GetDotted Domains

Viewing Thread:
"My New Freeola Website Diary"

The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.

Wed 21/01/15 at 12:29
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
I've been toying with the idea of setting up my own site (4DGamers.com) for a while. I already run another site where the Web Host has the only access to the coding and contribute to another, so it was high time I dusted off my little coding knowledge alongside a new domain and a web host that would be flexible and cost effective.

Freeola was only one of my choices but as I'd been with them as an ISP before and had a long history with the company, plus knowing that their customer support is pretty helpful, I decided to use them for my Domain and Web Hosting.

Day 1
=====
At first I wasn't sure what tools to use. There was no way I could code enough to come up with a site from scratch and Freeola offered their Instant Pro site construction. It was, however, a rocky road to success as Instant Pro, while a great instant website builder, just wasn't flexible enough for my needs.

Day 2
=====
Some help on the Freeola forums pointed me towards a One-click install option for several Web Design tools.

Day 3
=====
Looking at the options, both Joomla and Wordpress were powerful enough for my needs, while offering further development once set up. Having worked on several Wordpress based sites before, I decided to go with that.

Honestly, the install was far easier than I could have ever imagined and I was up and running with Wordpress on my Freeola Site within 30 minutes, including the install itself.

I choose a theme from the huge amount on offer, designed a banner and popped a few older stories on the site to see what it would look like. By this time it was pretty late at night and my wife popped her head around the door and made grumbling noises.

Day 4
=====
Theme changes and logo changes were on the cards and a brand new banner had been designed to go with the current logo. I found the perfect theme that contained a slider showing the latest posts and that was flexible enough for me to add my own bits and pieces to the site.

At the same time, I checked out the Freeola Email options and created a couple of email addresses. However, I may have to wait until the site has some way to get money coming in before I use the email pro option that allows you to have incoming and outgoing email without a Freeola internet connection.

Day 5
=====
More articles added, moving menus and sidebars around and adding a few affiliate links. Still getting to grips with CCS and working out how to do more complicate changes behind the scenes. I've also now applied for the Freeola Website Promotion service.
Tue 27/01/15 at 17:16
Moderator
"Are you sure?"
Posts: 5,000
pb wrote:
Not really thought about backups, though.

I wondered that - which if why I brought it up :¬)
Did you see you even got a Freeola Tweet!

[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Tue 27/01/15 at 17:09
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
Numnut wrote:
pb wrote:
[i] I'm still trying to find the code for the main menu to change the fonts, though.


If you're planning on changing any of the styling that 'came' with the theme you're using, you're best using a child theme.

If you're not using a child theme, and make changes to the current theme's CSS file, you'll lose those changes when the theme is updated, which is a pain to say the least.

That said, if you just want to make a few changes to the current CSS, then you can do so via the Wordpress back-end.

Go to Appearance -> Editor in the dashboard, and select the style.css file from the pages listed on the right.

Do a ctrl+f to find '#mainnav-menu a' and you'll be able to change the font as required.[/i]

Yep, been using a child theme in case the main theme updates. There's s pretty cool plugin to take care of child themes, Child Theme Configurator.

Not really thought about backups, though.
Tue 27/01/15 at 17:06
Moderator
"Are you sure?"
Posts: 5,000
Thanks for that. I'm a little confused though.

If you are saying you keep your own backups (both Standard & VIP?) so WordPress sites would be recovered if there was a failure, why are you recommending people also take their own?

Is it due to the frequency of your backups so personal ones would be more current or just a belt and braces approach as people would be unlucky not to be able to recover from Freeola's backups?

[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Tue 27/01/15 at 16:53
Staff
"Look! There's a..."
Posts: 430
We keep our own backups for disaster recovery purposes, but you should always be keeping backups of files and DB content yourself.

With things like Wordpress, there's plenty of plugins that'll do that for you - one I've used before is simply DB Backup, which lets you export your wordpress DB tables as an sql or csv file.

Backing up content via phpMyAdmin isn't difficult either. Presuming you're happy getting to phpMyAdmin from within your MyFreeola account to manage the database (if you're not, perhaps we need a knowledge base guide...), just select the database you want to back up from the left column, and once the DB information has loaded over on the right, choose the 'Export' tab. This'll let you choose the file format you want (sql, csv etc.) and then all you need do is tick the 'save as file' box towards the bottom and click the Go button over on the right.
Tue 27/01/15 at 16:19
Moderator
"Are you sure?"
Posts: 5,000
Hi Numnut,
I've only played with WordPress and don't use it in anger at the moment. I use a 'child theme' for my CSS as you are suggesting to pb.

When I was seeing how WordPress worked this started me thinking about data backups - I'm always looking for a single point of failure!

My WordPress install is on Standard Hosting and I can see pb is using VIP.

Should WordPress users be taking their own data backups (files and MySQL dbase) for contingency purposes on both platforms?

Files are easy but the dbase is more complicated so it would be interesting to know if this also needs backing up.

Thanks.
[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Tue 27/01/15 at 15:39
Staff
"Look! There's a..."
Posts: 430
pb wrote:
I'm still trying to find the code for the main menu to change the fonts, though.

If you're planning on changing any of the styling that 'came' with the theme you're using, you're best using a child theme.

If you're not using a child theme, and make changes to the current theme's CSS file, you'll lose those changes when the theme is updated, which is a pain to say the least.

That said, if you just want to make a few changes to the current CSS, then you can do so via the Wordpress back-end.

Go to Appearance -> Editor in the dashboard, and select the style.css file from the pages listed on the right.

Do a ctrl+f to find '#mainnav-menu a' and you'll be able to change the font as required.
Tue 27/01/15 at 14:46
Regular
"And in last place.."
Posts: 2,054
pb wrote:
I've also had my first guest writer, Dav2612.

His reviews are fab :)
Tue 27/01/15 at 12:52
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
Day 10
======
To say that I spent more time messing around with getting things just right over the last week is, perhaps, an understatement.

I've decided to jot down on paper the things I really wanted to do to make my site look good. As a result, I've changed the theme (I know, again!) and delved in to more backend stuff to add code to make it a bit more unique. I'm still trying to find the code for the main menu to change the fonts, though.

The logo has undergone a few changes, too, with a new logo added to the site name and the twitter feed. I've also had my first guest writer, Dav2612.
Fri 23/01/15 at 16:18
Staff
"Look! There's a..."
Posts: 430
WP Spamshield is pretty good as well, it doesn't really need any configuration either, which is nice.
Fri 23/01/15 at 14:19
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
Hmmm... wrote:
pb wrote:
[i]A few spam comments but, hey, at least my site is getting visitors.


FYI - I haven't used it, but I'm led to believe the Akismet Wordpress Plugin works very well!

[s]Hmmm...[/s][/i]

Yep, using that and it's pretty good. Still have to delete spam but it doesn't show up on the page until I say so.

Freeola & GetDotted are rated 5 Stars

Check out some of our customer reviews below:

Thanks!
Thank you for dealing with this so promptly it's nice having a service provider that offers a good service, rare to find nowadays.
Second to none...
So far the services you provide are second to none. Keep up the good work.
Andy

View More Reviews

Need some help? Give us a call on 01376 55 60 60

Go to Support Centre
Feedback Close Feedback

It appears you are using an old browser, as such, some parts of the Freeola and Getdotted site will not work as intended. Using the latest version of your browser, or another browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera will provide a better, safer browsing experience for you.