deebeedee

Yup, I switched from MovableType to WordPress. I know my layout looks pretty generic but it sure looks better than the stale one that’s remained unchanged, until now, since this blog’s inception. I’ve been tired of the old one as I’m sure many of you have as well (nauseated by it, even). So why switch to an entirely new blogging system when all I want to do is change my layout? As I’ve never upgraded to the paid version of MT, I saw this as an opportunity to try something new and free. I chose WordPress which some of you have recommended in the past. So far, it’s proven to be a relatively easy blogging tool to set-up and work with.

That’s not to say it’s been a flawless process. Because of my requirement to have WordPress use the same directory as MovableType (”deebeedee.com/blog/”) while still keeping the MT files intact for linking purposes, I ran into a few snags. It’s all been ironed out already though. I also got my MT posts to import into WP without any hitches. My main concern with this migration was to have links to my old MT pages (whether from search engines or other sites) not break somehow by having them point to their corresponding WP posts (which have an entirely different permalink structure — a future-proof one). After much searching, I found a redirect script that does just that.

Now that I’ve got the backend work out of the way, I can concentrate on the front-end. The layout will incrementally take on a more customized look as I learn how WP themes work. It may take a while, but I’ll get there, doncha worry.

Should’ve installed MT-Blacklist sooner. I’ll see how well it does blocking spam comments. If it ain’t good enough, I’d have to change the name of my comments file (as suggested here).

Update: Hey, it works:

And combined with today’s spam crackdown, things are looking much brighter.

One of my old long-ish entries has been hacked. Someone has deleted it and replaced it with “greetengs.” I’ve been a victim of comment spam before, but hacked entries? Has anyone else experienced this?

I never took entry backups seriously but now I will. It’s a good thing Google cached the entry so I was able to restore it immediately. I’ve changed my password as well.

UPDATE: ok, it’s not as dire as I thought it was. I got a quick reply at the MT Forums. It turns out the “hacked” entry was one that received a comment spam. When I deleted the comment, I accidentally clicked “save” for a different form, posting the spam comment into the individual entry. I’ve got to be careful next time. So it was no hacker. *whew*

It’s like the folks at Movable Type read my mind. This TrackBack thingie had me scratching my head. Now there is A Beginner’s Guide to TrackBack, complete with a Quicktime demo. So far I’ve retroactively pinged two people’s blog entries. Watch out you might be next - I’m a lean, mean pinging machine!

I’m free from Blogger! I successfully migrated everything over to Movable Type. I like MT’s import feature which allowed me to bring over my entries from Blogger. It was relatively painless. But the work is not over. I have yet to configure the archive, comment and trackback pages to reflect the look and feel of the index page.

Blogger has had many outages lately, especially after midnight. (Personally, I think it’s a ploy to get us free users to upgrade to Blogger Pro, since Blogger Pro servers work fine in the same time frame!) Anyway, I can post whenever I want now, and I have a comment feature to boot!