Well, that was an adventure, if your definition of “adventure” encompasses wondering where the Hell everything went, and how it can be retrieved.
On Friday, some folks on the Yahoo Oil Painter’s Group started posting some messages about work in progress on Telephone Girl. I was going to point them to my blog, and being a lazy sod of the highest order, I just thought I’d go to the blog, grab the address, and paste it into a reply.
And when I got to the blog, it was gone. There was a blue screen saying that there was a “blog*spot” problem, that Blogger was aware of the issue, and they were working to get it resolved.
Normally, I wouldn’t care but since I actually had something I wanted to say, I was a bit put off. But patience being a virtue (one I rarely make use of, however) I thought I would wait around a bit and see what transpired and see if any of it was in my favor.
A couple of hours later, the blue screen still presented itself. I noticed it on a couple of others, like Azathoth’s, but those cleared up after a while. (CAGIVO didn’t seem to be affected so I don’t think there were problems with my account.)
By this time, I was getting irked. For the most part, the blog is fairly disposable though fun, but as mentioned, I was actually saying interesting things (for a change) and didn’t want to lose them. So I took the next step.
I had noted in passing that whenever I went to upload some files to my main site, that Yahoo had a module called “Blog Control Panel” wherein they promised that I could create a blog or manage an existing one. Since it was free, I thought, why not.
One of the modules I could use was WordPress, which was what Filthy Rotten Angel had recently employed. I was also impressed by the layout and features of Shamus Young’s blog, Twenty-Sided, and the fact that you could tag entries with a category for easy searching. So WordPress it was, now managing a blog that lives on my main website anyway.
The nice thing about WordPress is that it seems infinitely customizable; the reverse to that is that it’s also a bit daunting to navigate. I still need to rebuilt my links list (and figure out exactly where they go; I need to build a BLOG button for the main page.
But here I am, and here I’ll stay. Until this one crashes. I still have my Blogger account (I’m not sure there’s a way to delete those) so any comments I leave on your sites will probably reflect that.
But no one lives there anymore. I mean, for real this time.
A Planet That Has No Sky 
I almost e-mailed you about your site being down, but with everything else going on with the Waters family I never got past the thinking about it stage. The Chinese have a curse that goes something like “May you live in interesting times”. Well that describes my life right now: interesting, but not in a good way. I periodically remind myself that people had and have it worse than I do, but that’s only a reminder of how far I have left to fall.
Everyone’s weathering everything well. It’ll pass.
On the Blogger front, they’re gettng ready for a new version that includes tags. I’m going to stick around long enough to check that out… mainly because I’m too lazy to move all of my essays to a new site and go through the process of formatting everything AGAIN. I’m mean, I just got everything the way I want it…
However, I think I might start talking with Brother Eric about Word Press and the like. He’s more savvy about these sort of things than I am…
Right now, though, I’m going back to my site and adjusting the link to this site here.
Actually, WordPress has an “import” function that allows you to duplicate all the content (including pictures, comments, etc) from a Blogger blog to the new one.
It doesn’t give much visual feedback while it’s working, but I would never have taken the time to repost all the various bits of garbage that live here. If there was no way to automate it, I wouldn’t have done it.
I’m pretty much in tune with Cullen on the changing blog issue. It’s mostly a combination of laziness and lack of free time, I guess. Still, I’ll probably be looking into WordPress (as a back up, at least) should Blogger decide to perform a monumental meltdown (which is quite possible – hmmmm)
As a back up… That’s not a bad idea at all.
There is a way to delete Blogger blogs, I didn’t do it, I just took out the formatting and replaced it with a script to redirect people who visit my old blog to my new one..
Yeah, getting used to WordPress is kinda daunting but I’ve been having alot of fun with various widgets and options.
Through the burning deserts and over tempest tossed oceans have I travelled to find this paradise of laughter and knowledge which I had thought lost to a forlorn traveller such as I.
Well, actually I followed the link.
I noticed the problem with your old blog seemed quite persistant. Sorry you had to move. I’ll change my link as soon as I stop being lazy myself. I’m just glad you were able to recover all your stuff and didn’t just disapear as so many have done.
Aha, a fiendish plan, BC, but you can’t shake me off that easily 😉
Huzza, another soul free from Blogger’s clutches. After having various gripes with them for a couple of years I finally abandoned them because of their lack of scope and flexibility. I mean, for a start you can’t add extra pages for different parts of the blog, and when I tried to get around that by linking two Blogger blogs together so I could add a book preview, they accused me of link-spamming and temporarily shut me down … sheesh, touchy.
I’m currently changing my site’s look / host / everything else, so I’ll link to the new lat & long for your island as I go. I’ll probably be using WordPress (free hosted version) for the blog part of it as well. Sounds like quite a party’s getting underway there.
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