I was looking around at different photoblog CMSs. Currently my favorite is pixelpost. It has some great templates as well it has a a lot of great addons for social networking. For this we are going to assume that you have ftp access to a web server. This guide will go over setting up a basic photoblog installation. You will need php support on your web server to run pixelpost. Most Linux web servers come with this functionality.

FTP will allow you to upload the necessary files to your web server. First you can get the php code from:

http://www.pixelpost.org/releases/latest.zip

Getting PixelPost

This will give you the latest copy of pixel post on your local machine. You must unzip the package on your local machine. This should create a pixelpost directory. Use your ftp client to upload the unzipped package to your web server. your going to want to upload the files inside the pixelpost folder to your document root, this is usually labelled as a directory “www” or “public_html”.

Setting up the Database

This step varies according to your web server. Basically you are going to need to add a new MySQL database, or if you already have one set up you can use that.

The instructions on how to do so for a couple web hosting solutions can be found here:

GoDaddy
http://help.godaddy.com/article/36
Dot5Hosting

For Dot5Hosting log into from www.dot5hosting.com, then you will get redirected to your vDeck. Click “Manage MySQL” in the Scripting and Add-ons section.

By default the Manage Databases tab should be selected( you should see the Manage Databases tab blue ). Click the Add database icon that is located beside the refresh button.

This should bring up a dialog box that says Add Database.
For “Database Name” enter pixelpost
For “Username” enter pixelpost
For “Password” and “Confirm Password” you can enter any password that contains a combination of letters numbers and symbols. This will be your database password.

Other

If you are not on Dot5Hosting or GoDaddy, then do a google search for adding a database for your provider. If you are running your own server you can add a database through phpMyAdmin or through the mysql terminal.

Configuring PixelPost

In your Web Browser go to: http://{yourdomain}.{com,org,net,ca}/admin/

Replace your domain with your domain name and choose the appropriate ending. Next, it will bring up a configuration screen. Click the button that says “Begin Installation”.

Then a new page should load, click, “Proceed to next step”.

The next page, will show a table of a couple of prerequites. All the Values on the right must be green. If any of the values in “PHP Version and Settings” are red, you will need to contact your hosting provider, or recompile php with the supported libraries or add in the required packages.

If there are any of the values under “Files and Directories” that are in red, then you will have to use your ftp client and chmod the “images/” and “thumbnails/” directories to 755.

If all the values are green then you can click “Begin Installation”.

The next step is entering your database information. For the database host will vary. Most times the host will be localhost. For Dot5Hosting, the host will be {your user name}.dot5hostingmysql.com. If you do not know this please contact your provider to get this information.

For the database name we are going to use the database that we previously created: “pixelpost”.
For the database user we are going to use the user that we created previously: “pixelpost”.
The database password is the password that you created for your database. Leave the database prefix as the the default value, “pixelpost_”.

Then hit “Test Connection”.

After this the configuration should be pretty straight forward. Keep pressing the buttons at the bottom to proceed with the installation. You are going to need to remember the Admin user name and Admin Password that you enter. These can be custom values that you set.

Final Steps

To Add pictures, you are going to need to go to: http://{yourdomain}.{com,org,net,ca}/admin/

Then log in with the custom username add password that you set during your installation. You will proceed to the Administration panel. Through this you can add new images to your new pixelpost photoblog. There will be new articles to come later this week on how to add a new theme to your pixelpost installation.

When uploading pictures, some errors will happen if you upload files with filenames that have spaces in them

If you have any questions or comments about this article if you need help, then please leave a comment with your email.
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