History

The world wide web has come a long way from the days of custom coding a website in HTML editors such as Microsoft's frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver (now Adobe).  Making static, non-changing html-based websites often required considerable knowledge of the HTML standard, which seemed to change as constantly as the weather, as well as cascading style sheets (CSS).  What's more, if you wanted any dynamic content, you had to have a computer science degree to figure out cgi, perl, asp, ssi, or any of the other myriad scripting languages in existence.

The LAMP Stack

PHP was another of the scripting technologies which emerged on the web.  Its popularity increased together with the rise of the Apache webserver on linux, combined with the MySQL database.  The combination of these four free technologies allowed the rapid development of dynamic web pages which transformed the web.  This potent web development cocktail was called LAMP.

Blogging

As creative minds began to push the boundaries of what was available on the web, new styles of websites and services began to emerge.  One of those styles was the "web log" which was a kind of diary of short postings.  Instead of creating the HTML code necessary for every new posting, web developers used the dynamism of the lamp stack to add new postings to the page.  Users soon began to post diaries, articles, commentary, and reviews to their blogs as the software and its uses began to become more sophisticated.  The "blog" was born and it's widespread adoption was to change the internet landscape forever.

Wordpress

The concept of blogging was simple enough to execute and many blogging programs were developed in the myriad of different scripting languages that were available on the web.  Naturally, certain applications would rise like cream to the top, and become the de facto choice for blogging.  One such application was Wordpress.  Its ease-of-use, features, and plugin ability made wordpress the most popular blogging application in a few short years.

Wordpress as a Website Design Tool

The major features that really transformed wordpress from just a simple blogging tool to a full featured website design tool was the standardization of a templating system combined with the ability to creater user "pages" within a wordpress configuration.  Not only did the templating feature allow for ubiquitous availability of attractive community or professionally designed templates, the second feature allowed users to create different web pages like any other, but within the wordpress system, easily and quickly without the need to understand HTML.

Wordpress on Hosting North America

Installing wordpress on your Hosting North America hosting account is a simple procedure.  Just login to the control panel and navigate to the "site applications" page by clicking the button in your domain view.  Select "wordpress" under the blog category and then add it.  Follow the instructions that follow, and your wordpress website will be ready in no time.