A tool for downloading images from your WordPress.com blog to your local machine. It is also an example of how to use XML RPC service in C#.

Executable : WpBulkDownloader-Alpha-Executable.zip
SourceCode : WpBulkDownloader.zip

Contents

• Introduction
• Background
• Software Requirements
• How to use
• How it works
• FAQ

Introduction

This is a tool that helps you to download all of your images that you posted in your blog. This tool is created especially for WordPress.com users but it will support all other blogging softwares in future. You will definitely need this tool when you want to move your blog from wordpress.com to self-host.

Background

My blog was hosted on WordPress.com last year. I had too many images uploaded in my free space. When I wanted to move my blog to self-host, I noticed that there is no way to bulk-download all of my images from WordPress account to my local disk. I didn’t want to copy each and every images manually so I wrote this tool that can scan each and every urls from my blog and create the directory based on the URL. And then, download them into my local harddisk. It’s just 2 hours program that I wrote at that time. So, I’m sure that there won’t be all features that you want in this program. But don’t worry. Just drop a comment in this post. I will add the feature that you want in next release.

Software Requirements

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

How to use it?

The steps are very simple.

• Configure your blog in Bulk Image Downlader. Click “Options” and fill your blog URL, user name and password as picture below.

• Click “OK” button to save your configuration and close the dialog
• Click “Get Files” button to get the list of image URLs from your blog. (You may need to wait a few minutes while retrieving the list of images from your blog.)
• After retrieving the list of Image URL, you can click “Download” button to download the images to your local disk. (You may need to wait a few minutes while processing. )
• After that, you can check all of your images in “Downloaded Images” directory.

How does it work?

Note: This is for those who like to read the sourcecode and want an explanation about codes. If you are just a normal user, you may skip this section.

Firstly, the program will read the user name, password and blogurl from config file. It will append “xmlrpc.php” which is the standard XML RPC interface for WordPress at the end of blogurl string. Then, it will invoke getRecentPost() API of wordpress. I used opensource XML-RPC.NET library in this sample. As there is no getPosts() API in xmlrpc.php, we have to use the alternative method (getRecentPost() API) for retrieving the posts from the blog. The max number of posts is set to 1000 in the program. If you have more than 1000 posts in your blog, you probably need to change the default value.

If the authenticating is successful then we will get the list of posts from the blog. So, we have to filter the URL of images from the contents. Initially, I was thinking to filter <img> tag from the content. But there are some cases that we used big image in <A> tag and small images in <img> tag. So, I decided to filter the <img> tag and <a> tag from the contents based on the extensions (*.jpg, *.png, *.gif) by using regular expression. After that, I shows the list of URLS in ListView.

When the user clicks “Download” button, I start downloading the image one by one. (Note: I used C# downloader class which is written by Shailen Sukul in this example. ) Based on the URL, the program will create the directory accordingly. For example, If the image URL is “http://your.wp.com/2009/09/image1″ then the program will create the directories like “09″ folder under “2009″ folder under “/Downloaded Images/” folder. So, you can easily upload all of your images to your new host via FTP.

That’s all about how Bulk Image Downloader works. If you have any question, please let me know.

FAQs

1. Can you make the better UI for this program?

Yes. Of course. I’m thinking to change this Windows Form to WPF version so that you will definitely get the better UI for this program.

2. The form is freeze while downloading the images. Why?

Sorry about this issue. For the time being, all processes are running in single thread so that UI will be freeze while processing. I will separate the UI and logic into different thread in next release.

3. Can I request new feature?

Yes. Of course. This is the main reason why I released it as alpha. Feel free to drop a comment in this post. I will make a list of feature requests and will be added in next version.

This is the wrap-up of this blog for October, 2007 [ "October 12 to October 31 ( 20 days )"].

