Setting up a domain and hosting

Here is a video overview of everything you will do in this lesson. I recommend working through these steps and going to the video for additional support if needed.

We use Reclaim Hosting for domain registration and hosting in this class. To get started, head on over to ReclaimHosting.com.

Click the blue “Sign Up” button to head to this page:

Here, click select the $35/year “Personal” plan. Be aware that you’ll actually be paying $50/per year for a new domain.

On the next screen, enter your preferred domain name. Some common examples include (if your name is Herbert Hoover):

• www.herberthoover.com
• www.hhoover.com
• www.hooverportfolio.com

Choose something semi-professional because this website will most likely serve as your portfolio for your New Media journey and beyond.

Note: be sure to leave the default Whois Privacy Protection, included free, turned on when you’re registering your domain.

You might want to use a non-UGA email address so that you won’t have to update your account after you graduate. Also, be sure to take note of your password, as managing it (and all of your other passwords for this course) is entirely up to you—NMI faculty don’t have access to any of these accounts.

After completing checkout, you’ll receive several emails from Reclaim Hosting (if you don’t see any of these messages in your primary inbox, be sure to check your Promotions and/or Spam folders):

• One of the emails will include a verification link. Be sure to click it to confirm your email address and activate your account.
• Within anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours of verifying your email address, you should be able to visit your new domain name in any web browser and see the default Reclaim Hosting landing page. If you can’t see your site this way, contact your instructor for help.
• Another will be titled “Set your data use consent preferences.” You don’t have to do anything with this one—it’s basically a chance to opt into marketing—who wants that?
• Another will look like this and include your cPanel & SFTP Login Credentials:

You’ll need these for our next steps, so keep them handy. You will want to copy and paste that password! Do not try to type it by hand.

Download your FTP Account

After clicking the verification link, head to your cPanel. To get there, head back to ReclaimHosting.com and click “Client Area Login” in the top-right corner.

If prompted, enter the email address and password you used when signing up with Reclaim Hosting 1 to get to this screen:

This page is where you manage information about your Reclaim Hosting account (like billing details, etc.) and where you access other tools. Click “cPanel” in the navbar.

You’ll then arrive at your cPanel, which looks like this:

Note: If you click on cPanel and it brings you to another login screen, hit the back button, refresh, and try again. Repeat those steps until it brings you to cPanel without the additional (buggy) login.

Click on the icon in the third set of icons called “FTP Accounts.”

That will take you to a page that looks like this:

Scroll down to the section labeled “Special FTP Accounts” and click the blue “Configure FTP Client” link next to the account without the _logs suffix to see this view:

Now’s a good moment to remind you to configure Chrome to download files directly to your desktop 2. To do so, either click “Chrome > Preferences” in the menu bar or hit ⌘ + , to get to this screen:

Scroll down to the very bottom and click Advanced to reveal more options. Scroll until you see the Downloads section:

and click the “Change” button in the “Location” section and select your desktop. Now that that’s done, let’s return here:

And click the gray “SFTP Configuration File” underneath Cyberduck. This is important so it is worth repeating: you want the gray “SFTP Configuration File” NOT the blue FTP Configuration file. That’ll download a file delightfully suffixed “.duck” to your desktop:

Double-click that file to launch Cyberduck. If a panel pops up asking if you want to make Cyberduck your default FTP client, select “Make Default.” If you’re prompted to download a new version, close that prompt for now. You’ll then be presented with a prompt that looks like this:

Check the box for “Always” and then click Allow. You’ll then be prompted for your password on a screen that looks like this:

Enter the cPanel / SFTP password you received via email from Reclaim Hosting here (copying and pasting is likely best) and be sure that “Add to Keychain” is checked before clicking Login. After successfully completing this process, you’ll be taken to this screen:

Note: Errors are common at this stage of the process! Don’t panic. Whether it’s a miss-typed password, unsafe connection, or just a bad day for the duck – we can figure it out! After a short amount of Googling and troubleshooting, send a screenshot of the error message to your instructor.

Double-click on the “public_html” folder and then click on the Bookmark icon (second from the left in the icons in the top left corner underneath “Open Connection”) to see a screen like this:

Click the “+” icon in the bottom-left corner to open another window like this:

In the new window, the only thing you’ll likely want to change is the Nickname—just choose something clear and descriptive, like your URL or your name. Then, close the window where you updated your nickname to be left with a screen like this:

Now, to access your site via FTP, you’ll just need to double-click that bookmark! If you use another computer, you will complete these same steps to be able to upload to the server.