Behind the scenes at celestri.org

Several people have dropped me a line to find out how I created this website/blog. I figure I would start from the very beginning which is the domain name.

Domain name – I use GoDaddy for getting domains. There are many companies out there, but I have been using them for the past 3 years and they are really good and reasonable – about USD 7 a domain name. Don’t be lulled into the web hosters that provide a free domain name, they end up locking you into their platform and essentially you are held hostage, all for a couple bucks.

Web hoster – I selected iPowerWeb back in the day because they were located in Santa Monica, California. Honestly, it makes no difference. I will probably soon migrate over to GoDaddy as they also provide good hosting for around USD 50-60 a year

Blog package – WordPress, i stumbled upon WordPress because iPowerweb offered b2 – which is the predecessor to WordPress. About the time I was going to use b2, WordPress came out and I started to use it. And it rocks. As they say, all the cool kids use WordPress, I’ll get into more detail about WordPress at the end

MAMP – It allows you to run a local version of your remote server. MAMP stands for: Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. This is needed if you are going to edit the WordPress themes and customize your blog and want to test it locally on a Mac such as a PowerBook

iPhoto – I use the iPhoto program to export my picture albums to static HTML pages and then link them into WordPress. Not ideal, I’m waiting for a more streamlined iPhoto/WordPress solution

Dreamweaver – I use the program to edit the web pages and themes of WordPress for a more customized effect

Photoshop – to edit the graphic images that appear on the blog

Back to WordPress. I’m using v2.0.5 with a modified Cutline theme. Some of the plugin’s I’m using are:
Akismet – Comment SPAM protection, included with WordPress
Google Analytics – Track user behavior via Google
Snap Preview – Gives a preview of links
WordPress Database Backup
WordPress XML Export
WP lightbox 2 – simple, unobtrusive script used to to overlay images on the current page
Sidebar Widgets – included with WordPress

The widget(s) I use:
Google Adsense – Monetize with Google AdSense

That winds up the behind the scenes look at celestri.org.