1. Host and Blogging Software

• My blog is shifted to Dreamhost on 11st October, 2007. Luckily, I got a lot of discounts from them because they were celebrating 10th Birthday at that time.
• I started using the standalone WordPress from WordPress.org. ( The one that I used earlier is WordPress MU (WordPress Multi-User). )

2. Plugins

• WordPress.com Stats : This is a stats system that I’m using for more than 1 year. I still love this plugin so I use it here too. (But it doesn’t allow me to take my previous stats from my old blog. :( )
• Akismet : The greatest spam-fighter on the net.
• Feedburner FeedSmith : It will redirect your own site feed (i.e: http://michaelsync.net/feed/) to your feedburner’s feed (i.e: http://feeds.feedburner.com/michaelsync/).
• Google XML Sitemaps : It is just for Google Webmaster Tool.
• Subscribe to Comments : This is the best way to keep in touch with my readers.
• SyntaxHighlighter : This makes my sourcecode looks cool.

Which plugins are you using on your site?

3. Theme

Yeah. I’m using my modified version of “Unsleepable Widget-friendly” theme for now.

4. AdSense

This might be interesting topic for you all. I have started using the Adsense from the following service. I wanna share some of my experiences… I promise that I’m NOT going to use the most annoying ads in my blog. All ads will be placed on the sitebar or under the comment box . I hope that it would be okay for you. Frankly speaking, I’m not going to blog for money. I have no plan to make money with my blog.. Why ads here? Because as my blog is on self-host, there are some costs for it. I like to cover those things. And also, I would like to run some programming or blogging contests on my blog..

• Google AdSense : I think Google Ads is the best adsense service on the net. They pay for impression, clicks and actions.
• AuctionAds : This is also a nice ads service after Google Ads. I start using it last 10 or something.. I got 4703 impressions, 4 clicks and 1 referral. I got free $25 bucks for signing-up with them. I’m not very sure whether this promotion is still available or not. You may try here if you want.
• Chitika : I think that Chitika is “Pay-per-action” service that didn’t work well from me. So, I have removed it.
• BidVertiser : I signed-up on that site today. It allows you to sign-up as both advertiser and publisher.

If you are also using Ads on your blog, please share some information with me. Which Service are you using? How many impressions and clicks do you get for a day? How much have you earned? Thanks.

Stats

• PageViews : 17618 PageViews for 20 days ( it doesn’t include my own visits.)
• Technorati Rank : 32,510 ( My rank dropped too much this month. My rank was 25,703 on 1st October. :( )
• Google PageRank : 5 (I got it on 26th January this year. it has been nearly 1 year. I think the PR of my blog should has been dropped this time because this is fashion for now.. a lot of pro-bloggers are shouting about Google PR drops for their blogs.. )
• Technorati Authority: 182
• Bandwidth : 3.684 GB

The Text-widget is the most useful widget in Widget plugin. It allows you to place the HTML code or Javascript on your sidebar. In my blog, I have used a lot of text-widgets for showing links, feed count, adsense, license, stats and so on. As you were like me, you may probably need more text-widgets for your sidebar. Unfortunately, there are only 9 text-widgets available in your widget by default. How do we do to get the additional text-widgets more than 9?

The answer is simple. You need to make a few minor changes in the code of widget plugin. Don’t worry if you are not programmer. It is very simple and everybody can do it… I will show the steps how to change and what to change the source code of widget plugin. Actually, there are only 3 lines to change so you just follow all those steps carefully and get it done.. :) Don’t forget to backup your code.

Note: Widget.php is located under wp-includes if you are using Wordpess 2.3. (Why not in plugins folder? Because the widget plugin is natively supported by wordpress started from version 2.3. ) To edit this file, you have to download this file to your local machine and have to upload it back after editing. You can’t use the plugin editor to edit this file.

