WordPress (WP) is a PHP/MySQL blog/web journal package.
Visit the Wordpess web site for more information and to obtain the latest version of their program.

Step 1: Getting Started
1. Download the .zip version of Wordpress.

2. Open and extract the contents of the .zip file to a folder on your hard drive.

Step 2: Configure MySQL
1. From cPanel, access the MySQL page.

Note: If you want your blog to appear in a subdomain of your site create the subdomain now. If your blog is going to be in your root folder just create the database as described below.

2. Setup a new MySQL database. Let's call it myblog (more info...)

3. Setup your userid to access the database. Let's use: wpadmin

4. Grant your database user access to the database.

5. You are done with cPanel so you can log out.

Step 3: Configure and Upload
1. Now go to the folder you extracted Wordpress into.

2. Make a copy of the wp-config-sample.php file and rename the copy to wp-config.php

3. Open wp-config.php with a text editor and edit your data base information into the proper fields.

	For DB_NAME enter: cpanel-name_database-name-you-created
	For DB_USER enter: cpanel-name_user-you-created
	For DB_PASSWORD enter: just-the-password-you-created
	Leave DB_HOST unchanged; should be 'localhost'

Step 4: Run WordPress Installation
1. If you are installing to your root folder open your web browser and enter the following:
     http://yoursite.ext/wp-admin/install.php to start the installation.

   If you are installing to subdomain folder open your web browser and enter the following:
    http://yoursite.ext/subdomain/wp-admin/install.php to start the installation.

2. Go through the steps presented. If you receive any errors you entered something wrong in the wp-config.php file. If all goes well you will be given a password to log into your new blog. WRITE IT DOWN!!! You will need it to get into your blog the first time.

3. The install will then send you to the login page. Enter "admin" for the user name and enter the password you wrote down previously and log in.

Step 5: Modifying Your Preferences
1. Once you are logged in go to the Profiles page and fill out the information. Enter a nickname, this will be displayed when you create new posts. You should also change the password here now to something you can remember. Then click Update Profile.

2. Now select Options and configure your blog. Go through all of the options (General, Writing, Reading, Miscellaneous and Permalinks). Remember to select Update Options at the bottom of each page to get them to stick.

3. Next set up your links and categories. If you want to allow others to post content to your blog you can add them using the Users function.

Essential Plugins
Before you go any further I recommend that you install at least one plugin. The plugin is Dr Dave's Spam Karma which will keep comment spam to a minimum.

Follow the instructions to upload the Spam Karma files into your wp-content/plugins folder. Now log back into Wordpress and select Plugins. You should see Spam Karma listed. It is not activated yet, so activate it now.

Define Your Style
Almost there. You can start blogging right now if you wish but I am sure you will want to change the look of the blog. There are only two files that you need to edit.

index.php controls the content. The link below shows you the layout of this page:
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/b2-img/index.phps

wp-layout.css controls how the content is displayed and you can read how it's arranged here:
http://blog.nuclearmoose.com/wp-docs/wp-layout-explained.htm

A great tutorial for modifying the wp-layout.css file can be found here:
http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/graphicalcss/

Just edit those two files to your liking and you are done.

Oh if you are currently blogging you can probably import your current blog entries into Wordpress. You can get the instructions you need here:
http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=ImportBlog

Happy Blogging!