It’s finally time to move the blog off an old, archaic platform! Back when the blog was started (~6 years ago!), Blogger seemed to be the quick and easy way to do it, while still being able to use my own domain and server.
Down the road, Google acquired Blogger, and I joined the Exchange team at Microsoft. For a while, the blog existed in a twilight zone — a blog about Exchange, Windows and other things Microsoft, published using Blogger, with RSS feeds fed by FeedBurner (another Google acquisition), Search provided by Bing (and its predecessor— Live Search), with Google AdSense ads on top!
It’s time for yet another change— one I haven’t had adequate time to prepare for. Blogger is shutting down its FTP service, which means blogs such as this won’t be able to publish to their own servers using FTP. Moving to Blogger’s new system would probably mean the loss of a lot of customization.
I have decided to move to WordPress instead— for long the platform of choice for me. I haven’t had sufficient time to migrate all the posts yet, and migrating comments would certainly be very time-consuming. If you know of any ways to automate this (I’m using Google’s old template-based sytem), feel free to leave a comment.
Blogger cuts off FTP support on May 1. It’ll be an interesting move.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
http://www.SquareSpace.com has the ability to import your blog no problem…
I used the import tool in Wordpress and it did the job. All posts and comments was imported without problems
Like Chrysjan said, importing using Wordpress tool is much more flexible. Like you I changed my blog from blogger to WP(and own domain) without loss of content. But I think you need to worry about images if you have updated any to blogger servers. You may need to manually move them — not sure of any automatic procedure.
Your theme is awesome, did you made this yourself or downloaded it from somewhere ?
Not to forget this blog is really great, now when you are moving, I would also suggest to create a HowTo section on your blog, which will then have further categories inside it and your great articles.
please let me know on how to get a theme like this :-)
Kind regards
Rihatum
@Anonymous, chrysjan and sitaram: Thanks for the feedback!
@rihatum: Thanks – the theme is something I created with heavy customization of almost every Blogger element. Now I have to replicate as much of it as I can on Wordpress, and nearly not as much time. :)
Hi Bharat,
Wish i was a developer, but will you share you wordpress theme when you do customize it ? I am sure wordpress will offer you alot of flexibility and design freedom as compared to blogger :-)
I will keep an eye if you do, someone recommended thesis theme, but I think your theme is better then that.
Best of Luck
BTW : I am also in process of Exchange learning and maintaining a exchange box with 150 Mailboxes at the moment, right now I am looking into the best possible redundancy for our exchange setup, i was thinking clustering or lcr ? I am not sure – make sure when you have time to write up something on it, a how-to or your thoughts.
will keep checking this space.
Would it be possible to add make your RSS feed full-article? Thanks.
Hi Bharat,Wish i was a developer, but will you share you wordpress theme when you do customize it ? I am sure wordpress will offer you alot of flexibility and design freedom as compared to blogger :-)I will keep an eye if you do, someone recommended thesis theme, but I think your theme is better then that.Best of LuckBTW : I am also in process of Exchange learning and maintaining a exchange box with 150 Mailboxes at the moment, right now I am looking into the best possible redundancy for our exchange setup, i was thinking clustering or lcr ? I am not sure – make sure when you have time to write up something on it, a how-to or your thoughts.will keep checking this space.