Steps to follow ~

1. Download widget.php file to your local machine and open it with your favorite text editor
2. Find “wp_widget_text_setup” function. Change “9″ to “the number of text widgets you want” in this line “if ( $number > 9 ) $number = 9;”

   

3. Find the “wp_widget_text_register” function. Change “9″ to “the number of text widgets you want” in this line “if ( $number > 9 ) $number = 9;” and “for ($i = 1; $i <= 9; $i++)”

    

   

4. Find “wp_widget_text_page” function. Change 10 to the number which is one higher than the number of text-widget you want in this line “<?php for ( $i = 1; $i < 10; ++$i )”. (For example, if you want 20 text widgets, set 21 in that line. )

    

   

Finally, you can upload this file to your host after editing.. (Thanks to “Syntax” for this post. I got those steps from his post in wp.org forum. ). That’s all about adding the extra text-widgets. Let me know if you have any problem with those steps that I mentioned in this post. Thanks.

Reference ~

• Support: Additional Text Widget

Links ~

• WordPress Widget

If you are a fan of Unsleepable theme, you may download the widget-friendly version of that theme here. If you wanna know more about this modified theme, please take a look the FAQ below.

Download : Unsleepable Widget-friendly Theme

What is Unsleepable “Widget-friendly” Theme ?

Unsleepable “Widget-friendly” theme is the modified version of Unsleepable Theme created by Ben Gray for wordpress.org. As this theme is widgetized, you will be able to customize the sidebars of your blog in very simple way. If you are moving your blog (which is using “Unsleepable” theme) from wordpress.com to self-host, you may probably wanna download this theme.

Why did you want to modify this theme?

Actually, there are some differences between the “Unsleepable” theme from wordpress and the original “Unsleepable” theme created by Ben Gray. When I moved my blog to Dreamhost, I downloaded the original theme and started using it for my blog.. Unfortunately, the original theme is not widget-friendly and not like the one that I used in wordpress.com. So, I modified the way I like. :)

What changes did you make?

Here is the list of changes that I made ~

• Make it “widget-friendly” : This is the main reason why I modify this theme. It helps people to customize the sidebar of their blogs in very easy way.. just drag and drop.. and done!
• Show the title of blog instead of “Unsleepable” theme : The original image looks good but the name of our blogs is not “Unsleepable”.
• Make a lit bit wider : According to the stats report of my blog, the most of visitors are 1024×768 resolution so I make this theme a lit bit wider.
• Remove “Social bookmarking” : As I widgetize this theme, the images for social bookmarking are no longer available.
• Remove “Live Search”
  
• Remove “BottomBlock”
• Remove “two logos” from footer
• UPDATED on 20th Oct, 07 : Enabled the comment for page. (The original theme doesn’t show the comment for pages by default. )
  
• UPDATED on 20th Oct, 07 : The UI for K2 Option has been removed.
  

Did Ben Gray, the original author of this theme, know about your modified theme?

Yes. Of course. I have informed him and got his permission to make my modified theme downloadable. (Thanks a lot, Ben.)

What would you like to say about your modified theme?

Well, Thank you so much for reading my blog and downloading this theme. I would like to say “sorry” if my modification is not so good. (I’m not PHP guys and I know nothing about WordPress APIs. ).

Feel free to let me know if you have any comment or suggestion. If you like this theme, thanks to “Ben”.

WordPress.com added new feature that allows you to post the sourcecode on your blog in very easy way. You don’t need to do anything about manual color highlighting for your sourcecode. You don’t need to find the theme which has a stylesheet defined for PRE or CODE tag. You can just paste the sourcecode within [sourcecode language=’css’]…[/sourcecode] and specify the language of your sourcecode. How easy it is!!

using System.Data.Linq;
using System.Data.Linq.Mapping;

[Table(Name = "Customers")]
public class Customer
{
[Column]
public string CustomerID { get; set; }
[Column]
public string City { get; set; }

public override string ToString()
{
return CustomerID + "\t" + City;
}
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
DataContext db = new DataContext(
@"Data Source=.\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Northwind");
db.Log = Console.Out;
var results = from c in db.GetTable<Customer>()
where c.City == "London"
select c;
foreach (var c in results)
Console.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}", c.CustomerID, c.City);

}

The most of tech bloggers including me are very happy with this new feature.

What about for self-host wordpress bloggers? Is there any plug-in for syntax highlighting?

