just shows you how muddled my brain is with all of this.
Yes, I see.
First of all, if you install the store and blog from Fantastico, IIRC you let Fantastico create the top level directories for you. Just give the name
store for the store and
blog for the blog installation, and I think they'll create everything for you. Your store will end up in
public_html/store/ (with an entry point of
index.php), and your blog will end up in
public_html/blog/ (with an entry point of
index.php).
Why don't you just go into File Manager and "play" a bit, creating directories (folders), putting files in them, uploading files, deleting files and directories, etc.? When you're done learning, delete all the
new stuff (one thing at a time) and you'll have a clean slate for installing the real stuff. There's no substitute for actually getting your hands dirty and working with this yourself. You'll have to figure it out sooner or later, and sooner is better than later. After all, the mama sparrow eventually shoves her fledglings out of the nest...
When I say "splash page", it doesn't
have to be a multimedia extravaganza. That kind of thing
is annoying to have to wait for to load. It can be just a simple HTML page with a nice image, your logo, a big button to take you to the store (address
/store/index.php), a big button to take you to the blog (address
/blog/index.php), some information about your company, and probably links to other pages (news, about us, contact us,...). Visitors can always go directly to the store with
http://www.yoursite.com/store if they want to.
In cPanel's File Manager, at any given time you are in a directory (folder). When you first come in, you're in
/home/ACCOUNTNAME/. If you click on the "create a new directory" command, you will create a new directory
under the one you're currently in. For example, to create
/home/ACCOUNTNAME/public_html/images/, you would first have to navigate into
public_html/ by clicking on the folder
icon next to
publc_html name, and then create the directory. You can name a directory just about anything you want, so long as the characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, _, and . (period). Never use blanks or other punctuation (Linux barfs on them). Avoid command names such as
test.
So just get in there and start playing around to see what happens. You're not going to blow up a server if you type in the wrong thing.