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Set up - Step One: Get a UTORweb account and install Radio Userland.

1. Get your free UTORweb account. Everything you need to know is here.

2. Set up a special directory for your Radio website. Using a standard FTP client, create a separate subdirectory within your UTORweb root directory to hold your Radio web site. This is were Radio will transfer your web pages later on. Try to give this directory a name which tells you and others what your website is about. For example: if your website is going to be your personal journal, call the directory 'journal'. Site planning tip: Putting each Radio site in its own directory will make your life a whole lot easier later on. To keep things simple, we'll start with just one Radio web site, and one directory on UTORweb. But you can add more websites and more directories later on, if you want.

3. Get your free trial copy of Radio and install it on your computer. (See the download page and instructions). You've got thirty days to figure out if Radio is the solution for you. After that you need to buy a serial number from their website.

4. Change your firewall rules. It may be hard to believe, but Radio puts an integrated cms and webserver on your desktop. So, tip number one: If you're using a desktop firewall (and everyone at UofT should be using a desktop firewall), you must configure that firewall to allow the Radio webserver to talk to the Radio cms -- otherwise Radio can't do its job. If you start up Radio and nothing happens, its probably because your firewall is blocking the port that Radio uses to pass information between its components.

Here's how to fix it: Modify your firewall rules to allow access from local host (IP address = 127.0.0.1) on port 5335. The 'local host' is your computer. Port 5335 is Radio's special, designated port number. In effect, we are telling the firewall to allow your computer to connect to itself on port 5335. That may seem strange, but as we said, if we don't do it Radio won't work. (Remember, you only want to grant access to your computer from the local host-- i.e. you. You do not want to give everyone on the planet access to your computer. This is an important security consideration. Be careful not to open any unnecessary holes in your firewall.)

5. Use the right browser! Radio uses a simple web brower interface, so when you run the Radio application, Radio automatically starts up your default web browser (if its not already running), or it opens a new window in your default browser (if it is already running). Unfortunately, Microsoft Internet Explorer runs glacially slow with Radio in MacOS classic. (Its Microsoft's fault). Luckily there are a couple of ways to work around this. See the Radio Userland website for more details on improving performance with the MacOs Classic. If you're not using MacOS classic, you're fine.

6. Run the Radio Userland application. Radio will start up, go through a series of checks, and launch your web browser if it isn't already running. Remember, Radio has its own built-in web server, so when Radio starts up, it will attempt to connect to its own web server on your computer -- not to a web server out on the internet. This means you don't have to be connected to the internet just to run Radio. But you will have to be connected to the internet to use some of Radio's special features, like the news aggregator, participation in the Weblogs.com communities, and of course, publishing your site.

Although the idea of using a web browser to connect to a web server on your computer may seem odd at first, its just like using a web brownser to read .html or .pdf documents on your own hard drive, as opposed to reading them on the internet. You can always tell when Radio is showing you something on your own hard drive by looking in the 'location' or 'address' window of your web browser. If it says "http://127.0.0.1:5335/" then you are looking at something on your hard drive. The address "127.0.0.1" is the address for your computer, and port "5335" is the port that the Radio webserver on your computer uses.

7. Fill in the start up screens. When you start Radio for the first time, a series of welcoming pages will show up in your browser, asking for personal information to customize your copy of Radio. This information will also be used to build your site. Fill it in.

8. Configure Radio to publish your site on UTORweb. Radio can publish your website anywhere, and a full license comes with a year's worth of free hosting on Userland's own server. Userland's server is nice. But UTORweb is free for as long as you are a student. If you want to save yourself some money, your next task is to configure Radio to publish your site to your UTORweb directory.