Therefore based on the idea of actually testing which I know is a foreign concept to some below is my list of the essential WordPress post install testing tasks based on Ross Mckillops -Wordpress complete post install checklist

1. Edit your blog title, add email address
2. If you let WordPress generate your password then now is a good time to change it to something strong that you will remember
3. Add users if others will be contributing
4. Change the tagline
5. Set a date and time format
6. Modify Reading and Writing settings
7. Edit Discussion settings
8. Edit permalink settings
9. Add a test post and check that you can upload images and other multimedia elements- You may need to modify the folder permissions to allow WordPress to upload images.
10. Edit or add a page
11. Add some categories
12. Edit blogroll
13. Install plugins (Next post will have a plugin essentials list)
14. Check blog and test plugins
15. Pick a theme
16. upload your theme
17. Customize your theme
18. Check blog and test plugins again

Ok so this post wasn’t strictly about only post install checking but more about what to do next after you’ve install WordPress and depending on how you installed it (manually or through your control panel) the tasks will be slightly different but you get the idea.

(Remeber test, test, test and then test some more

But wait help is at hand.

Option 1: Steven has written a couple of scripts that as long as you have ftp access to your blog then you can upload his scripts and use it to reset the password or user name.  BUT read carefully his disclaimer below and remember buyer beware

Steven’s comment

Hey Urshula, here’s those 2 scripts I was telling you about:
change_wp_username.zip.
reset_wp_password.zip.

As advertised it’s not a good idea to leave them up on a server!
I’ve made sure the textboxes are protected against MySQL injections and stuff like that, though if your password has a single or double quotes in it, or any backslashes you may have some problems. Though who uses those characters in a password… honestly!

Option 2: This is another one from Village-idiot.org which does the same thing and works well. Luckily haven’t used it lately But last time I used it worked a treat.

Option 3: Now I’m going to seem like the silly one but I’ve also reset me password directly through the database so if you have access to your database this to can be an option. This site has print screens to help you through this option

Even though most of you don’t read the readme or all install instructions!! -Smart people know to read the readme properly first. But having said that many readme’s have a real expection of assumed knowledge so this is based on my what I know about my students assumed knowledge

The install instructions on wordpress are great but below is a short version of that and a better version of the readme that comes with the down load of wordpress 2.7

Updated WordPress: Famous 5-minute install

1. Down load the latest version of WordPress from www.wordpress.org
2. Unzip the package into an empty directory. (for my student this will be our local Dreamweaver folder so this about how you are going to work with it!!)
3. Login into your control panel and create a new database and user for this wordpress installation (if you don’t understand this step check with your hosting provider about creating a mysql database and user with full privileges)
4. Once you have these details
   -Open up wp-config-sample.php on your local machine with a text editor like notepad or similar and fill in your database connection details. (my student know I will have define a site within Dreamweaver and will open wp-config-sample.php within Dreamweaver because I am about to customise wordpress to the max but any text editor will be fine)
5. Save the file you have edited as wp-config.php
6. Upload everything!!!!! – this begs the question to where??- do you want your domain to be the blog or do you want this blog to be a subsection of your site- think ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT- then either upload everything to the root of your domain if you want your whole site to be the blog or to a specific folder if you want your blog to be a subsection of your domain. (If that made no sense don’t hesitate to comment me – student or otherwise)
7. Open http://yourdomainname/installfolder/wp-admin/install.php in your browser. This should setup the tables needed for your blog. If there is an error, look at the error properly – most of the time it what you entered into wp-config.php file, and try again. Note the password given to you. And comment me with full details and I’ll have a look and let you know if it was your config or upload that is wrong
8. The install script should then send you to the login page. If you get this far WOOHOO.
9. Sign in with the username admin and the password generated during the installation. You can then click on ‘Profile’ to change the password.

The next post next week is how to test your wordpress install.

If this post was helpful please let me know- I love wordpress so will happily have a look and write a post about your install.

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