In Personal Web on July 13, 2008 by TJ Rutkowski Tagged: blog, Flickr, GoDaddy, Picasa, WordPress
GoDaddy.com serves up low-cost registration and hosting very nicely. As part of the offer, they include numerous third-party applications. WordPress, a blogging tool, is one of the applications I tried on my GoDaddy hosting account. GoDaddy includes a simple tool to install WordPress. I used the tool every time I tried WordPress on GoDaddy.
Issue One: No support for blog.tjrutkowski.com
I want blog.tjrutkowski.com to point to my blog, but GoDaddy’s servers do not recognize the WordPress index.php as a home page on a sub-domain. Thus, every attempt to load the blog through the sub-domain fails. Several other GoDaddy customers have been blogging about this issue since 2006, but GoDaddy will not resolve it. It seems that the fix is a simple server setting for GoDaddy, but my fix is to use another provider for my blog.
Issue Two: Poor response
If my only blog problem was the sub-domain, I would have no problem. I simply created a redirect at blog.tjrutkowski.com to my real blog. Last month I pointed it to my Blogger site, but I recently changed to tjsr2.WordPress.com. Thanks to GoDaddy, I tried WordPress and prefer it over Blogger.
My issues is that when GoDaddy hosts my WordPress blog, things break! Using a standard template, custom hearder image, and 3 posts in my blog, and it took 2 minutes for the WordPress site to load from GoDaddy. Often, the connection would simply time out before the page ever loaded. I got the same painfully slow results from my work or friend’s computers.
Soultion: WordPress.org
My solution is to publish my blog directly at WordPress. “WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” So far, it has been fantastic! Thank you WordPress!
If I could ask for one more free feature, it would be for Picasa support. I had to switch to Flickr for simple photo and album integration.
In Personal Web on July 13, 2008 by TJ Rutkowski Tagged: DNS, GoDaddy, web registration, website host
Getting on-line is easy, if you know exactly what you’re doing.
- Choose a Domain Name
- Register It
- Make a Site
Choose a Domain Name
I wanted www.rutkowski.com, but it was taken by someone reselling family-name email addresses. I tried www.tj.com, but the TechJournal bloggers were already at it. I scratched my head often, and considered various domain names over the years before committing to tjrutkowski.com. I suppose I was searching for that catchy phrase to project my brand; I suppose I found it.
TIP: Don’t get hung up on a name for your site(s). I spend a lot of time thinking about what to call my website before I realized that it’s not that important unless you are looking to monetize your site.
Register It
I’m efficient; I like to conserve resources. First, I looked at free domain registration, but couldn’t find anything without severe site formatting constraints or forced advertising. Next, I researched several hosting services. I looked at personal sites similar to what I would host, and compared the infrastructure experience (mostly page and picture load times). I read blogs of users to hear their opinions. I made a list of the features and functionality that were important to me.
In the long run, I chose GoDaddy to register and host my two domains. The price is right-I paid $85.99 for 2 new domains and the 12 month deluxe hosting plan. The key feature they provide that other low-cost companies don’t is self-directed DNS management. Self-directed DNS management allows you to easily manage your own email provider or sub-domain on-line. Most low-cost registrants require a phone call (with lengthy hold times and heavy technical jargon) to manage DNS, if they permit changes at all.
Some examples of why DNS management is important include:
- I direct my MX records to Google and get GMAIL at tjrutkowski.com
- I use Google sites, docs, calendar, and home pages with my domain name
- I can redirect my domain to my WordPress hosted blog
Make a Site
Templates can be nice for your primary content, but for some reason they often look like everyone else’s site. I prefer a little bit of personal style–even if it includes uniquely annoying qualities. I use FrontPage to create my www.tjrutkowski.com and www.judgeforyou.com sites. While FrontPage does a lot of crazy-Microsoft-know-it-all stuff, my sites are very simple. For me FrontPage is the free solution because I already own it.
TIP: Start your site with a photograph. Put anything up there, as long as it isn’t an Under Construction sign. If you’re struggling for a good shot, borrow one of mine and give me credit.
