Posted by Since I last wrote, I have created one Tic-Tac-Toe with Zoo animals app and so far have it in multiple stores (but that is a story for another day).
In the process of trying to figure out how I could get more exposure for my app, I found many sites that feature app reviews. I looked at a few, and decided why not try to create one for myself (in typical Adrian fashion).
From the beginning I wanted to use a content management system, since I don’t have the time to recreate the wheel. Doing a search on Google will show dozens in every platform and development language imaginable.
I was one of the original testers for the 1and1 PHP/MySQL servers in North America. And as such, I have a very generous plan for very little money. I have used it in the past to host many websites, including my wife’s very successful parenting board (at its peak it had hundreds of uses and thousands of pages servered an hour).
After spending half a day looking at PHP/MySQL options I came across Redaxscripts. Fast, slim and nimble; it is very impressive. While looking at their performance charts WordPress was second or not far behind every test. Couple that with the fact that I couldn’t find many full fledge templates available for Redaxscripts: I decided ultimately to use WordPress.
Since this blog that you are reading is hosted on WordPress.com, I decided to do the same for the Smart Kids’ Apps blog. I soon found that for some of the things I wanted to do it would not be possible or too expensive to do them here. This is especially true since I am already paying for a hosting package at 1and1.
I have known people who have done self hosting WordPress sites, so I figured how hard could it be. I went to the WorldPress.org site downloaded the installer, configured my hosting provider, bought a domain, bought a template (i am not a designer), downloaded a few plugins and in little over four hours in 2 days I had the site up and running.
The Smart Kids’ Apps site might not be perfect, but it took me a fraction of the time and effort than the last time I tried to do something similar (I was in love with Ruby on Rails a few years back).
What have been your experiences with self hosting WordPress? Have you tried anything else?
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