not the least Static FBML which has allowed us to add the content of the website to the tabs across the top. And this is only the beginning, because we can keep adding, removing and altering tabs as we see fit

Therefore, Whenever you are running a social media campaign for a cause, stick to the fan page. In this particular case, having a Cause as well as a Page may seem distracting at first, but it has coincidentally blessed us with the advantage of even more results leading to our campaign when you search ‘Marks & Spencer Egypt’ in Facebook!

Welcome tab of the Facebook Page is a powerful tool

It has been tough to gain fans and catch up with the followers of the cause, but this has been mainly due to the events unfolding in the political arena in Egypt. It’s important to keep the different platforms in sync, so that they’re not each isolated in a different direction. Phase 2 of the campaign is coming up in a few days’ time – stay tuned.

This is a video tutorial put together by my dear friend Jose Muñoz, which he embedded in a blog post. He basically shows how you can stitch together a group of photos (simply taken by hand, amateurish) to make a single panoramic image. This photo is of me when he came to Egypt for a visit, and we spent the day at gorgeous Alexandria together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwVT_YtCy6g

It’s in Spanish, but straight-forward regardless. It’s spirit-lifting to see people take the time to share their valuable knowledge for everyone to make use of. It’s truly inspirational stuff. Special thanks to Jose, and thanks to our beautiful web.

The other day my friend Hatem Seoudi called me up to ask ‘what makes a good website? How can I tell if I’m looking at a kick-ass website, or a not-so-hot one?’

Good question. Needless to say, the answer is highly subjective, and depends on numerous aspects. But like everything else, there are a set of rules and guidelines that make sure you’re on the right track. After that, whether or not a website is ‘good’ enough is up in air. The following are the indicators to judge the overall quality of any website.

1. Addresses target audience
   If you’re not the target audience, then your judgment is to a large extent irrelevant. At the end of the day, a website offers information of value to a certain group of people. The broader the target, the more difficult the task at hand. For example, a website like deviantart.com is targeting a certain niche. It’s a community of digital artists from various backgrounds, but with a common ground. On the other hand, Google, or any search engine for that matter, is for anyone accessing the web. Therefore, the later is more likely to be extremely simple, and avoid making any associations or unorthodox approaches to ensure it appeals to the masses. The question of audience is carried on and applies throughout all of the coming points.
2. Ease of use, informative
   A website could boast unique, valuable information. But if the content is difficult to reach, or if it’s not clear where you should go or what it is you need to do, then it’s absolutely useless. That’s where usability comes in. Before working on the design concept, the creators of any website need to go through the process of dividing up the content into the different sections, and coming up with a suitable layout. A website like HSBC Egypt requires a dual degree in ancient Japanese and advanced algebra. Standard Chartered‘s, although far from perfect, is light years ahead.
3. Aesthetically pleasing
   This is obviously the aspect most prone to subjectivity. However, very few have invested endless hours and creativity and ended up with an ugly digital representation. If the website’s targeting  a young, tech-savvy crowd, then the more interactive and loud (in terms of colors), the better. The Web Designer Wall is one of many that hit the spot for the ones who seek. The NPR‘s website, although ‘minimal’ in comparison, is phenomenal in terms of design and layout. For an example of what a website should not look like, look no further than Masrawy (or any of LINKdotNET‘s websites).
4. Performance
   If the best website in the world takes more than 30 seconds for all of it to show up, then it useless. Quality websites require top-notch planning and coding, which means that there is less code to render, and therefore everything’s lighter and faster. Fubon‘s Flash website is impressive, but it takes less time to find a parking spot in Cairo. You’ll notice that community-driven social networks like Flickr offer pleasant performance, despite boasting large multimedia files. There are many ways in which you can reduce file sizes and load time, without sacrificing design or functionality.
5. Frequently updating
   ‘No news is good news’ is old news. With the web, information becomes outdated in a matter of minutes, and people’s patience have all but gone extinct. In fact, the only reason visitors will return to a website (hence making it a ‘good’ one), is if there is valuable content offered. This requires fresh material being posted as frequently as possible, even if it’s not a news-based site. This ties in strongly with social media, and having something like a blog be a vital part of your website.
6. Easy to share
   A good website makes it easy on the visitors to share its content and help it go viral. This includes sticking to SEO standards (available with any popular Content Management System), providing clean, direct links for all of its content, and making it a click away from posting to Facebook or tweeting it to your followers. A good website will require minimal effort from you to invite others to share your experience. Until recently, there wasn’t an easy way to share articles from BBC News on social networks (and now it still doesn’t shorten the URL when posting to twitter). Their Spanish counterpart, El Pais, are one of many daily news sources that have mastered the art of facilitating content sharing.

