Frequently Asked Questions

WordPress is open source web software that you can install on your web server to create your website, blog, community or network. WordPress started out as a tool for blogging, but has evolved into a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS), capable of powering websites, networks and communities.

One of the principle advantages of WordPress is that you are in control. Unlike remote-hosted scripts such as Blogger and LiveJournal, you host WordPress on your own server. Installation is very simple, as is the configuration. Unlike other software programs, there are not a million files to chmod nor are there dozens of templates to edit just to get your site set up and looking the way you want.

Also, Blog pages in WordPress are generated on the fly whenever a page is requested, so you do not have multiple archive pages clogging up your web space. Waiting for pages to rebuild is a thing of the past because template changes are made in scant seconds.

WordPress is built following W3C standards for XHTML and CSS, ensuring that your site is more easily rendered across standards-compliant browsers. Other browsers are supported with a few hacks; it’s a reality of the web that hacks are necessary.

Aggregator support is built-in with a number of standard RSS configurations already done for you, as well as Atom. Following standards makes your WordPress site easier to manage, increases its longevity for future Internet technology adoption, and helps give your site the widest audience possible.

WordPress.com is a blog network run by Automattic. It uses WordPress software, but individual blogs are hosted and managed by WordPress.com. This is a free service with premium addons and upgrades.

Here at WordPress.org, you can download WordPress, the web software that WordPress.com runs on. Once you’ve downloaded it, you can upload it to a web server and run your own WordPress website.

No. You should be able to use WordPress through the user interface, without ever having to touch PHP.

The only time you would modify your WordPress website with PHP would be when integrating some of the plugins. There are a small number of plugins that still require manual edits to your files. In most cases, clear instructions are usually given within a text file with the plugin.

Other than that, you would not be changing any of the PHP files.

To get information about your server, you can use the PHP Info function:

• Paste this into a new Notepad / BBEdit file

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

• Save as info.php
• Upload to server. Visit in your browser (www.example.com/info.php)

That will give you info about your php version and mod_rewrite.

The info.php file returns a page outlining the details of your PHP installation. You can see if mod_rewrite is loaded. Under the apache header, look in the Loaded Modules section and see if mod_rewiite is listed.

The version number for improved versions of WordPress might not follow a strictly monotonic or periodic numerical (or in the case of test releases, alphabetical) sequence, since the version numbers reflect relative progress, and the changes made to existing or previous versions. So, for example, since v1.2 is a majorly revamped version of v1.0 (with about 60% of the code having been touched), 1.1 was ’skipped’ along the way.

Any Category with a non-zero value for # of Posts in the Administration > Manage > Categories cannot be deleted. The uncategorized Category might be assigned to some Posts, but all Pages are assigned the uncategorized Category. So even though there may be no posts assigned to the uncategorized Category, Pages are included in the count of # of Posts.

The default category cannot be deleted even if it is empty, however you can specify your default categories for posts or links on the Options – Writing page of the admin panel.