UPDATED: Please check the updated information at the bottom of this post.. Thanks

Of course! Yeah. There are a lot of plug-ins for syntax highlighting. But if you wanna use something looks exactly like the one from wordpress.com then you may probably check-out the plug-in called SyntaxHighlighter that uses javascript syntax highlighting library which is used by wordpress.com to implement that new feature.

Where can I get “SyntaxHighlighter” plug-in?

Download from this link “http://erik.range-it.de/wordpress/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/“. (Of course! it is free.)

How to install and configure “SyntaxHighlighter” plug-in?

• Extract the zip file (“syntax.zip” for now)
• Copy all files and folders (syntax.php, [Styles] and [Scripts])
• Paste them under wordpress/wp-content/plug-ins/
• Open the browser and Go to Plug-in page (eg: http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/plugins.php)
• Activate the plug-in
• Go to “Options” tab in the admin panel
• (There will be new tab called “Syntax” in Options panel.) Go to this tab. You will see a lot of options for syntax highlighting as picture below.

• You can specify the languages of your sourcecode that you are going to post on your blog. For example, if all codes that you post on your blog are written C# or Javascript then check the C# and Javascript checkedboxes in this page.
• then, click “Update Options” button.
• finally, you can start posting the sourcecode on your blog.

How to post the sourcecode or How to use this plug-in?

Well. this is very simple.

• Copy the code that you wanna post and paste them within [sourcecode]…[/sourcecode]
• Specify the language of your code. (eg: [sourcecode:javascript]…[/sourcecode] )
• Done!

What is the differences between SyntaxHighlighter plug-in and the one from WordPress.com?

Firstly, I don’t work for wordpress.com so I’m not sure how they implement this plug-in for wordpress MU. But I believe that both of them are pretty much the same since they are mainly relying on javascript syntaxhighter. I found only two differences as below while I was testing those plug-ins.

1. You can’t specify HTML, XSLT as a language in WordPress.com.

2. You can’t disable some languages that you are not using in your blog.

Last but not least (Performance)

This link said,

SyntaxHighlighter uses regular expressions to parse the text. It’s not extremely fast, in fact, it’s pretty slow. If you are trying to highlight a few dozens lines of code, you won’t see any problems. Trying to highlight 10kb worth of text will result in JavaScript being aborted because of long execution time.

Other wordpress plug-ins for syntax highlighting

• Wp-syntax (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-syntax)
• iG:Syntax Hiliter (http://blog.igeek.info/wp-plugins/igsyntax-hiliter/)
• WordPress (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/)

UPDATED: I found the original plugin which is written Matt for WordPress now. This plugin also called SyntaxHighlighter. Here is a link if you wanna download. As this plugin uses the same tag format like wordpress.com, you don’t need to change anything in your post to highlight the correct style.

Even though this post is written as an explanation of why I’m mixing a lot of things in one blog, it will give some interesting points that helps you to decide whether you should blog the dedicated topics only or mixed things.

Introduction

I was having a conversation with one of my friends about our blogs, blogging and etc last night. He gave me one comment that I’m going too far from one topic to another in my blog. I should probably post the dedicated topic about something. It is not good if I’m posting a lot of different topics in one blog because it made my readers to confuse about what they should expect from my blog. For example, some people may like about programming things. Some may like about Jokes. So, those people who like about programming might not wants to see the jokes all the time because they are not coming to my blog for having fun. They wanna get something useful for their technical expertise. The same way might happen for those who likes about Jokes instead of technical things.

But there are some reasons why I do like that.

1. My blog is based on what is happening in my real life.

Does it sound funny? :) but it’s true. My blog is going as same as how my life’s moving. I don’t mean that those are completely the same but almost. For example, if I’m working for ASP.NET 1.1 then the most of posts that I wrote at that time may be about ASP.NET 1.1 only. If I’m working with SmartClient or .NET 2.0 then the most of topics that you read here may probably be about SmartClient or .NET 2.0.

There might be some cases that I may post about some topics that I currently interest (eg: SliverLight, Orcas, LINQ and etc) even I’m not working with those technologies.