Regardless of the purpose or audience of the website, if it addresses those points, then it’s definitely on the positive side of the spectrum. How valuable and/or successful it is, though, is for us, the people, to decide. No ‘industry standard’ can tell us how we should react, and that’s part of the charm of our beautiful web.

I had been contemplating for a while blogging with videos when my dear friend Ziad Aly talked me into considering putting together some YouTube webisodes for people to make use of. There are many advantages to talking about design and technology through a series of episodes on YouTube:

• Easier to portray information: It’s easier to share step-by-step tutorials with videos. Not to mention that it has become more effective (fewer people are willing to read articles)
• More exposure: Videos are much more likely to go viral than articles
• The Arabs on the Web: Which is by far the most important aspect. While there are more and more Arabs online, very few take part in providing content. In fact, most tutorials and resources are in English, making it difficult for Arabs who aren’t comfortable with the language. It would be great to help place the Arabs on the Web 2.0 map, and facilitate the exchange of information between them

A quick search through YouTube got me to Ana 3rby’s channel (an Egyptian as well). He has a very informative series on learning to use Photoshop. This is the first video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrwSOHP5QBc

I personally think it’s a great initiative, and hope to be able to partake in the near future.

Starting off your web design freelancing career might not require advanced tools and applications, but you’ll soon realize that’s organization is key. Thankfully, many entities have reached that same conclusion, and therefore there are numerous tools on the table for you to make your pick.

Project management tools help freelancers and agencies collaborate and organize tasks between the different members to meet milestones and sign-off projects with their clients. It might seem like a bit of a luxury to have at the beginning, until the 3rd or 4th client gets angry due to late work and brands you unprofessional. That’s when it becomes the kind of tool you simply cannot live without.

A quick Google search will inevitably lead you to 37 Signals’ hot shot, Base Camp. It is by the far the most popular project management and collaboration application in the market. Its fame is not unfounded; Base Camp’s sleek interface makes it a breeze to create milestones, assign tasks, share files and more. The main problem is that Base Camp’s value is a function of its add-ons – from billing, invoicing and financing, to time-tracking and aiding widgets, it’s a growing list. In theory, the concept behind plugins is genius, but when you consider how much you have to pay for Base Camp alone, and then the individual add-ons that make it sufficiently comprehensive, the package becomes rather hefty. Realistically, you’re looking at about $50 a month, which will only rise as you gain more clients and projects.

Even if you find Base Camp the ideal solution, chances are it doesn’t need to be your starting point. Enter ProjectPier, the “free, open-source, self-hosted PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams.”

With ProjectPier, you can add client companies (with members), projects, milestones, task lists and tasks. Together, these features qualify it as a reliable project management system. Moreover, you can share files, start forum-like messages, and collaborate with co-workers and clients.

ProjectPier message details

What makes ProjectPier special is that it’s free and open-source, meaning with updates, it can only get better and offer more powerful functionality. On top of that, it is hosted on your own server, which gives you complete control (and privacy). The installation process is a straight-forward one, with your standard shared hosting supporting PHP and a MySQL database doing just fine. I’ve personally installed it at http://manage.tarekshalaby.com

ProjectPier with a nicer theme

Don’t be pushed away with its 90s Geocities-style interface – thankfully there are alternative themes. I personally prefer the Zura Blue Steel (shown here). You might also notice its email notifications’ feature is not complete, and there’s no way to view all of the upcoming milestones in a traditional calendar, but it is still the number one choice in my book.

