hosting wordpress Question: How can I set up members in my wordpress self hosted site?
I have a self hosted wordpress set up at godaddy.com I want to know what plugins I need to use to set up a register and login for my website on wordpress. What plugin do I need and how do I add the login and register?

Best Response:

Answer by talus30
You don’t need any plugins at all. Users can register and log in on all WordPress blogs unless the option is disabled.

How to find the WordPress host for you

So you’ve spent countless hours trying to find the best system to use for your new site. Maybe you were lucky and a friend turned you on to WordPress. Now comes the even bigger problem of figuring out where to host the site. While you need to be careful in making your decision, I hope this guide makes it easier for you.

Server requirements for WordPress
WordPress has very basic requirements. All you need is a server with at least PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.0. WordPress recommends, and I agree with, that you have PHP 5.2, MySQL 4.1 or higher and Apache 2.2 or IIS 7. In the next release, MySQL 4.1.2 or higher will be required.

Support for the Apache web server is much better.

PHP4 development has been stopped, so at this point it is considered insecure. If you notice your server running PHP4 you will want to contact your host and ask about their plans to upgrade. In upcoming versions of WordPress they will be removing support for PHP4 as well, to introduce better functions to help the software run faster.

You will also want to be sure you’re on a server with Apache 2.2. Both PHP and Apache agree that both run best when running PHP5 and Apache 2.2.

Who can cover these requirements?
The majority of hosts will cover the server software requirements. The software, however, is but a very small portion of what needs to be covered. Any host should be using enterprise-grade hardware on it’s servers. This includes at least 2 CPUs with 4 cores each (8 cores total), hard drives in RAID10 configuration and 8 GB of RAM. RAID10 hard drives offer not only the fastest speeds but the greatest redundancy in the case of hardware failure.

Many hosts who run this type of hardware still do a disservice to your site but overselling their servers. This causes your site to be slower than it should be. You can get around this by finding a host with a no overselling guarantee. Finding a host with a no overselling guarantee can greatly increase the probability that your site will run as quickly as it should.

Is your server as fast as it should be
If you are interested in finding out if your site is as fast as it could be, you can add this small bit of code to your site’s footer.php file.

<!–

This code will show the number of MySQL queries made on each page, as well as how long it took the server to generate your HTML code. To make it more difficult for your visitors to see this data, you will not be able to see it by simply looking at your site. You will need to right click on your site and go to View Page Source, then find the output. If you are unsure how to edit files on your site you can view a flash tutorial on modifying WordPress files.

The number you want to see is .3-.5 seconds for most sites.

To get the most of your experience you will want to look for a hosting company that has experience with WordPress, so if you run into an issue you can ask them for help instead of hoping someone on a forum somewhere can help.

Some hosts now even have large knowledgebases and flash tutorial libraries that cover most WordPress topics. If you’re a visual learner, flash tutorials provide walk-throughs of the exact steps needed to do what you need to do.

The single biggest people most people don’t consider when looking at hosts is the backups. But in the world of web hosting, it’s not a question of if you’ll need to use backups, it’s a question of when. This setup often includes just leaving backups on a second drive in the server. Doing backups this way is a ticking timebomb and is asking for trouble. That, and restoring a single file on your site is a huge headache you don’t need. You should be looking for a host that not only stores backups in a separate datacenter, but is using what’s known as continuous data protection (CDP) backups. Using CDP backups you can restore your entire site, or a single file from several different restore points. When you mess up your templates index.php file you don’t want to have to download a week-old cPanel backup, extract it, find your file and upload it. Using CDP there is a web-based interface where all you need to do is click a few buttons and your files are restored.

Is there a host that has all of these items?
The vast majority of hosts will touch at least a few of the points. If you’re a WordPress expert, extended support won’t be as important to you. Two of the harder items to find will be the no overselling guarantee and the CDP backups, but, in my opinion, those are two of the more important things.

BuyHTTP is one company that does meet all of these requirements. They have been offering WordPress hosting for several years. They run the high-powered servers, have the no-overselling guarantee, the WordPress expertise with the knowledgebase and flash tutorials and the continuous data protection backups.