[posted approx. Dec 24, 2006] testing, 2, 3, 4

Update, Dec 26: Wow. The WordPress function to import from my old Acid Test site on Blogger has worked for posts, and, I think??, comments. Now I’ll try to transfer the template…. You can watch my progress by how much of a mess this site looks as time goes by….

Update, Dec 28: After much aggro caused by major foolishness on my part, my photos are appearing. They’re appearing in the wrong places, but, hey, one thing at a time. ;-}

Update, Jan 1, 2007. New year, new template, new everything. Frustrating in spots, but mainly fun. It would have been a lot less fun … as a matter of fact I would have probably got nowhere … without some magnificent help:

• Rachel Cunliffe’s incomparable video tutorial about installing WordPress on your own site.
• WordPress’s problem-free, no-fuss-no-muss import utility that allowed me to transfer all posts and comments from blogspot.com to my site.
• Alessandro Fulciniti’s javascript, Nifty Corners, for creating rounded corners that complemented WordPress’s default header graphic, which I’ve used with some changes. I’ve always liked the rounded corners look, but in the good old days (say, two years ago) it took a separate graphic for each corner. I’m too lazy for that. (Update, Jan 6: I must be doing something wrong. The corners on blockquotes after the first one aren’t being rounded. There must be some way to tell niftycorners not to give up after the first instance. Hmph.

My remaining difficult problem is how to redirect archived Blogger posts to the equivalent ones here. There are javascripts that seem to work for other people, but they won’t cooperate with me. The other problem is the name Blogger uses to refer to posts is subtly different from WordPress, so dead links crop up like bodies in a bestselling murder mystery. It would be tedious, but simple, to just hardcode each redirect on each page, but I don’t have access to individual page headers on blogspot. And so it goes. I’m going to have to learn enough php to do this. Don’t hold your breath. (And if you have a solution, for God’s sake, tell me!)

And then there’s the remaining simple but tedious task of checking the links, the formatting on individual posts, and all that good stuff. No wonder people get paid big bucks to do this….

Another update some minutes later: as soon as I posted this, something about the entry blew my formatting up. Great. The take home message is probably not to use the wysiwyg text editor. Meanwhile, please bear with me. 🙁

Update Jan 5: The explosion in my template formatting was so spectacular, and was followed by major access slowdowns, so I’m thinking it was actually a server crash somewhere between me and my hosting service that was unkind enough to happen right when I was saving changes. Anyway, mostly better now. What a fight. To-do: sort out the blogroll, and those pesky redirects.