The part I like most about ProjectPier, is that my clients actually find it very user-friendly and easy to use. It doesn’t take me the standard ‘technical courses’ to get the clients to add files to it, check out and comment those that I post, and follow up on the tasks as they are being completed. A must-have for any freelance web designer/developer, and I would go as far as saying the same to agencies and small to medium companies in the field.

NOTE: Credit to Omar Mohamed from Hadaye Helwan, Egypt for hand-picking ProjectPier when we were looking for a project management tool for our startup touringa (which is my next post’s topic – stay tuned!).

Whether you are working with a CMS or creating a static page (which is logically the step before your custom CMS theme), you are often left to ponder the best way to display a navigational menu or pagination links so that they are centered and in blocks of equal size. You’d be surprised how easy that is, this short tutorial is to get you to create a list that looks as such:

We want blocks of equal sizes, each linking to a given page (without a gap between the edge of the box and start of the link). And we want the code to be perfectly valid, of course.

First, we’ll start with the markup, which is a very basic unordered list:

<ul class="navigation">
	<li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Item 2</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Item 4</a></li>
</ul>

This alone results in a standard list with bullets and links. Now we need to add the CSS that will give us the look that we’re after:

ul.navigation{
	list-style: none;
	text-align: center;
}
ul.navigation li {
	display: inline;
	font-size: 14px;
	margin: 0 10px;
}
ul.navigation li a{
	background-color: #e5f27b;
	border: 1px solid #d9e383;
	color: #666666;
	display: inline-block;
	padding: 2px 8px;
	text-decoration: none;
	width : 75px;
}
ul.navigation li a:hover{
	background-color: #fe8a61;
	border-color: #d78466;
	color: #ffffff;
}

As you can see, it’s very straight-forward and you can easily customize it according to your needs. It’s useful for navigational menus, as well as pagination links to be displayed at the top or bottom of a given page.

When you are working on a revamp for your website and/or move to another host, one major concern is how you will be able to migrate all of the posts and information from the current website to the new one. Depending on the size of the data that you are moving, this could be a long process or a short one, but in both cases, it is rather straight-forward.

1. The first step is to do a fresh install for the latest WordPress on the new server, you can follow my step-by-step guide to getting your WordPress blog up and running. You might be tempted into moving everything as is and just updating the database credentials, etc. but a fresh installation clears your blog from many potential problems. Ideally there would be a temporary URL that you could use while testing, after which you can update the DNS for your domain and go live
2. If on a testing server, you should consider using the WP Dummy Content plugin which generates as much fake content as you want to act as placeholders and give you a clear idea of how everything will look on the final website
3. Once the look and feel is as you’d like it to be, it’s time to install the plugins that you will be using for your website. One option could be as simple as downloading the folders in the “plugins” directory on the old server, but that’s definitely not the kind of attitude you want to take with you in 2010. The best practice would be to re-install the plugins one by one from within the new admin control panel. This will give you to option of researching better alternatives to any plugins you weren’t entirely comfortable with, and also assures that you have the latest of each one
4. Your temporary testing website is now ready with all of the features and functionality, displayed via fake content. It is now time to import the content from the old website
   • From the admin control panel of the old website, go to Tools > Export to create the XML file that you are going to be carrying to the new blog. If the content is large in size (over 1,000 posts), you might want to use the Advanced Export for WP & WPMU plugin, which facilities the filtering and segmentation of the different sections of the website
   • In many cases, the XML file is too big to be uploaded directly into the new installation. Therefore, you can compress the file using the .gz compression, which is understood by the huge majority of servers nowadays. You can use an open-source application like gzip to compress the XML file to about a sixth of the original size. When you upload the file, your server will automatically uncompress it, meaning you will spend far less time waiting for the file to be uploaded
   • Besides that size of the XML file itself, you could face the problem of reaching your PHP memory limit while uploading. This basically means that your server is only allowed to use a limited amount of memory before it stops whatever it’s doing. There’s a good guide at lost-in-code that shows you how you can increase that limit
   • If the importing process goes smoothly and then suddenly stops at one point, there’s no need to panic. You can simply refresh the page, hence resending the script to be parsed and imported, and WordPress will automatically skip all of the posts that already exist. Meaning that even if it stops every couple of thousand posts, refreshing will make it pick up where it had left off
   • NOTE: Although I haven’t tried this myself, there’s an alternative method for moving the content to the new location using a desktop application such as Navicat. In which case you would enter the database information of the two servers, and the program migrates the entries from server to server
5. Final testing is necessary before you update the DNS on your domain name to make it point to the new server. It is generally good practice to work on a ToDo list with everything that needs to be done for the website to be final. Those that are urgent should be completed before updating the DNS, while the rest can be done while you are waiting for the DNS to be updated everywhere (could take up to 12 hours)

