Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Mid-week review

The limitations of the Blogger software I use are becoming apparent with time and I am thinking of a switch to WordPress. The latter is 'geekish' which worries me as I am not a computer geek. Blogger, while simple to use initially, can be awkward in simple ways. For example, the list of posts you can edit is capped at 300 posts and as this is my 298th I will soon have only limited direct access to earliest posts via the search function - I will record an index file that I will keep online so I can search. But ultimately I will need to switch to better software.
There is a transfer function copying the Blogger log into Wordpress. Does anyone know if it works? Whether it is reversible if formatting gets corrupted etc? If anyone knows about this their views are welcome (here or by email).

I am working on the new site in Wordpress but progress is slow as I am at present mega-busy earning a living. Isn't it a pain?

Your views, as usual, are welcome here on blogging or any other issues.

8 comments:

Joshua Gans said...

Ah the joys of switching costs. I toyed with Wordpress and even tried migration (coreecon.wordpress.com) a few weeks back. However, only my earliest posts transferred.

I think Wordpress works best if you host it somewhere which gives rise to new issues. Typepad is another option but it costs money. But then again we believe in that, right?

hc said...

But anyway Joshua the failure to transfer completely didn't disturb your original blog. As you are told to back up your system files when making the transfer this worried me.

I also have set up a WordPress blog and working on it.

The psychic component of the switching costs seem to me greater than the financial component.

lucy tartan said...

I'm setting up a group literary blog in Wordpress. It's not much fun, is it?

Joshua Gans said...

Harry, actually it did do something. Some settings were changed and I had some trouble re-establishing them.

Anyhow, it turns out the Melbourne techies here know how to set these things up so I am going to try hosting one off Wordpress. Of course, this will mean losing the original search links.

Joshua Gans said...

A little update. I have now been able to take my posts over to word press (coreecon.wordpress.com if you are interested).

I think I may hold off until I get my own independent hosting though.

hc said...

Joshua, It looks good. My own site (just started) is here. My guess is you need hosting to insert photos and images which seems a more complicated operation than in Blogger. I also don't know how to insert the 'continued across the fold' feature and a photo in the sidebar. But early days, I'll learn.

lucy tartan said...

Harry, if wordpress.com is set up the same way as a self-hosted wordpress nstallation, the over the fold thing is already installed. In mine it's activated by using the button labelled "more" at the top of the post-writing box.

Your site looks nice by the way.

hc said...

Thanks Lucy got that now.