arondello

Thank you, Lyle, for the detailed and thoughtful reply. I appreciate you putting the time in to test the install.

Your steps look familiar but I kept hearing about needing to rename the config-sample file to config, and to change some of the text in that file (basically what you’ve laid out in step 12, except using notes rather than in my browser. Most instructions I’ve read have little variants like that in them and I’ve tried many but get the same results. It seems that there is no “official” method of doing this. In any event, I’ve already spent over 5 hours of my life trying to install WordPress on my cpu and it’s caused me lots of frustration so I’m not inclined to try again (I acknowledge that your method might work, but I’m burnt out on it at this point).

I don’t know which site you get MAMP from, but I went here: http://www.mamp.info/en/downloads/ where there is no option to download MAMP by itself.

I wish I could help but that seems a bit out of my depth.

My only experience is at an online host, and I have never had any trouble there. If you would like to try a free, brief test run, I would gladly make a sub-folder and database for you (and even include phpMyAdmin access) so can do that for a couple of days or so.

Thank you for this offer! You’ll have to forgive my ignorance, though. I don’t understand what you’re offering to do. I know I’ve created a database already…is there something more that I’m missing?

Are there people who I can hire to install wordpress for me?

I just saw these instructions http://www.wpexplorer.com/locally-installing-wordpress-mac/

I’m a bit concerned about changing the hosts file, given all the warnings by the computer not to. Is this something I need to do? Is using wordpress really this complicated?