Getting Wordpress on a Mac for Newbies.

1. Download Wordpress and unzip it.

2. Download MAMP.  Don't need MAMP pro from what I can tell so far...but you do have the option to upgrade later. Leave the Apache port at 8888 and the MySQL at 8889 (some instructions will tell you to change them...DON'T listen!).

3. Once you have your MAMP installed on your computer (placed in the app section). Open your Wordpress folder and copy and drag everything in it to the folder in your MAMP folder called htdocs and drop in there.

4. Next you will rename a file in that folder (so your still in the htdocs folder where all your wp stuff should be at). Rename file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php  Pretty simple step there!

5. Now open your wp-config.php file. Scroll down a little and you will find the below wording...the four things in BOLD and Red are the things you need to match....so it will say something else there but you need to replace it EXACTLY like it is here:

// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'WordPress');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'root');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'root');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');

/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

6. Then follow this link's section of "using phpMyAdmin", ONLY follow this section of the page! To open the page of the MAMP they are refering to you need to open your MAMP app and click on the "open start page" on the front of the pop up.  This goes over how to set up your MAMP database. Use "wordpress" for your phpMyAdmin "create new database name". (this HAS to match your DB_NAME that is in your wp-config.php file!)

7. Finally click on THIS link:  http://localhost:8888/  (this is your local host setting you entered above and since you listened to me and didn't change you MAMP port it is still 8888) and it should take you the the enter user name/email/sign up for wordpress!

Now how to use Wordpress itself.....not even close to understanding that yet. Just this step took me days sine I couldn't find one location for the entire step by step process in terms a newbie could understand. But I feel very accomplished just figuring this out!

I have a name.

Well I have a domain name that is! After asking around it seemed like everyone likes GoDaddy. Then I also noticed that my uPromise account has Godaddy on it for 8% towards college...that was a no-brainer for me.
So I went with that and got myself my first domain name. A domain name is the www.DOMAINNAMEHERE.com So once I figure out hosting/template stuff and move everything over I will share, but not till then. I have a feeling this will be a bit though so don't hold your breath. And this blog will be moved into the new website, so don't worry you will not lose this oh so valuable info! Also if your annoyed with how many blogs I have...don't worry they are all going to be one nice pretty package when I'm all done.