HostIcan
From b2evolution manual
Contents |
Characteristics
As of July 24th, 2006:
- PHP Version: 4.4.2
- MYSQL Version: 4.1.19
- Automatic installation possible with Fantastico.
- Paypal accepted.
10 minutes to set it all up
All you need to know is how to click! :)
- Go to the HotIcan Hosting menu
- Select your hosting plan. The entry level hosting plan called "Pro-Host" will work fine for starters. The "Mega-host" plan will have additional benefits such as truly unlimited bandwidth, unlimited domains on a single account and up to 10 different MySQL databases (useful if you want to install several different applications concurrently with Fantastico). Click on "Get Started Now".
- You are entitled to a Free domain name. But you can also reuse a domain name you already have. Make your choice and enter your domain name.
- If you enter a new domain, you can register it with different extensions (.com, .net, .org etc. but only one is free and will be deducted from your subscription).
- Next you'll select your billing cycle. Paying for 12 or 24 months at a time will get you the lowest monthly fee as well as a free shared-hosting setup.
- Depending on the selected hosting plan and billing period, make sure you take advantage of the special coupons available to b2evolution users. Enter a discount code from the table above on this page.
- On the next screen, you need to fill in your contact information aund choose a payment option (credit card or paypal)
- You will get a confirmation email and your account will be porcessed.
- Wait for the Activation / Welcome email to arrive (may take a few minutes). This email will contain the administrative "control panel" URL for your account.
- Log into your control panel. The url has the form http://127.0.0.1/cpanel Use the login and password given in your Activation / Welcome email.
- Click on the fantastico icon
at the bottom of the cPanel
- Click on b2evolution in the list at the left
- Click on "new installation" in the information diplayed on the right. (You can see just below the exact version number that will be installed).
- On the 1st config screen, you only need to enter an admin login and password. You may want to use the same as for you cPanel. Also give a nickname which will be your name as a blogger. Click Install b2evolution
- 2nd screen: review the information, then click Finish installation
- 3rd screen: bookmark the admin URL of your blog. You may also email this information to you by entering an email address.
- You are almost done, but you still need to remove the default hostIcan homepage from your site. On the left, click on the second item named "cpanel home".
- Click on the file manager icon
(second row). This will open a new window.
- Your site is located in the public_html folder. Click on the folder icon in front of "public_html". In order to open the folder, make sure you click on the icon and not on the name.
- Click on the file index.html (either the icon or the name is fine, since this is a file and not a folder).
- In the upper right of the page, click on delete file.
- You can close the File Manager window. You are done! :)
If you registered a new domain with hostican it is most probably already active and you can see your new blog by pointing to your domain in your browser. Otherwise, you may need to point your existing domain DNS servers to hostIcan (see activation email).
For further information about setting up your blog, you can continue on the Main Page of this manual. You might be especially interested in the section You have installed, now what?.
Can I install without using Fantastico ?
Yes, Fantastico automates some of the installation steps for you, but you do not need to use it if you don't want to.
If you don't use Fantastico, you will need to create a MySQL database + user with the MySQL Databases icon 
in cPanel (3rd row).
Can I upgrade the version installed by Fantastico to the latest release of b2evolution?
Yes. First, go to Fantastico and check if they have added the latest version since you last checked. You may be offered the option to upgrade automatically.
If Fantastico does not install the latest version, you will be able to upgrade manually. However, once you have upgraded manually you won't be able to use Fantastico again for future upgrades (this is not a problem, but we thought we should tell you anyway ;).
Procedure will be added here.
Additional settings
HostIcan will support clean URLs out of the box. All you need to do is:
- go to the Settings (App Settings) pane in the b2evolution admin interface
- select a default blog in "Default blog to display:", for example "Blog A"
- check "Use extra path info"
- click Save.
You know have clean urls of the form http://your-domain.net/index.php/2006/07/24/post_title .
If you want to furthermore customize your URL and get rid of the "index.php" part, see Pretty url