The main reasons: it’s very good and very free – not to mention very expandable in functions and very flexible in looks if you use the self hosted Wordpress.

Given those facts, it surprises me that lots of people are still afraid of the (self hosted) Wordpress. “Wordpress is for geeks,” they say, “It’s too difficult for me.”

Well, you can’t love what you don’t know. So, the first step is to get familiar with it and what better way to know more about Wordpress than to install Wordpress locally on your own computer? Be it a Windows, Mac or Linux PC. Plus, this is also the best way to check out plugins and themes before using them in the real live online blogging world (and start building your own Wordpress themes and plugins – should you choose to go that far).

Here’s how you do it :

Step 1: Building The Local “Web Server”

In order to install Wordpress locally, you need to have a SQL database and a PHP environment in your computer. Before you ask with fear what creatures they are, let me clarify that these days you can easily summon them just by downloading and installing one of these:

• For Windows: XAMPP or WAMP (Read MakeUseOf review)
• For Mac: MAMP
• For Linux: LAMP

I use a Mac so the steps below are explained using MAMP. But the steps are valid under any OS and so slight differences are to be expected.

Step 2: Creating The Database

Open your AMP app and the server will automatically be on.

The web interface will show up in your browser. Choose “phpMyAdmin” tab.

Find “Create New Database” box, put a name there, then click “Create”

Step 3: Getting Wordpress

Download the latest build of Wordpress (at the time of writing is version 2.7)

Extract the zip file into the htdocs folder inside the AMP folder. It will automatically create a “wordpress” folder there.

Step 4: Configuring The Wordpress Database

Go inside the Wordpress folder, then find and open file wp-config-sample.php using any text editor.

- Find these lines:
–> ‘DB_NAME’ and change ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with ‘the database name from step 2’
–> ‘DB_USER’ and change ‘usernamehere’ with ‘root’
–> ‘DB_PASSWORD’ and change ‘yourpasswordhere’ with ‘root’

Save the file as wp-config.php

Step 5: Installing Wordpress

Open this address in your browser: http://localhost:8888/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php

You’ll be asked to put in a blog name and an email address. Click ‘Install Wordpress’ after filling in those boxes.

Wordpress will generate a username (admin) and a random password for you. Please keep the password safe until you have the chance to change it later. Click ‘Log In’ to continue.

Fill in the username and password and click ‘Log In’ one more time.

Step 6: Changing The Password

Congratulations, you’ve just built your own local Wordpress blog to experiment with. But there’s still one more crucial step to take: changing the randomly generated password to something you can remember easily.

Go to menu Users –> Authors & Users –> Admin –> Edit

Find the two password fields down at the bottom of the page, fill in the empty boxes with your preferred password.

Click ‘Update Profile’.

That’s it! Why not start experimenting with your Wordpress blog and see how you like it. If you have any problems, leave a comment and we’ll see if we can help.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The 5 Free Wordpress Templates To Dress Up Your Blog (15)
• Speed Up Your WordPress Blog With PHP Speedy (18)
• How To Set Up Your Own WampServer (20)
• How To Easily Auto Backup Your Wordpress Database (15)
• 18 Wordpress Security Plugins & Tips To Secure Your Blog (65)

It is a tried and tested trio which works phenomenally well. Usually to gain access to this trifecta, you need to purchase hosting, and this hosting is usually run in a far away datacenter running on a Linux server. However, not many people know that it is available locally, and for Windows as well. You can use these services for running your own applications, and also for locally testing software you are writing, before uploading code to a production server.

WAMP stands for Windows Apache, MySQL and PHP. Compare this to LAMP, which is Apache, MySQL and PHP on Linux.

There are several ways to get these services running locally. Each service, by itself, has Windows installers. That being said – once the programs are installed, you need to know how to configure the services. That may not be simple unless you happen to be a system administrator.

We are going to focus on WampServer. In my experience, using WampServer is the fastest way to get up and running. Wikipedia has a nice list of all Wamp servers.

Step 1

Download the latest WampServer. As of the writing of this article, it includes Apache 2.2, PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0.

Step 2

Run the installer. It will warn you to uninstall WAMP5 1.x if you have installed that already. You can use the defaults and it should install without problem.

Step 3

Start the services. You will see a small icon in your taskbar. Left click on it (right clicking does not display the right menu) and select “go online”. The icon will then make a little animation, and your services will be online. You can view your homepage by going to http://localhost/.

Thats it! Wamp is now running. You are ready to install your application, or start learning some PHP! The public website directory is ‘c:\wamp\www\‘.

Any directory you create in this directory, shows up as a ‘project’ on the main index page.

Advanced Settings

PHP Customization

Depending on which type of program you want to install onto your server, you may require additional extensions that are not loaded by default. There are a whole variety of PHP extensions you can load that come built in, but disabled. Left-click on the Wamp menu, go to PHP->PHP Extensions and click off the extension you would like to reload.

You can also edit the configuration file, php.ini through the menu. Edit anything you need, and save this file. The most common edit is the memory_size, but there are many options you can tweak to your liking.

After making any changes to php, make sure you reload apache. I’ve learned the hard way that changes aren’t automatically pushed to the server, until it is reloaded.

Apache Customization

For you advanced tinkerers out there, you can tweak the apache configuration files to your heart’s content. Make sure after making any changes, to reload apache.

MySQL Customization

Depending on your project, you may need to create a database in MySQL. This can be done through phpMyAdmin, which is handily included within the WAMPServer install. By default they include no password on the root MySQL user, which is not the best thing for security reasons. I would recommend changing this password. phpMyAdmin can be reached via the Wamp Menu, or via the url http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

In Summary:

Don’t let the fun stop there. Install a blog and start experimenting with PHP and templates. Run your own Wiki. Run your own music server. The howtos on how to install some neat programs are coming in some future articles.

One of the greatest things about running a home apache server, is that you can use it in combination with a VPN (Hamachi) to access your server anywhere in the world, securely. You can even change your setup to host pages to the outside world, if you so desire.

There is no limit to what you can do! OK, maybe it won’t cook you breakfast in the morning – not yet anyway!

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or need help with the install!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• How To Set Up An Instant Private Network With Remobo (20)
• How To Install Wordpress Blog Locally On Your PC (23)
• Speed Up Your WordPress Blog With PHP Speedy (18)
• [Quick Tip] Stop Pidgin Spam in Its Tracks with Bot Sentry (26)
• WinHack – How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP) (20)