Why would it take me over two weeks to set up another blog? After all, I put up It’sAPundit almost overnight, and other fake sites spoofing others in short order.
So why did this take so long?
Well, here’s news for you. I’m still not done. I’ve just got enough done that I’m comfortable to blog with what’s been done.
Anyway, here’s what I had to do. Or, here’s what I’ve done, whether I had to or not.
I wrote nasty letters to TypePad. Well, not nasty letters, but letters that let them know I’m not a happy camper. I talked about that elsewhere.
I downloaded WordPress. I’ve been mulling over WordPress for some time. In fact, I recently converted an old computer to a Web server (Windows 2003) and an older computer to a database server (MS SQL).
Setting up Windows 2003 Server isn’t quite the same as setting up Windows 2000 Server. Some things are easy and some things are hard.
Now, why, you ask, would I worry about setting up a Web server? Well, I have been moving other Web sites (non-blogs) I deal with from a third-party host to my own Web server. And, I figured I could use it to set up a test blog.
Well, setting up the test blog went fairly well. In fact, as of this writing, the blog is still running there.
I had to back up the TypePad posts. The text file was nearly 7 MB in size. I had to break it down into smaller chunks. I picked month-size chunks, but some were still too large to import. But I finally got them all imported.
Oh, did you know I still had some HaloScan comments still out there? Really old posts (from the first month of this little blog) that used HaloScan still had links to them. I incorporated those, too.
Then there’s the issue of the filenames. TypePad uses a different naming structure than WordPress. So, anyone who linked to any of the first 1500+ posts would have broken links. Unless I wrote redirect files that caught the TypePad URL structure and redirected to the WordPress structure.
So, I wrote 1500 redirect files.
Oh, not all were needed, since not every post had links. But it was easier to write all those than figure out what had links and what didn’t. But it’s time-consuming.
Then there’s the deal of a look and feel. I modified a WordPress theme to suit my purposes. Adding some graphics and such.
Then, there’s some functionality that WordPress doesn’t have built-in or have a Plug-In that I could find. So, I broke out my PHP books and went to town on the code. And most of it works like I want.
There’s still more to do. Still more graphics files to move over (or move to Flickr or ImageShack or something). But, I’ve got enough to make the change-over. And that happened Sunday morning.
Anyhow, I’ll be continuing my work here behind the scenes, but I’ll be blogging.
Now, I won’t be blogging at quite the pace I had before I began this work. And I hope that the guest-bloggers will consider themselves co-bloggers and post (or cross-post) here. They have IDs and passwords set up here. I hope they’ll use them.
You see, even when I get everything from this little blog moved from TypePad, there’s still It’sAPundit. That’s hosted under my TypePad account.
Unless somebody wants to take it over?
October 31st, 2005 at 8:35 am
Hi,
glad to hear you moved over to Wordpress ok. I have a blog running on WP, but use Typepad to power commercial blogs for my employer.
Just wondering which WP theme you customised?
Best
Dan
October 31st, 2005 at 9:15 am
I used the “Connections” theme, available here. There’s also a link at the bottom of the page.
October 31st, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Was really starting to miss you my friend!
October 31st, 2005 at 1:59 pm
I appreciate those thoughts. And I appreciate Don, TJ and phin covering for me.
October 31st, 2005 at 11:21 pm
Annoying Typepad Crap
OK, I know I’m not a Typepad blogger, but I do guest-blog on a few, including two who have left Typepad due to annoying crap. But…I’m fed up with Typepad’s trackback problem.
After Googling around for some answers, I land…
November 1st, 2005 at 8:12 am
I have long thought of moving from typepad. I still love it, I really do not have many problems, but I would like to have popup comments and a few other things. I just do not want to have to deal with the HTML. Typepad is so easy.
Looks good, basil!
November 1st, 2005 at 1:10 pm
PS: what’s with spelling basil with a capital B in the header? I’m confused
November 1st, 2005 at 4:25 pm
William Teach:
When it works right, TypePad is really attractive and powerful.
When it works right.
Oh, the uppercase vs lowercase thing? Hmmm. How to explain that.
It seems you’ve given me a topic for a post.
November 1st, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Topics are good.
I did find one cool reason for staying with Typepad. Free video hosting! Check it out, b!
November 2nd, 2005 at 12:36 am
After about 30 min I would have went out to the shed…
and got the sledge…
And beat the crap out of any computer in sight.
But that's just me.
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:42 am
William Teach:
Yes, TypePad does have some really, really good features.
Tyler D:
I had the same feeling.