The best part of it all, is that it’s free. With the power of the open-source tools, you will always find the help that you need all over our beautiful web.

Many are unaware of just how easy it is to start your own blog using the best open source tool for blogging out there: WordPress. This is a tutorial that will get you up and running in no time. It will cover everything from purchasing your domain name and hosting account, to downloading, installing and configuring WordPress on your website. After all, your space on the World Wide Web is your birth right, and giving it up because you overestimate the process involved is a pity indeed.

So let’s jump right into this

Step 1: Domain & Hosting

Makre sure your host supports PHP and MySQL

Before you can run a website or blog, you need a unique address (domain) pointing to a space that you’ve reserved on a remote server somewhere on the planet (hosting). You can view my guide on hosting to fully understand the different categories, and thus, which one is best for you. Generally speaking, if this is your first time, a standard shared web hosting account, that usually offers a free domain on top, gets the job done.

For example, if you choose to go with Blue Host, then simply visit the website, and sign up for an account that will cost you $7 for every month, and you’ll probably pay for two years in advance. Any standard plan from any provider will do, granted it supports PHP and MySQL databases (some providers don’t offer databases with their basic packages, but that’s a bit of a rarity nowadays).

Step 2: Create the Database

Now that you own an account, log on to the administration control panel, which is provided to you by the hosting company you’ve chosen to go with, to create a database:

Find the link to add databases (could also use PHPMyAdmin)

1. Go to your control panel and login
2. Find the databases link, click “add new database”
3. Give it a name, for example: WordPressBlog
4. Add a user that will be accessing the database (by creating a username and password)
5. Take note of the address of the database (in most cases, it’s “localhost”, but sometimes it’s different. In which case you’ll see it displayed along with the database name somewhere)

Now that you’ve created the database, as well as the credentials for accessing it, you’re ready to install WordPress.

Step 3: Download WordPress, Then Upload It

This is a straight forward process:

1. Go to http://www.wordpress.org/
2. Download the zipped file
3. Unarchive (extract) it on your computer, you should be left with a folder called “wordpress”
4. Open your FTP client. FileZilla is one of the best – free, open source and efficient
5. Enter the FTP information for your website (given to you by your provider, usually found in the control panel)
6. Upload the contents of the “wordpress” folder to the root directory of your website (you can upload the entire folder, in which case the installation would be at: www.yourwebsite.com/wordpress)

Now that WordPress has been uploaded to your server, and your database is created, you are now ready to go through the famous five-minute installation.

Step 4: WordPress Installation

Everything is significantly easier with WordPress, and the installation process is no different.

