Monday, January 4, 2021
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
For our first presentation of the new year, Doug Yuen will explain the basics of DNS. It’s what points your domain to your web host and your email provider, among other things. I’ll cover the concepts of nameservers and DNS records, as well as the main types of DNS records you’re likely to deal with – A, CNAME, MX, and TXT.
If you make your DNS changes properly, you can migrate websites with zero downtime and minimal risk of losing any changes during the transition. You can configure the hosts file on your computer to make sure your website has been copied intact on your new host, before you actually point the DNS over to complete the migration. I’ll talk about how to do these things, as well as the advantages of using Cloudflare for your DNS.
This meetup is intended for a wide range of users. If you’ve been blindly following instructions to make DNS changes so far, or you’ve been letting your host or domain registrar make your DNS changes for you, then I think you’ll especially learn a lot, and you can avoid making some critical mistakes in the future.
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Note: This will not be at our usual location, it will be an online event using Zoom. If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up for free at https://zoom.us.
You can download the desktop software, use a browser extension, or download the mobile app. If you haven’t used Zoom before, please get set up and familiar with it in advance. We recommend you upgrade to the latest version. If you’re using the desktop software, you may need to check for upgrades manually.
For added security, the Zoom link will not be public. You must RSVP to see it.
Along the bottom of the Zoom window, there are buttons to mute/unmute yourself, enable/disable your video, access the Participants panel, and access the Chat panel, among other things.
For security and to prevent interruptions, everyone else will be prevented from screen sharing during the meetup. Your audio and video *should* be off by default when you join the call, but you may want to double-check when you join. You can unmute yourself and turn on your video, but please note that you may be included in the recording. If you unmute yourself, please only do so temporarily, while you’re asking your question. This helps reduce background noise in the recording.
If you have a question, please go to the Participants panel and click the button to “raise your hand”. Our presenter will take breaks to answer questions, and our moderator will call on whoever has their hand raised. You can unmute yourself while you ask your question, and then mute yourself and lower your hand after you’re done.
There’s also a Chat panel. You can use the chat to introduce yourself and converse with others, but if you have a question for the presenter, remember to “raise your hand”. We won’t be monitoring the chat as frequently.
We’ll record the presentation and link to the video in the comments once it’s been processed.
If time permits, we’ll open up the conversation after the presentation. We encourage people to converse in our Portland Slack group for general WordPress discussion at any time. You can join here.
Please RSVP on Meetup so we know how many people to expect. We hope to see you there!