May

27

Things I learned moving my blog to a new hosting service (it’s easy!)

Filed Under Blogging, How to | 3 Comments

Welcome! You appear to be new here (or you've reset your cookies recently). If you're new here, you may want to browse around a bit and find out what the site is about. I encourage you to register for the RSS feed or to receive updates through email. Thanks for visiting!


Things I learned moving my blog to a new hosting service (its easy!) (image: 2526037333_07b840e3ec_o)Over the last few weeks you’ll may have noticed that I’ve been and twittering about my blog from the .net to .com.

A few years ago I managed to grab BradGrier.com when it came open, but I’d not decided what to do with it until recently. I’d been having some performance issues (my blog, that is) and decided to test a new hosting provider.

So, the issue. How to move the blog, keep the same look and feel, not lose any Google Juice, and not lose any feed subscribers. Not a trivial set of considerations!

Of course, I turned to my good for advice:

  • How to Move Your Wordpress Blog To A New Web hosting - great technical advice on backing up and restoring your WP blog
  • Use the WordPress Database Backup plugin - I wrote about it recently when my blog crashed, but backups created with it are entirely suitable for use in blog migration
  • Redirecting incoming traffic to the new blog - well, since I’m using the same data structures and permalink structure, the only is one from .net to .com, this was quite ; a .htaccess 301 redirect as described here and here. Slightly technical, but not really too tough.
  • subscribers was also quite , since I use Feedburner to manage subscriptions: simply the Feed Title and Original Feed URL on the Feedburner Feed Details page. DO NOT THE FEED ADDRESS as this will disconnect your readers from your feed — a bad thing :)

A couple of other observations:

  • Set up your new blog/destination site first. Complete importing your data and building your look and feel. Yes, also duplicate posting to this site. You will want to make sure as your readers move they don’t lose any …especially for the tardy ones.
  • Immediately the Feed address in Feedburner. Any new subscribers will never notice, as you are posting to both sites right?
  • Prominently post about the fact that you are your blog. Add a widget or two to the sidebar (make them obvious) to alert your readers to the fact that you are . You want them to begin to identify with the new URL, not the old one, as soon as possible.
  • After a week or two, close commenting on the old feed, with a message directing readers to the new site.
  • After another week or two implement 301 redirects. And test them! @hownottowrite and @lijit both recommended, through twitter, this HTTP header scanning tool and FireFox plugin to validate the redirects (thanks again!).
  • Finally, remember every place you’ve ever used the URL / name, and it.

So, after all that…did you notice? :)

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

May

13

From the ’so simple why didn’t I think of it’ category

Filed Under How to, Musings | 3 Comments


From the so simple why didnt I think of it category (image: scancard)A friend of mine pointed me to this brilliant post (via iPhone Central)

The concept is ; the front and back of all your barcoded membership cards, and carry them around in your .

To test it out I went to the local store and asked the girl
behind the counter if she could the barcode from my . The
first look I got was pure amazement. To her the physical card was
transformed into a picture on a shiny device. On top of that the
barcode was scanned successfully. The result; a slightly confused girl
and a happy me.

My take: I’m going to try this on my card and see if this works on my Pilot T|X.

Jan

30

Vista? Not on my desktop, thank you.

Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off


Hurray! Vista is released. Now we can all get back to doing whatever we were doing previously. Hype aside, I’m not excited about this release, for the following reasons;

  • My , laptop and server aren’t ‘Vista Ready’,

  • I’m not going to invest to upgrade (my do what I need them to currently),

  • I run Ubuntu and XP, dual boot,

  • My centres are first-generation Xboxes,

  • I don’t feel like being an unpaid beta-tester for Microsoft (I may be in a position to acquire a new computer with Vista when SP1 is released — as you know it will be),

  • Much of my existing is not currently Vista compatible — I’ll have to upgrade to newer versions, yet another pain I don’t need.

  • drivers — I’ll have to upgrade to newer versions, if they exist (or wait until they’re made), or toast my investment (joystick, game pad, scanner, printer…etc), yet another pain I don’t need.

And here’s a few articles about the vista release and launch, should you need more reason to wait:

…and finally:

{democracy:5}

Dec

25

This (iPod) Red is quite nice. iTunes Sucks.

Filed Under Uncategorized | 10 Comments


This (iPod) Red is quite nice. iTunes Sucks. (image: 403mr0g)Santa was very kind to me this Christmas; a spiffy new iPod nano (PRODUCT RED)TM Special Edition. I’m amazed at how small and functional it is, and was again impressed at ’s attention to detail in package and overall thought in the little details; the USB cable cover had a little clip extension that held the USB cable wires in nice and tight.

Now, iTunes on the other hand is a bit of a bear. I’ve got a few hundred MP3’s that I’ve ripped from CD’s over the years, stored on my household server. All nicely arranged by folder, artist, album, song, etc. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to to get iTunes to understand that that structure actually means something, and that it should really read that (as well as the embedded MP3 tag information) into it’s database structure when displaying the selections to me.

And why does iTunes need to ‘Determine Gapless Playback Information’ on every tune it scans on my system. It’s rather slow (~30 sec per tune).

And why can I not view the album information from the iTunes store if I don’t have an account, which requires a credit card?

Meh, there has to be a better way. For XP or Ubuntu. Either will do.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

{democracy:2}

Oct

26

Nice.

Filed Under Web | 2 Comments


A new version of my favorite free operating system has just been released. Check out the new features and updates to Ubuntu here, then download it and break of the , when you can (sometimes you really do need , but not for everything).

I’ve been using Ubuntu on my laptop and my home network server for the last three versions, and it’s rock solid for my needs; file serving, printing, scanning, maniuplation, net surfing, file and the standard office suite.

Go on, try it. Download the disc (or order one to be delivered to your home free, though the version is one step back, it is supported for three years).

Simply boot your computer with the disc in the drive and experince the Ubuntu goodness. You’ll be running what’s called a ‘Live Distribution‘; basically the operating system runs from the CD, not touching your hard drive, a perfect way to trial the new operating system with out risking your computer.

A LiveDistro does not alter the current operating system or files
unless the user specifically requests it. The system returns to its
previous state when the LiveDistro is ejected and the computer is rebooted.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Sep

26

Top 5 Blogs for personal and professional development

Filed Under Blogging, Web | 2 Comments


After and blogfeeds, some great, some not-so, a collegue challenged me to take a serious look at what I read most often, and why. This was interesting, and I thought I’d share the results.

So here they are, at least, these are the ones that I read regularly. As I made the list, I realised more than five fought for my attention, but since the challenge was for five, I’ll list my favorites first. The others fall into the runner-up category, I guess :-)
One thing you’ll find about many of them, they’re not the ones that ‘everyone thinks are the best’ or that ‘I think I should be because they’re the party favorites’. These are ones that I daily, click on regularly, and generally enjoy . Read more

Feb

2

On the Cusp…

Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off


On the Cusp... (image: virus)Once again, a virus threatens the computer infrastructure of the world. Dramatic but true. If you’ve not taken precautions yet (silly git) then check out these resources:

Play Safe!

Jan

17

Reality…

Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off


Creating Passionate Users.Scanning this morning’s feed and caught this great article on ‘reality’ and motivational posters. Bottom line, your workers are much smarter than you give them credit for, don’t use pithy posters to promote passion.

Next Page →