Mitch,

I'd love to help you if I can. Send me your phone number this afternoon/evening and I'll try to talk you through the Wordpress install process. I've done this a few times now (recovering from my own stupidity), so I've had to learn the hard way how to get it done.

Be well,
Bob

Mitch,

I've just sent you my phone number to your "comments" addy, if you'd rather call me.

Be well,
Bob

Mitch,

OK. I promise, my last comment of the night. My email to you with my phone number bounced because your "comments" box is full. So, I searched the Wordpress forums for some additional information.

Here's one alternative I found for you:

http://install4free.wordpress.com/

Be well,
Bob

You're on Hosting Matters, right?

If so, under the control panel, there's a tool called "Fantastico" which asks you a few questions and installs WordPress for you. That would be the easiest way to get it up and running - you might need to upgrade to the latest version, but that pretty much involves overwriting the old version and running the upgrade script.

As I recall, the process of converting old entries from MT to WordPress was tricky, but I think they've made that even easier in the last couple of years since I tried it - it might even copy the database directly now...

Never mind about having to upgrade - Hosting Matters installs the latest version through Fantastico.

Mitch,

I have set up 3 blogs in wordpress here locally in the TC's. I'd be happy to help, if you haven't got it yet.

Shoot me an email, and we can figure something out.

AAA

OK - thanks for the tips. I installed through HostingMatters...

...but every time I try to hit wp-admin.php, I get a 403 "Forbidden" error "You don't have permission to access /wp/wp-admin/ on this server."

I checked the permissions - what needs to be changed?

OK - I got that figured out.

But now I hit admin.php, log in, and get a thoroughly blank page.

I know I must be hitting the wrong place, but I have no idea...

It's probably still a permissions thing, going to wp-admin/ should take you right to the login. I'd make sure the permissions on the /wp/ directory are right - that might be causing the problem.

Nah. I changed the permissions to 777, and I still get the blank page after the login.

This is NOT a great ad for WordPress.

Fantastico should set the right permissions automatically, but it looks like it's screwing something up somewhere. I had a similar problem when I used Fantastico to install Gallery.

I'd try using 755 or 666 for the permissions - sometimes the server won't let you use 777 as a valid permission for security reasons.

WordPress itself is easy to install, but bonked permissions are a royal PITA regardless of what software you're using. My solution tends to be to trash the directory and create a new one. If you don't want to go the support ticket route, I'd back up your wp-config.php file, trash your old install, upload a new copy, and put the wp-admin.php you backed up into the new version. If you create the directory yourself, the permissions should be OK.

At least the database got created, so you don't need to worry about that part of it...

Mitch-

You're gonna' need some pliers, and a set of 30 weight ball bearings (it's all ball bearing nowadays) And you're gonna' need about 10 quarts of antifreeze, preferably Prestone. No, make that Quaker State.

Hope that helps.

You forgot a rubber chicken, a greased-up wicker bundt pan, some 40-weight motor oil, and a towel you can throw away when you're done...

Dumb question, but...

Did you run the install?

wp-admin/install.php

AAA,

Yep.