For anyone who tries to be a blogger or create some sort of information resource, the most important issue is always with high quality of the blog or site. It relates both to design and content. It takes awhile until the design makes you happy, and it can also take few iterations until you're happy with the posts.
You create the post, and proofreading it, and post as draft, and reading it again. Then you fix few things, post it online. And then you find that you're not so happy with some phrases, and you change them and post again...it takes awhile until you're totally happy. All these back and forth iterations are not always convenient - you may have a bad connection. Or you have a hosting with limited bandwidth. Or you're not sure, or anything else. Or, maybe, you'd like to see how it would look like without actually posting.
Or, you're just like me. I've posted few times already that I'm thinking about moving my blog to Wordpress. I want to try Wordpress and see how it looks and feels like before I do it on a real blog.
I might have a solution for you. It will help you to do anything you want without actual posting or making design changes to your blog. It is very simple actually, and the magic is in virtualization. It's hardly a surprise for anyone. Our personal computers are strong enough to be the host for both our own tasks and also for virtual computers. So, what you can do is to create your own virtual server that will only run Wordpress (and its all required components, such as web server, database and php engine). You can then work with your local server while you're trying to verify issues such as design and/or posts, and only after you're sure - you could post it to your official blog.
Now I will explain the procedure I tested. Just keep in mind that while it shows how to work with Wordpress blog engine, the idea can work for any other web or other resource you'd like to use. I looked over the web for all sorts of virtualization techniques, and the one I found to be the easiest is the VMWare image of rPath Wordpress Appliance. It is the basic VMWare image of a virtual computer, which includes all required software components needed to run Wordpress. Its size is about 130Mb, which is while not that small, is not big either - a connection to DSL would be enough to get it in about half an hour.
The download includes Wordpress version 2.2, so you will need to update it if you want the latest and the greatest. After the download is complete, unzip the file, and start VMWare Player with the file inside extracted folder. It will start the virtual machine. Here is the example of how will the login look like after the start. I have a DHCP server running on my network, so the appropriate IP address (the picture is clickable):
Then, go to {IP}/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php in your browser (IP will be written on that login screen, user: admin, password is: password) - it will allow you to update the MySQL database and now you will have the Wordpress installed. To update it to the latest version from rPath, go back to the virtual machine, and do the following:
After all updates are done, the appliance will be updated to Wordpress 2.3.1. Another way to update, is to follow the standard Wordpress Update procedures.
- login as root, no password needed.
- execute "conary updateall"
After the update, go to {IP}/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php again - and then you have the up-to-date Wordpress with basic installation.
Now, you'll be able to "play" with themes, plugins and design without hurting your live site. You can try out and build your new site. You can post here and fix those posts until you're happy. And after you are, you can post it on your live blog. Here's the example of my "possible" blog after few tweaks - I imported this very blog there just to see how can it look like (click to see larger picture):
This technique allows to do all sorts of experimenting while your live site is still very untouched, functional and working. It is also very helpful if you don't have a Wordpress blog yet and thinking about the move. It would allow you to play with it and to test it and to decide whether it worth the effort.Enjoy being your own webmaster!!!
