2010-03-27

Blog forced migration blues

This blog used to be published using an FTP account on the server where I host my personal homepage. I used to edit the blog at Blogger.com and Blogger would then transfer the pages to “my” server using FTP. A few months ago, Google (the owner of Blogger) announced that they would no longer be offering the FTP publication option and that all blogs had to be migrated to the Google servers. Well, I did this last weekend (and hence the blog was offline for a few hours) and it was not very painful except that most of my images appear to have disappeared. They are not really lost, having remained on my original server and I am now going to have to slowly put them back.

What did I learn from this? The BIG lesson was not to rely on a free service and rather to host my own blogging software. From this point of view, it is acceptable for beginners to start their blog on Blogger's competitor WordPress since Wordpress is actually a platform as well as an opensource server application so that one can easily move to one's own installation. This is what I shall eventually do, needless to say. The SMALL lesson was to always host my images not on the blogging platform but elsewhere, e.g. on ImgDen.com. If I had done that, the process of migration would have been a relatively simple one of moving text only. I am now applying the small lesson, which will eventually make it easier to move to WordPress.
 

2010-03-03

Virgin Mobile but I am not

Last night, and again this morning, I noticed the server of Virgin Mobile (South Africa) was redirecting to an error page.


Things got worse, though. I couldn't leave my complex to get to the office because, according to the husky voice I reached when trying to call the gate (to open), my “prepaid service” needed recharging. But I have a contract! Unconnected events? I think not. Now, if only they could fix the website so I could call them and they could stop looking so cheap and nasty...