Stanford BlogLuck

Bites ‘n’ Bytes

Intro to the Web

Monday, September 21, 2009 1

Topics- Intro to the Web, Intro to Wordpress, and a word on Edublogs.

 The Web as it WAS
HTML: Hyper Text Markup language

The language that your web browser

can speak.

Monday, September 21, 2009 2

This is an example of the web as we may have learned about it in High School HTML Class. The down side was
that everythign was coded by hand, and each element (say, a headline with the word “News”) had to be styled
individually. This took forever, and everything was stagnant.
 The Web Today
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
PHP: Hypertext Processor
SQL (Sequel): Manages the “stuff”

They work together (with others).

Monday, September 21, 2009 3

This is an abridged list, but for beginners purposes, its a good place to start. These things make the web
DYNAMIC, and allow all the cool stuff we love about the beb today.
 CSS
How your stuff looks

Monday, September 21, 2009 4

Think of CSS as the designer’s swatchbook. CSS establishes what your site looks like. You set up “Classes” of
objects, and assign them a set of attributes. Then, instead of styling each element by hand, you just make it part
of that class and it gets ALL the attributes (atributes like size, color, font, ect.)
 SQL (Sequel)
Where your stuff lives.

Monday, September 21, 2009 5

SQL is your filing cabinet online. It stores the data of your website or blog (data like posts, pictures, tags, videos
ect.)
 PHP +
The HTML Machine

Monday, September 21, 2009 6

PHP is a programming language, but its a one-trick-pony. It only knows how to write HTML. It goes and gets
stuff from SQL, grabs the appropriate CSS and then combins them to print the proper HTML.
 How it works...

Monday, September 21, 2009 7

 SQL

PHP HTML
(What you see)

CSS
Monday, September 21, 2009 8
 HTTP
Front-end
Back-end
UI (GUI)
WYSIWYG
Extra Terms admin
permissions
Flash
JavaScript
web 2.0
Monday, September 21, 2009 9

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

Front End: the user/visitor side of a site
Back-end: the andinistration side of a site
UI(GUI)- User Interface, or Graphical User Interface (pronounced gooey)
WYSIWYG- (pronounced wizzywig) means What You See Is What You Get, it is a visual kind of website editor that
allows you to see what the finished product will look like, rather than the “code”
Admin- a website administrator
Permissions- varied levels of administrative access
Flash- Kind of dynamic content written in its own language- bad for search engines, sometimes cool looking
JavaScript- web language that runs certain kinds of web stuff
web 2.0- web protocol that enables certain new levels of interactivity (think google maps)
 So, thats a lot of Shit.

Monday, September 21, 2009 10

 CMS
Content Management System

Monday, September 21, 2009 11

Wordpress is our CMS of choice

 SQL

PHP HTML
(What you see)

CSS
Monday, September 21, 2009 12
 CSS SQL PHP
Monday, September 21, 2009 13

wordpress translates commands you give it into the correct actions for CSS, SQL and PHP so that it all “just
works”
Monday, September 21, 2009 14

Wordpress manipulates the code so that it is changeable by a pretty and intuitive panel called “the dashboard”
 In the Wordpress
World
Your Stuff lives in SQL

But its CALLED:

Posts, Media, Links, Pages ect.

Monday, September 21, 2009 15

 In the Wordpress
World
Your have a CSS Swatchbook

But its CALLED:

Your Theme.

Monday, September 21, 2009 16

 World of Wordpress
Monday, September 21, 2009 17
 3 Flavors
wordpress.com

wordpress MU

wordpress.org

Monday, September 21, 2009 18

 Wordpress.com
“Instant Blog”

wordpress.ilovekittens.com

Monday, September 21, 2009 19

this is similar to blogger ect. you just sign up and your blog is all ready.
 Wordpress MU
Administrate several of blogs, make
them cohesive.

(e.g. WSJ properties)

Monday, September 21, 2009 20

This is for organizations that want several blogs but want to display data and posts from them all on one main
page.
 Wordpress.org
100% Delicious

As simple as you want.

ilovekittens.com

Monday, September 21, 2009 21

this is designed for an individual user to make use of the power and ease of Wordpress CMS, but be able to make
as many changes/customizations as their skills allow. I can be as simple as wordpress.com, or as complicated as
you can imagine.
 Edublogs
hsblogs.stanford.edu/yourname/

- flexibility for the users

+ admin rights for Comm Staff.

Monday, September 21, 2009 22

lots more on this later... short story, we, as J students, will have to use these too.
 Wordpress.org
Its cool because its not just a knife...

Its Expandable.

Monday, September 21, 2009 23

Wordpress.org makes use of plugins and widgets (more on those later) to be expandable.
 Intro to Wordpress
Terms and User Interface

Monday, September 21, 2009 24

 Terms
Post
Page
Categories
Media
Theme
Plugins
Widgets

Monday, September 21, 2009 25

Post: content added to the site desgned to be periodic and short lived in importance (like a blog post)
Page: A location on the site that will have more static info (like “About Me”
Categories: a sort of filing system for articles-have as many or as few as you want
Media: Movies, Audio, Pictures
Theme: The syle sheet that tells you wordpress site how to look
Plugins: stand-alone pieces of code that attach to wordpress to give it a new functionality- like adding a calendar to your site.
Widgets: the front-facing side of a plugin- a new functionality added to the site to benefit the user experience.
 Plugins &
Widgets
This is why we like
wordpress.

Monday, September 21, 2009 26

Plugins and Widgets are how we extend Wordpress from a basic blog into a pull featured web presence.
 Plugins,
As of Today:
Widgets
and Themes Plugins & Widgets: 6,651
Themes: 982

JUST through wordpress.org

Monday, September 21, 2009 27

lots of options... also, there is a whole industry devoted to making custom wordpress themes, so if its not out there, you can have it made.
 Setting up wordpress.org
total flexibility and at yourname.com

Monday, September 21, 2009 28

Now some info about setting up your own website with wordpress, first some terms.
 Host Server
Your remote hard drive

Monday, September 21, 2009 29

This is the physical location where your data lives.

 FTP
File Transfer Protocol

How you put stuff on your server

Monday, September 21, 2009 30

This is a way of acessing that data when it lives on the server.

 Domain
www.you.com

Monday, September 21, 2009 31

your name online (mine is withdrake.com)

 How it works...

Monday, September 21, 2009 32

 Your Computer
How the world interacts
FTP Web
Browser
with your website.
Client

FTP Admin
Server Panel

FTP
Server Admin

Back-end

Domain Name
Web Visitor
Front-end http://www.ilovekittens.com

Host Server
Monday, September 21, 2009 33

overly complicated diagram

 So what do we do next?

1. Register a Domain
2. Sign up with Hosting ($5-$6/month)
3. Install Wordpress (easy)
4. Have a popsicle.

Monday, September 21, 2009 34

 Strap in, we’re gonna do it.

Monday, September 21, 2009 35

This is where we (in the meeting) set up a full wordpress install. It took about 10 mins.

Next time we will go over widgets, plugins, multi-media management, content production and developer tools.
Stay tuned. next Blog-Luck is on Sunday, Jan 27th.