en Passant not letting life just pass on by

Nowadays, it seems almost everyone has their own website. You can shop for your groceries, order a pizza and even buy a home all from the comforts of your arm-chair. So, why don't you have your own website all about you. I do!

What? No technical expertise? Bah. No dedicated connection to the Internet? Bah. I know, you don't have the slightest idea of where to get started. Ah! That I can help with.

Here are my very easy steps to get you running with your own website in just a couple minutes work. (The hard part comes later, when you try keeping the content fresh!)

1. Start a blog. Go to Wordpress, Blogger or one of the millions of blog sites and create an account. You don't need to be too creative naming it, just something. Take note of the address to link to it for later.
2. Register a domain name. Ah! the expensive part. (Expensive I mean $6 to $15 a year). Go to one of the multitude of domain name registrars and get yourself a domain name. (Sorry EricWoodford.com is already taken.) I personally use dotdnr as they have a fairly easy site to navigate and they provide a multitude of domains (ever want a .tv domain?), but don't be afraid of sites like GoDaddy.com (and use SCOTT1 to save 10%) if the price is right for you. NOTE:Don't have them create a site for you. You already did that in the last step.
3. Setup your DNS server. When you registered your domain name, they should have asked for a name server (like NS1.dotdnr.com). These are the server's that will eventually host your (domain) name. Go to zoneedit.com and create yourself a free DNS account. You will need to enter the domain name that you registered and they will provide you two name servers. (almost done!)
4. Update your name servers. Now that you have your name servers from ZoneEdit, go back to your domain name registrar and enter them in their interface. Now people who look up your domain, where to find you (at ZoneEdit).
5. (Finally) Redirect your web traffic. So far, when people type in your domain name, it will go nowhere. It may go to a psuedo "Under Contruction" site setup by the domain registrar, but not likely (or very useful). ZoneEdit has a great feature called WebForward. Using this you can silently redirect people to the blog site we setup in step 1. Simply click the 'webforward' link for your new domain, type in the blog address into the destination field and select the cloaked? checkbox. This will hide the actual blog domain name, and only show yours.
6. Now you just need to wait. Typically domain name registrar's will replicate information every few hours out to the Internet. I'd give it 24 hours (and test it) before broadcasting your new website to all your friends.

So, there's nothing stopping you now. Get creating that new content and let the world know who you are. Leave me a comment here with a link to your site, and if I agree with your content, I'll post it here for others to review. Note: Spammers, I will just delete your comment and not look back.