I’m kicking around trying out textpattern for a while. I’ve seen several cool web sites that look really nice using the textpattern framework. I haven’t found the time to style this blog section with the rest of my site.

I’ve been a Wordpress advocate for about 1 1/2 years now, but it might be neat to try something different.

Amusingly enough, I integrated Wordpress into a clients site at the WDCIRJFA. He claimed that Wordpress was ‘the most difficult content managment system in the world.’ Maybe for the benefit of future would-be web page makers, I should learn about textpattern.

Just finished converting a client site from a table layout to a CSS & XHTML Wordpress 2.0 site. It was as much for my own satisfaction as it was for his necessity. He wants some control over the content and the WordPress back-end beats any PHP & MySQL CMS that I could put together. Besides, he wasn’t being billed enough to warrant custom programming.

I estimated 1 hour to transfer our dev server version to his hosted account with Go Daddy. My bad. It took most of my day.

Things I learned:

Go Daddy’s MySQL databases are not friendly. A google search revealed that consensus, as many have had problems installing WordPress on a Go Daddy server.

Problem #1
The WordPress wp-config-sample.php file gets your database information and then renamed to wp-config.php…

2 // ** MySQL settings ** //
3 define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
4 define('DB_USER', 'username'); // Your MySQL username
5 define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
6 define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value

Lines 3, 4 and 5 are straight-forward. Line 6 is the bugger. As a Go Daddy client you are in the 1%.

Big thanks to WordPress user Pradob of Prado Design for his detailed solution on obtaining the correct information for the DB_HOST. (He also has some awesome, inexpensive photos on his site. Check him out.)

1. Login on Godaddy.com
2. Go to “Host & Servers ” press “My Hosting Account”
3. Once inside, on the “Manage Hosting”, select your registred domain and press “Open” on Control Panel.
4. A new window will open with your “Hosting Manager”
5. Scroll down to “Databases” and click on MySQL icon
6. A database information will appear. Click on the username underlined
7. Now will you see exactly your DatabaseName and Hostname
8. Sign out of your “Hosting Manager” and “Godaddy Account”

Now your set, right? Well, maybe…or not.

Problem #2

The last step in the WordPress Famous 5 minute installation is to point your browser to www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/install.php and let the program do its magic.

No magic today. Just this simple message:

‘Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL which is required for WordPress.’

This problem has an easy enough solution.

Open your WordPress file wp-settings.php and around line 39 and 40 you’ll find:

if ( !extension_loaded('mysql') )
die( 'Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL which is required for WordPress.' );

Just comment it out by using /* before the ‘if’ in the first line and put */ after the ‘);’ in the second line.

Problem #3

Go Daddy disables the php mail() function on Windows servers. Which, is what this client had. There went his snazzy PHP contact form. We ressurrected one in .asp. and moved along.

Problem #4

As a result of the mail() function being disabled, make sure you write down your WordPress password. Because, you’ll never get the email your WordPress install sends you with that information.

I’m curious what other little p-i-t-a surprises we’ll find with Go Daddy. Today’s experience alone makes me wholeheartedly in favor of advising anyone to go elsewhere for web site hosting.

I’ve used Simplenet for several installs of WordPress and have been nothing but delighted.