You'll be prompted to create a configuration file

1. Direct your browser to where the WordPress files had been uploaded (if in the root directory, then just go to www.yourwebsite.com)
2. You will be prompted to create a configuration file, this is where you store basic information such as the database credentials. Click on the button
3. Click on “Let’s go” to enter the information
4. Enter the database information. You should have all of the details from when you created the database earlier. You can also change the prefix of the tables created in the database, but “wp_” will do just fine
   
   

   Enter the database information

5. If the database credentials were correct, WordPress will give you confirmation that the tables have been created and the initial data has been added. In some cases, the configuration file is not writable, in which case you will have to manually edit the file to add the database information. You can follow the steps on the WordPress Codex installation guide
6. Enter the title and email that you would want to use
7. When all goes well, you will be given a temporary generated password that you will use to enter the administration control panel for the first time. Click on login and enter the credentials that you were just handed
   
   

   Temporary account details. Change password after logging in

Now’s the time to access the control panel and get ready to start blogging!

Step 5: Configure WordPress

The first time you enter the admin panel, you should change your password to something you can remember (you’ll be reminded to do so anyway). It’s also good practice to add another user to replace “admin” so that your alias appears with the posts. If you want to create another administrator account, click on “Users” from the menu on the left, then add, then enter the information. Don’t forget to make the user “Administrator”. Now that the user’s created, log out, and login with the new username and password. Feel free to delete the original “admin” user, now that the blog has a new administrator.

As any beautiful open source tool, there are tons of options that you could go for right after a fresh installation. Having said that, the following are the personal recommended additions/configurations after you’ve logged in for the first time:

• Enable Permalinks: This is by far one of the biggest advantages of WordPress; the simplicity of the process of controlling the URLs generated. If you’re a frequent blogger, choose year/month/day/title. Otherwise, year/month/title should do fine
  
  

  Enable Permalinks: easy and powerful

• Enable Akismet Plugin: I’ve talked about this plugin in my post Essential WordPress Plugins where I’ve listed and discussed every single plugin used for this website. Akismet is revolutionary in how it automatically detects spam comments and places them in a separate queue that you’ll probably never need to check – it’s never mistaken
• Browse/Install More Plugins: You can check the list of the plugins I use, or you can simply browse the most popular plugins from the “Plugins” menu item on the left. You won’t lose anything in trying out plugins and disabling them if you’re not satisfied. Almost any website/blog could use popular plugins such as “All in One SEO Pack”, “Contact Form 7″, “Social Bookmarking RELOADED” and “WP Piwik” (here’s why you should be using Piwik instead of Google Analytics)
• Change Theme: As attractive as the default theme may seem at first look, it’s a good idea to go for a different theme. The new version of WordPress allows you to browse the different themes available as if installing plugins – very convenient. You will find the link to install themes under the “Appearance” tab. Otherwise, there are numerous websites dedicated to free WordPress themes that you can install, upload via Filezilla, and activate with the theme menu item

Now you’re golden. You’ve set everything up, and now you’re ready to start sharing your thoughts and ideas with the entire world.

Step 6: Start Blogging!

You can start by making a test post, just to get acquainted with the interface and features. After that, you may want to go through the following content-related options:

• Add a couple of pages where you will be displaying information that doesn’t change much (for example, “About Me”,  “Contact”, or “WordPress Guides”)
• Decide whether or not you’re going to be using categories (best used for posts that are displayed on different parts of the website. Otherwise, stick to tags only). Create your categories from the “Posts” menu item
• Make links’ lists such as “Blogroll” or “Shout out to my people” where you can share various links with the visitors. The “Links” menu item is found on the left and is also very easy to use

That’s it, you’re done! As you can see, the entire process takes 20 minutes or so, and there are substantial amounts of resources for help and support flooding the net if you need them. Generally speaking, it is a straight-forward process and there’s very small room for issues and problems.

You’re Voice on the Web – Your Right

The most important aspect of yet another revolutionary product from the open source community is that it simply acts as a channel that facilities the communication and information exchange between people across space and time regardless of race or origin. It is very important to take advantage of your right as a member of the community of the World Wide Web, the current generations are the first in history to be granted such a privilege. Underestimating its power, or overestimating the technical skills required, is a shame. So get yourself a blog and write about whatever it is you want to blabber about, you have absolute freedom. Beautiful.