How to Start a Joomla! Website

Websites are becoming more and more essential to the everyday person as time goes on. Whether you just want to showcase your personal writing or run a full-fledged business, using a content management system is the easiest, most effective way to get yourself on the web. This article focuses on installing the open source CMS, Joomla!, and getting your website live.

Note: This knol has a lot of images. It may be helpful to reload the page a couple of times to make sure all of the images successfully load. Introduction So you want to start your own website. Awesome! If you've been worrying that it will be insanely difficult then you can take a deep sigh of relief because it isn't that bad. It just takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work. Unless you want to use a program like Adobe Dreamweaver to hand code your website (which is NOT easy!), your best bet is to use a content management system (CMS). A content management system is kind of like an operating system that makes adminstration of a web site much easier. It takes out all of the technical know-how so that you only need to know a minimal amount of HTML, CSS, PHP, Flash, etc. This guide is aimed at teaching you how to start a website using the CMS Joomla!, but many of the steps will apply to other CMS's (like Drupal) as well. Joomla! is 100% free and extremely powerful, so you won't regret using it.

What You'll Need

1. A computer - It doesn't need to be a top of the line system, but it will help if you have a computer, or laptop, with at least a
   
   • Pentium IV processor or equivalent
   • 512 mb of ram
   • graphics card with 64 mb of ram.
     
   • Apple computers will work great too so long as you have at least a PowerPC G4 with 1 GB of ram.
     
     Some photo editing software, such as Adobe Fireworks CS3 and Photoshop CS3 are pretty intensive and the above requirements are bare minimum for running them. [1] If your website is going to have a focus on video and multimedia then you might consider getting a computer with an Intel or AMD dual core processor and a couple gigabytes of ram.
2. Internet - Administrating a website requires a lot of time on the internet. A 56k modem is simply not going to cut it unless you have the patience of a saint. Also, slow internet speeds could ruin your business/reputation if you don't have fast access to the site. Cable, DSL, T1, and so on are highly recommended.
3. A Host - A web host is basically a company that will allocate part of their servers and bandwidth so that your site can exist. You can also register your domain name using these web host providers. A domain name is the address people will type into their web browsers when they want to visit your site. For instance, "http://www.google.com" is a domain name. Registering your domain name should be the easiest part, since it is usually the first option a web host provider will offer you.
   I do not recommend trying to find a free web host service. If you are serious about having a website then you should pay the price for good, quality service. Your website will be able to handle more visitors this way and you'll be less likely to run out of server space. Personally I have had wonderful experiences with Dreamhost and I know people who have liked GoDaddy. There are many other options, though. You can investigate Bluehost, Yahoo!, or Hostmonster just to name a few.
   The host does more than just give you space and bandwidth. They also provide you with MySQL, which is a database management system. [2] Joomla! requires a database to run, so you must make sure your host will provide you with MySQL.
   If you have a speedy computer with a blazing fast internet connection that you are willing to leave on 24/7 365 days a year, then you will be able to host your website from home. I would not recommend this route but I have met people who run their own web servers. It will make things more stressful since you have to make sure the computer is always on (or else your website dies!) but it can be an educational experience. It is also a lot harder. To build your own web server for Joomla! you should download and install LAMP on the computer you plan on using. Here are instructions on how to get LAMP running: http://www.sph.umich.edu/csg/abecasis/LAMP/download/.
   
4. FTP Program - If you don't already have one, then you'll have to download a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program. There is no need to pay money. Filezilla is an open source (free!) software that will allow you to upload/download data to and from your website's server. You can download Filezilla here for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. If you would prefer trying something else, and you have an Apple computer, then you can try Cyberduck, OneButton FTP, or Fugu, which are all open source. Windows users looking for an alternative to Filezilla can download WinSCP for free.
5. Joomla! - This is the content management system you'll be using. Download the newest version here.
   
6. File Compression Software - While using Joomla! you are going to encounter files that are compressed in a wide variety of ways. Windows does not come with the built-in capability to open all of these files and folders. This is why you should download 7-Zip, which is open source.
   If you are using an Apple computer then download this.
7. Image Editing Software - If you have the money you can buy either Adobe Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Fireworks CS3. I prefer Fireworks because it is specifically made for creating and editing web images and is slightly easier to use than Photoshop. If you don't have the money for either of these programs then you can download GiMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) here for free. It does many of the same things Photoshop and Fireworks can do. If you are looking for something a little bit easier to use then you can download Paint.NET, which is also free.
   If you have an Apple computer then you can download the open source program Seashore, which is based on GiMP.