Plus, I may express my feeling in my blog (eg: like that) too. ( It make me feel better. u know?)

And it is also possible that you can know whether I’m very busy or not by checking the upcoming posts of my blog. :)

2. My blog is a place where I keep all of my favorite things.

This is the another facts why I don’t launch the dedicated blog. My blog is not a blog about blogging (eg: problogger or john chow or lorelle or etc). My blog is not a blog about technical website (eg: CodeProject). My blog is just a place where I keep all of my favorite things in one place. My favorite things could be Jokes, some pieces of codes, opensouce tools, thoughts, blogging tips. It could be anything. I’m not sure whether you are gonna like them all as like me but I would say that those things are pretty cool. (at least for me. )

3. Time is not enough to manage the multiple blogs.

Time is an issue. Everybody has their own life to serve. So, we have to work for serving our life. Sometimes, I felt very tired when I come back to my home after work. At that day, I don’t even wanna boot my computer and I don’t want to think about technical things. so, it’s sad to say that I’m not able to come up with new post everyday.

While running within very short time, it’s not easy for me to launch the dedicated blogs (eg: blog for Joke, blog for Ajax, blog for blogging and etc)? My time will be over while trying to log-in in many blogs.

Conclusion

Yeah. Those are the reasons why I’m blogging the different topics in one blog. But I believe that it will be more convenience for readers to read the dedicated blog instead of aside blog like mine. Because things that they expect and things that is coming up will be the same. So my conclusion is that the dedicated blog are good for reader but not for blogger. What do you say??

UPDATED:: This competition is over. The official website ["www.sndbx.org"] for this competition is no longer available.

What is it all about?

This competition is all about customizing the Sandbox theme by using CSS and images without touching PHP code. It’s like WordPress theme competition but its focusing on designing thing so that it’s good for web designers. (You don’t need to know anything about PHP code, WordPress Template API and etc)

Deadline : 12:00 AM UTC, July 29, 2007

Purpose of this competition

• Promoting Premium CSS upgrade in wordpress.com
• Promoting Sandbox Theme
• And ~
  

  * To be transparent, organized, and fun;
  * To solicit new, excellent designs to benefit the WordPress community;
  * To reinvigorate the creative energy present in the WordPress community; and,
  * To provide a challenging competition appropriate for experienced and novice designers.

Prizes

* Total Competition Prizes: US $1000 or $1950.00

• 1st prize: US$850
• 2nd prize: US$550
• 3rd prize: US$400
• First three (3) runner-ups will receive US$50 honorarium and a copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle each

1. First prize. The Contest champion will win US$500.
2. Second prize. The Contest second-place winner will win US$300.
3. Third prize. The Contest third-place winner will win US$200.
4. Runner-ups. The Contest runner-ups will receive honorariums.

Odds of winning a prize will vary depending upon the number of actual Contest participants. In the event any entry is deemed ineligible, the Administrator may award the prizes to alternate entries as it deems suitable. Winners may be required to pay customs, duty charges and/or taxes.

Note: It’s better if you check the latest news about prizes in this site since it keep on changing all the time.

Who launched this competition?

The competition is lunched by Scott of plaintxt.org, who is the cocreator of the Sandbox along with Andy of Automattic.

Rules

• All designs will be limited to style sheets (CSS) and images (no theme PHP mods)
• Designs must be released with GNU General Public License or compatible license. (Keep in mind that it’s not CC license. So, no one is gonna give you any credit even they are using your design.)
• Designs may only be released publicly after submissions close (You are NOT allowed to attach your theme as a zip file in your blog. but you can show how your theme looks like in your blog. )
• You are allowed to submit multiple entries in different emails (eg: Submission: My Theme1, Submission: My Theme2 and so on.)
• Everything (icons, images or etc) that are used in your theme should be under GNU. (Don’t forget to check the license before copying the image from websites or search engines.)

- Send to submissions@sndbx.org with the subject “Submission: [Title]“, where [Title] is the name of the design.

