Better WordPress Blogs at 1&1

This blog is hosted at 1&1 where I use their default Blog option from my account’s Control Panel.  It works but is extremely limited and the web-based editing facility is cluncky and glitchy, while its resulting text layout is …well.. pathetic.  So I googled around to see what others have done about it – what am I missing?  It seems the best way is to create a fresh blog based on more current /comprehensive WordPress software working with the MySQL database that comes as part of the 1&1 packag.  Just one concern, before I leap into it: how do I migrate existing content off the existing blog (preferably retaining their existing timestamps) ?

Research:

  • Google: [ 1&1 wordpress ]
    • http://www.advancedhtml.co.uk/setting-up-a-wordpress-blog-on-11/
      • I was initially a bit worried about the amount of MySQL database space that is needed for blog software.
      • 1&1 databases are limited to 100mb and I wasn’t sure how much space WordPress would need.
      • Fortunately it seems that WordPress uses space very efficiently and even very large blogs only need a few megabytes.
      • I did most of my setup by following the instructions on http://antbag.com/how-to-install-wordpress-with-1-and-1-hosting/ which has some good instructions specifically tailored for people on 1&1.  I’ve left the configuration pretty much at the default settings for now but I did add http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 to the ‘Options->Writing->Update Services’ box so that Google Blog Search is notified for each update.
      • http://antbag.com/how-to-install-wordpress-with-1-and-1-hosting/
        • 1&1 has their own blog that you can set up through the control panel. This blog is actually a WordPress blog, but is extremely limited in features and options. I would recommend going ahead and setting up a database and installing the real thing..and I’m going to show you how to do it.
        • For this tutorial, I’m going to assume that your host is 1&1. You will need the Linux hosted package to have access to MySQL.

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