crowcity

I’ve been running Wordpress (web content management system) on crowcity for about a week now, and I’m extremely impressed with it. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any level of user looking to build and/or manage a website. It’s incredibly easy to install, configure and use.

Customisation
Configuring the look of the site is a breeze, either by:

• choosing a theme, downloading it, uploading it to your webspace and selecting it (easy), or
• creating your own using css (some knowledge required), or
• a combination of the two.

Adding text
Adding pages and posts is also very simple and works perfectly. You can either:

• use the word processor (no need to know the coding) to type or copy and paste from elsewhere, or
• do it all with code in the code editor if you prefer. The code editor will also validate your code automatically.

Posts/Pages
It makes a lot more sense to add posts rather than pages most of the time. The most recent post goes to the top of the home page, which has the added benefit of your home page being updated constantly. They are also accessible through the site search, or by browsing the different category archives. You can set up any categories you wish to. And there’s built-in RSS support, so anyone can subscribe and track what you’ve added. Search engines (if you choose to be submitted to them) pick up the new posts and pages incredibly quickly (a few days), helping to drive traffic to your site.

Adding Graphics, MP3 and Video

• You can just add images to your post or page as you go, and Wordpress will upload and display them for you.
• I use the Audio Player plug-in to stream MP3s.
• And for video streaming, you can just embed something from Youtube, although you will need to change the code slightly and maybe get rid of the white border. Sorted.

Plug-ins
Plug-ins are extras that people have built and made available for anyone to use. I’ve added a few plug-ins:

• Audio Player - streams MP3s through a little flash interface
• Counterize - analyses your traffic
• Search Pages - includes pages as well as posts in the site search
• Google Analytics plug-in - analyses your traffic. You also have to set up an account at Google Analytics website

Do it!
If you’re looking for an easy way to create and/or manage your website then give it a go. If I can be of any help, please feel free to contact me. Truly anyone can have a decent site they can keep updated themselves now.