Lazy but necessary question...

[babyface]

Hey,

Completely new to the forum so hello to you all.

I live in the UK so what i wanted to quickly ask is whether I will encounter any problems when dealing with what looks to be some of the most popular sites;

bluehost
wordpress
flippa "ha!" (sorry that "ha!" was just because its unlikely i'll be showing them much cash, just an example)

These sites and sites like them all have the $ signs on the buy pages. do they have facilities for pounds sterling??

Probably a silly question so thanks in advance.

[hooperman]

Hi babyface and welcome to the forums

All the payment systems I've used (paypal, escrow, credit card) will convert currency themselves so it's not a problem.

I saw Wordpress in your list: you shouldn't have to pay WP for anything as their software is free.

Are you thinking about buying a website?

[Clinton]

Hi babyface, and I join hooperman in welcoming you to experienced-people.net.

It did seem a bit strange when I first started operating online, but the USD is the defacto currency on the web. Despite being in the UK and ordering from UK companies, I still often end up paying in US$. Some sites have an option on the homepage where you can choose your country and if you choose UK you should see GBP as your currency. For the others, as hoop says, it will be converted automatically so you can type in your UK card number or use your UK Pound Paypal balance to make payments to companies that only accept USD.

[babyface]

Ok cool, thanks.

Yeah thinking of buying and also got a few ideas for websites to build. I can use Dreamweaver but i'm hearing so much about the ease of use and seo compatibility of wordpress (pings, all-in-one seo plugins etc) that i'm thinking of using it going forward. The premium add-ons all had USD pricing for wordpress, thats why i wanted to check. "Article" sites like seed.com wouldn't even let me passed the first few info pages cause I wasnt based in the US.

[hooperman]

Good to hear you're doing plenty of research babyface.

I've not used any premium add ons for WP, so I can assure you you don't necessarily need them, but it depends on what you want to do. Generally, I only use the All In One SEO Pack, and perhaps a premium theme (like Elegant Themes or Woo Themes), but then I tend to keep things simple. If you plan to make a few WP sites (and can stand some premium theme designers self indulgences) I'd consider getting a premium theme developer's license so you can use them over and again. Saying that, the last WP site I made just uses the free Twenty Ten theme.

[babyface]

cheers, actually hooper, let me keep picking your brains for a sec if i can....

I'm assuming your using the wordpress.org self-hosted version. Since i cant use that until i start paying for hosting, can i ask if the wordpress admin interface is difficult to use? is there any way to play around with it before hosting? what about restrictions, can you manipulate any part of the page/code at will? also security has been flagged as an issue with wordpress, since the PHP code can be hacked quite easily, ever had any problems?

(Sorry, bit of an info-hungry post)

[hooperman]

Lots of good questions. The host I use (site5 who give me "unlimited" domains and webspace - but actually many webhosts offer this) has a one-click Wordpress install that makes it very easy to install. I'm not too technical, but I can get WP installed in a few minutes. The admin interface seems daunting but it doesn't take long to get used to it. I'd actually recommed just buying a domain (<$10) getting some hosting (~$5 / month) and playing around on a live install.

Manipulating the code on the page: there is a visual editor for pages and posts that is a bit WYSIWYG but there is also a HTML editor that allows you to do limited editing like insert divs with CSS and insert Adsense/Chitika code for adverts. Inserting images is easy, either via the visual editor or the HTML editor. For site wide additions (like Google Analytics) you can edit the template once and changes will appear sitewide.

Security: I've been lucky so far, as I've got > 20 WP installations with no problems, though in the last few weeks I did have one of my sites hacked. I did freak out at the time, but fortunately I'd been using one of the free backup plugins that sent backups to my email address weekly, so I just uninstalled WP and installed it again, reimported all my posts/comments and I was up again pretty quickly. Security is a risk, I'll admit. The static HTML sites I run have no problems whatsoever.

[babyface]

all useful information, thanks hooperman.

[petertdavis]

Site5 sucks sack cheese.

[benitez17]

Site5 sucks sack cheese.

Care to expand on this? I like to know which hosts to avoid.

I was royally screwed by Peer1/ServerBeach about a year ago, so I won't recommend them to anyone or ever host another site with them again.