The submission attachment must be a ZIP archive with the following file structure:

-sandbox-[title].zip:
–/sandbox-[title]/
—- style.css
—- image01.png
—- image02.jpg
—- other-style.css
—- readme.txt
—- screenshot.png (400px by 300px)

A few important points before submitting your design:

• Submissions containing a screenshot in a format other than PNG will be ignored.
• Submissions containing a screenshot not 400px (w) by 300px (h) will be ignored.
• Submissions in archive formats other than ZIP will be ignored.
• Submissions lacking an explicit GNU General Public License license (or compatible) will be ignored.

Prize delivery

Results will be announced on www.sndbx.org by 12:00 AM (UTC), Monday, August 6, 2007. Winners will be issued their cash awards via Paypal within 48 hours of final results.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Are you ready for this competition? :-) I will post some useful links for images, icons and sample css of sandbox theme.. Let me know if you have any resource that can be used for this competition. Feel free to discuss with me if you have any idea or comment about this competition.

All the best!!

Wolfgang Bartelme’s “dark” theme is finally out. (The author is the one who created Freshy theme, very popular wordpress theme.) You all can download it here. I think this theme looks really great and I have been waiting this for very long time.

It said,

The theme has been tested on WordPress 2.1.3 with Firefox and Safari, may play well with IE6/7 too. It validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.0, and supports the following plugins:

* flickrRSS
* Gravatar
* Ultimate Tag Warrior
* WP-PageNavi

Download and Demo : http://www.ilemoned.com/wordpress/wptheme-dark

Thanks a lot. iLEMONed

Related ~

• WordPress Theme: Best of the Best

This is a post that I wrote as a guest blogger in Myo Kyaw Htu’s blog.

Hello my name is Michael Sync. I’m currently running my personal blog on wordpress.com. I was invited by Myo Kyaw Htun to write one post about why I do blogging.

Sharing things

The reason why I blog is simple. I’m the one who believes in the concepts of sharing. And I believe that blogging is the best way of sharing things with everybody over the World. Before I had no idea about blogging, I used to email to my friends with the subject of “Sharing our knowledge” for sharing things if I think those are useful or cool. The most of emails that I sent at that time were the tip/trick, problems and solutions that I found in my real projects. I believe that all of my emails will help when they are in the same situation that I faced. So, you can say that I’m blogging for sharing things with everybody.

Keeping things as references

The another advantage for posting those tips/tricks in my own blog is that I can use them as a reference when I forget.. :) Initially, I used to keep as a note in text files or word files. but I lost everything when my harddisk crashed. I wanted a place where I put all of my valuable things that I loved without worrying anything. Blog came across for this need. I can put everything and it will serve me back immediately no matter where I’m. So, this is the second reason. I’m blogging for keeping things for my owns references.

Improving my writing skill

Another reason why I’m blogging is that it’s for improving my writing skill. Honestly, I’m not that interest in memorizing the vocabularies and a tons of rules of grammar. (maybe, there are a lot of mistakes in this article too. did you notice that? :) ) So, I know that I’m not gonna write anything if I don’t do blogging. (No writing means no improvement.) Now, I have a blog so that I could write something.

Expressing my feeling, thoughts and opinions.

Everybody has feeling. Sometimes, we feel so happy. but sometimes, sad. We need someone to talk and share the feeling and things. I would say that blogging is very good for that purpose too. You don’t need to kick the dog if you angry with your boss. You can go and blog about your feeling. There will be somebody who wanna share your feeling. At least, it will make you feel better. So, I’m blogging for expressing my feeling, thoughts and opinions.

Exploring the world and different cultures

I have a dream to go around the World. :) I wanna know with people from different countries and I wanna learn about their different cultures. Because, it make me see things from different points of view and it will make my life better. But going around the world is not that easy. The easy way to get to know with people from different locations is blogging. Now, I got a lot of friends from different countries because of my blog. So, I would say that I’m blogging for exploring the world and different cultures.

