Web server From noob For noob

Hey guys,

Have you ever thought of making your very own cool, flashy, entertaining website to keep the world up to date about you, or about your stuff, hobby, or whatever?

Well, now is a good start ;)
3 basic things you need to make a functional website are:

1) Web server: a computer or program that shares a resource to one or more client processes.
2) Domain name: basically the website address you use to open one's webpage. e.g "www.yahoo.com"
3) Webpage template: nowadays, a lot of people use dreamweaver to design their webpage. Some prefer joomla. They are different things but they both essentially help designing the website without manually using html coding.

Ok back to the main topic, how to make a server out of your very own desktop @ laptop.
You need to use a software called 'XAMPP' :)
I'm not sure if there's any other software for this job but XAMPP sure is the easiest way for them noobs like me :D

Well, just download it from http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html and install it. (this is for windows)
-Run the exe file to install the apache and MySQL servers.
-Open up the XAMPP control panel here Start > All Programs > Apache Friends > XAMPP > XAMPP Control Panel
-Click the Apache and MySQL's start buttons until 'running' appears.
-go to http://localhost/ and you know the installation is successful if this address go a a page with XAMPP logo in it. You can manage your servers here.
-Stop the server using the control panel or shut down your PC ONLY IF you wanted the server to stop working.

The installation only won't make any good if you don't know about how to use them together with your domain, or phpbb, or etc
So, this post will be updated as necessary :)