This is one article in a series giving you the behind the scenes story of setting up a .NET and SQL Server hosted application platform that runs on Windows 2008, IIS7.  The series will cover how to set up a blog engine, RSS feeds, optimize them and give you best practices on writing Search Engine Optimized content. The series will also cover tips on how to publicize the content with a Social Networking Optimization strategy.  This is a living series, happening in real time.  Each post will be updated as the story develops, so be sure to check the last modified date listed at the top of each post.  Please post any questions in the comments, as they will be answered directly through the updated content.  The goal of the series is to help both novice and intermediate developer go independent with their own customized blogging and development platform.

For information on the entire series, please refer to the original stub post which links to all the sub-posts in the entire series. Or, better yet, subscribe to the actual feed: Blogging 101 - Behind the Scenes at SlingAlibi (1)

Last modified : 8/31/09

Going Indie!  Buying a domain 

1. So only a week after launching on MSDN, I have decided to republish the content on another domain. For several reasons (1) to get the content off a MSDN owned side (2) for ease of management purposes (3) for new features, such as Facebook connect, that the current (old) version of Community Server on MDSN doesn’t provide (4) to maintain my readership should I ever leave the company (which i am definitely not planning to do) or if something happens to MSDN blogs. (5) maintain my own branding. So I am now going to walk through the process of moving from MSDN onto my own indie site.  It’s early enough in the life of my blog as my subscribers are only at 15, with 6 reach (number of actions taken on my site – clickthroughs off my blog), so hopefully it will be relatively painless to migrate : 
2. Although GoDaddy isn’t necessarily family friendly and it is littered with upselling ads, apparently it is the domain provider of value and choice amongst my colleagues. I did a search on an anagram of my name on WHOIS and found it available.  Also, apparently GoDaddy supports DNS redirection so you can move your hoster around. Using a promotion code given to me by my colleague (thanks Tim!), I was able to get 10 years down from $106 to $76:  
3. One warning, be careful on what you put down for the Administrative Contact, Technical contact & Registrant address fields!  A simple Who.Is will pull up your information for all the world to see so don’t put down an address and phone number that you don’t want to share with the world:
4. Now I had to set up the hoster.  From what I heard from my fellow DPE colleague Brian, webhost4life was the best provider if I wanted to own an entire, site and database.  I opted for the middle package because it gives you SQL Server & ASP.NET in case I want to add custom pages and projects to my site one day.  It takes a few hours for them to set up your account. Once it is complete, you will receive an email. It took me 3 days, or 1 full business day to receive the mail.
5. Next, the DNS routing needs to be setup. Your hoster will send you the DNS servers to use. These need to be plugged into GoDaddy settings. Choose the Manage option from the site, Advanced Details. Then edit the nameservers to match the ones given to you by your provider.