I have no idea about any of this and need help

[debaser]

First of all, thanks for looking.

I already have something of a photoblog set up at www.brainfriendenemy.com (http://www.brainfriendenemy.com/). It's hosted by blogger and that's not an ideal format, of course. Blogger is easy to use...I dont' know why they don't have a photoblog template but that's another issue. Anyway, I bought that URL and back then it was not purely a photoblog...it was about other issues as well. And even though I'm ignorant I did a pretty decent job with the SEO stuff, I guess. It's Google Rank is 5, somehow.

Anyway, now that I'm just doing photos and am taking photography more seriously I think I need a better website for that, and pixel post looks nice. However, I don't have the slightest idea on how to go about this.

First, I have been hosting my images at imagebucket. That seems to work out okay. They're reasonably fast as far as I can tell and there's never been any downtime that I've noticed. With pixelpost can I still use photobucket or will I have to host the images myself?

I realize I'll need a host anyway just for the blog part. What's a good host? I dont' want to spend a lot of money on this. GoDaddy, the people I bought my domain from, offers what looks to be decent hosting at a reasonable price. Are they any good? They say they have 10 SQL databases, whatever that means. I noticed that an SQL database is required for pixelpost, but the requirements cite a version and GoDaddy does not. Also listed in the pixelpost requirements is "PHP 4.3 or greater (w/ GD-lib)". I have absolutely no clue what that means, and GoDaddy makes no mention of it.

Also, I would like to have a stat counter, links to other photoblogs, and also be able to put that GCast podcast thing on the site somewhere. Can I do that with pixelpost?

Whenever I look through the titles in the "101" and help sections or the Wiki I just get confused. Clearly, everyone knows more about this than I do. I can learn, but I need to get started. This thing doesn't seem to be geared toward the true internet beginner.

Any advice would be helpful and much appreciated, believe me.

Thank You,
D

[dakwegmo]

The first thing you'll need to do is get a webhost. There are a lot of companies that will host your website for less than $10 per month. Many PP users host with Eleven2 and seem to like it. They are familiar with PP and can help with getting your website and PixelPost setup.

[debaser]

The first thing you'll need to do is get a webhost. There are a lot of companies that will host your website for less than $10 per month. Many PP users host with Eleven2 and seem to like it. They are familiar with PP and can help with getting your website and PixelPost setup.

Thanks for your reply but I know I need a host. Eleven2 seems kind of high compared to GoDaddy, which is something like five bucks a month. IF I could continue to host my photos on imagebucket (which seems to work fine) then I don't need much bandwidth or storage from the site's host, correct? Can I do that?

I don't even know if GoDaddy's hosting would work. I thought all along that a host was just a computer, and that it would serve up whatever you put on it. I guess that's not true?

[dakwegmo]

PixelPost doesn't have any options for allowing you to host your images on a remote server (like imageshack), so you need to have enough web storage to store all of the photos and thumbnails you intend to upload. GoDaddy should work if they support PHP and MySQL. I'm pretty sure there are a couple of PixelPost users hosted at GoDaddy.

[debaser]

Overwhelming amount of great advice, by the way. One response. Thanks a million!

[austriaka]

To be honest: a true internet beginner should better use some pre-formatted blogging platform like http://www.aminus3.com/

To set up a photoblog like Pixelpost you don't need much knowledge. But if you want to go beyond the basic installation by using another template or additional features (what we call Extends or Addons) you have to understand the minimum basics of HTML and CSS.

No, Pixelpost is not designed for showing images from a different host.
Yes, Pixelpost comes with a simple stats counter and there are several Addons for more detailed statistics.
Yes, you can link to other Photoblogs, but you have to do this manually by editing the HTML code of the template.
I guess you can put the GCast Podcast into your page by including it in the HTML code, but I don't know anything about that.

GoDaddy Questions:
http://help.godaddy.com/article/896
http://help.godaddy.com/article/1467

[Dennis]

The fact that there is only one response merely indicates that all that has to be said concerning your question has been said.

Otherwise you would end up with a couple dozen of posts all saying the same thing in different wordings.

Dakwegmo has done a great thing explaining, so there was no need for us to do anymore.

[dakwegmo]

Overwhelming amount of great advice, by the way. One response.

By my count I replied twice.

Thanks a million!

You're welcome.

[debaser]

Everyone feel free to pile on. I was just frustrated with my lack of internet knowledge. Thanks to those who've tried to help, and apologies about the sarcasm.

[dakwegmo]

The reason I suggested Eleven2 is that they specifically support PixelPost (http://www.eleven2.com/hosting/photoblogging/). I may be wrong, but I believe they will even install it for you; all you have to do is login and start uploading. Also, the less than $10 comment was a general assessment of the market, not a specific price for Eleven2's services. In fact, if you look at their hosting page, http://www.eleven2.com/hosting/, you'll see that they have an incredible hosting package called Launch party for $6/month. That may be more than godaddy's bottom of the line plans, but Eleven2 is a PixelPost partner. They know what the software is and help support it. Check the forums for users with -E2 in their usernames, Zach-E2 and Rodney-E2, these are the guys who run Eleven2. They post here. If you're looking for somewhere to host a website, and want to run PixelPost, you really can't go wrong with them. I can guarantee that you won't get the level of PP support anywhere else that you will get from them. And the hosting features they offer really are phenomenal for the price.

[debaser]

Is your blog hosted by them? I don't know how it normally performs but right now (11:08 CST) it will barely load. Getting a lot of "The server at www.invisiblegreen.com is taking too long to respond" messages.

Nice stuff from what I could see, though, and I like your design.

[dakwegmo]

I am currently hosting on a dedicated server that I run myself. I have been considering moving back to shared hosting, to let someone else deal with the hassles of maintaining the servers. If I do, I would probably go with E2. Until then though, I've got nobody to blame for a slow running website except myself.

Thanks for the compliment. It's always nice to hear people like my work.