Domain Names!

It’s time to begin thinking about choosing a domain name  that can represent your digital self! <– (we will watch this video in Zoom class together)

You can’t (and shouldn’t) pick just anything.. this is important!

It has to be unique and also available! It should be relevant – it could be based on your real name, a nickname and or something meaningful to you.

You will need to search for its availability using a domain registrar and you can pick from a number of different ‘top level domains (TLD)’ – for example .com, .net, .us, and .org – then you can have an example like – “mypersonalsite.net”

As we go forward to select and register our domain names (**don’t do this on your own please, I will be walking you through the process in class next week!)

You’re also going to need web hosting, which will allow you to put files up online and will be discoverable through your new domain name! We are going to use a form of ‘shared hosting’ where you get a portion of a server – think of it as having an apartment in a building. With this shared hosting you will be able to do a lot of things including installing your own instance of WordPress! (via WordPress.org and not wordpress.com – they are a lil different)  With wordpress installed you can then start building your website for your domain name. I will cover a series of demonstrations on how to do this and I will record all of the demonstrations and tutorials.

We use a company called Reclaim Hosting, with which we have a contract with so you can enter a coupon code and start your account for free.

The coupon code will be e-emailed to everyone via blackboard starting next week – so I will be reminding you to check your York college e-mail address to get the code.

**This Week’s Blog Post Assignment: Write a blog post that shares a few of the potential domain names that you would consider using for your website. List them (at least 5-10 potential names) and say a few words about why they would be good examples for the website that you will build. 

What will your new website be about? This part is totally up to you! If you wish, you can use the website project itself for a specific project, for example, perhaps you want to share your passion for cooking and poetry. Which means you will be primarily writing blog posts about cooking and poetry. This can also be applied to sports, or gaming, or politics or journalism, or simply put, website that fused together many interests as well as your ct101 assignments.  Share your thoughts, excitements, fears and any other sentiments about how you are feeling about this next chapter in your life as a website owner! Please include a few hyperlinks and or screen shots of some of your favorite websites, let us know why you like them! 

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