Source of extra income

Blogging is the source of extra income. :) but I haven’t done anything to earn money with my blog.However, I’m kinda interest about it.. :)

Okay. That is all about. I would like to say thank you to Ko Phyo for inviting me to write this post here. And, thank you all for reading my post.

This article is written for those who wanna install WordPress software as a backup of their blogs on their windows machines. It is just one shot installation for all required softwares such as PHP, MySQL, Apache and etc without individual downloading or manual configuring.

Normally, it’s kinda hard to install and configure PHP, MySQL, Apache on Windows. You have to download each and every packages. You may need to download the separated packages (eg: UI and Service) for some softwares. You may need to configure some files (eg: *.ini) manually. It’s kinda troublesome.

Now, the way that I show you is very simple. You only need to download one package and this package will install and configure all softwares that you need. This post is not just for installing WordPress locally. You can use this post as a reference for installing PHP, MySQL , Perl and Apache on your windows.

Okay. Let’s start!

First, you need to download one useful tool called XAMPP.

What is XAMPP?

XAMPP website said that ~

Many people know from their own experience that it’s not easy to install an Apache web server and it gets harder if you want to add MySQL, PHP and Perl.

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use – just download, extract and start.

XAMPP is a tool that helps you to install MySQL, PHP, Perl, Apache and some more useful PHP applications (eg: phpMyAdmin) on your OS in very easy way without configuring anything. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. However, this post is created for Windows users only and all screenshots are captured on Windows Vista.

Installing XAMPP ver 1.6.2 (PHP 5.2.2 and 4.7.7, MySQL 5.0.41, Perl and Apache)

Note for those who has installed IIS on your machine: Before installing XAMPP, it is better if you stop IIS (Internet Information Service ) because Apache Web Server will be used port 80 so that if IIS is currently using that port then Apache won’t be able to start the Service.

1. Download xampp-win32-1.6.2-installer.exe from this link. and Click the installer.

( The Wranning Messagebox will be shown if your OS is Windows Vista. Just click “OK” but Ensure that you install this package in the location that you have “Write” permission. If you are not sure about that, please just install “C:\xampp\”)

2. Click “Next”

3. Click “Next”

4. Check all three checkedboxes under Service Section. And Click “Install”

(Wait 1 or 2 minutes while installing. )

5. Click “Finish” button to finish the installation.

This is all about installing PHP, MySQL and Apache on your machine. The picture below is the directory structure of XAMPP that you just install in your machine.

Let’s start installing WordPress in your machine.

Installing WordPress in your machine

1. Download zip file from http://wordpress.org. And Extract it in your machine. Then, Copy and Paste it under htdocs folder of XAMPP installation. (eg: C:\xampp\htdocs\)

2. Type “http://localhost/phpmyadmin/” in your favorite browser.

3. Type “wordpress” in “Create New Database” textbox and click “Create” button. (The new database called “wordpress” will be created in MySQL database.)

4. Type “http://localhost/wordpress/” in browser (The following screen will be shown in your browser.) Click “create a wp-config file through a web interface”.

5. Click “Lets go” link

6. Click “Submit” button. (You should note that the default password of MySQL Server is blank and the default user name is “root”. If you have the custom user name and password then please fill accordingly.And ensure that you have “Write” permission to wp-config file and WordPress folder.)

7. Now, you have finished configuring wp-config file and you are ready to start installing WordPress in your machine. In order to start the installation, click “run the install” link.

8. Fill the title of your blog and your Email address. You can also check whether you want your blog to be visible in Search Engines. This option is not important since you are installing WordPress in your local machine with the purpose of backing-up your blog or personal uses. Then, Click “Continue to Second Step” button.

9. It will show you that the database has been created and the default has been filled. It will give you the admin user name and the generated password for admin user. (I would suggest you to change this generated password to something that is easy to memorize for you.)

Now, the installation is done with a few steps. You can start log-in to your wordpress. :)

Thats all about installing php, mysql, apache and wordpress installation on Windows. It is sooo easy, isn’t it? :) Let me know if you have any idea or comment for this post… Thanks for reading..