Brain-Dead Bimbo
The combined effect of a streaming head cold (which has left me house-bound since Friday, and annoyingly put paid to my plans to attend a surprise 40th birthday barbecue for one of my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues last night) and a generally reflective mood for the last few days have pretty much rendered my creativity non-existent. So I've taken advantage of this to do, manually, something that I've tried numerous times to do, automatically, over the last few months; i.e. migrate this blog from Blogger to Radio Userland. And the migration is underway...
On the one hand, it's a pretty tedious exercise. But on the other, it's curiously satisfying. The manual process is sufficiently straightforward that I can perform it successfully, post by post, comment by comment, even though I'm feeling lousy. *Doing* the manual process has made clear to me how an automated migration should be done; if I was feeling sharper, I would stop and write the automated tools right now. However, I won't, because a) I'm *not* feeling sharper, b) although more elegant, it would take me longer to write the tools than it will to manually migrate the number of posts in question, and c) because I'd like to use this blog as a showcase for some of the technical stuff I've been working on outside of work for the last few months, *and* because I'd like potential future employers to get a feel for my abilities without my breaching any of my current employer's IPR, I'd like to get this blog migrated and rocking as quickly as possible. So I'll complete the migration manually, hopefully today (but realistically, tomorrow), and *then* write an automated migration solution for the Userland community in a few days.
As a reader of this blog, or listener to one (or both) of my audio shows, you should experience no downside and plenty of upside as a result of this activity. But rather than take the time to explain now what's coming, I'd sooner just do it, and then describe the changes afterwards. As a result, however, I probably won't post much until I'm ready to roll out the changes; and, given that my voice is pretty croaky right now, I won't record any audio shows for a few days. But I have plenty in the pipeline, so please stay tuned! ;-)
Update: 17:39 BST 8 May 2005
For those who are interested in such things, the steps in the migration (and my current status) are as follows:
* Export posts from Blogger to Radio - Done
* Categorise posts in Radio - Done
* Correct internal links and validate / correct external links - Underway
* Export comments from Blogger to Radio - Pending
* Add reverse pointers in migrated posts / comments in Radio to original posts / comments in Blogger - Pending
* Activate Radio blog - Pending
* Update VoiceOver and CrossOver listings in podcast directories - Pending
* Add forward pointers in Blogger posts / comments to equivalent posts / comments in Radio - Pending
* Disable new comments on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone posts" (instructions on what, if anything, a reader needs to do to continue reading) on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone audio files" (instructions on what, if anything, a listener needs to do to continue listening) on VoiceOver and CrossOver - Pending
* Freeze Blogger blogs - Pending
* Roll out new features - Pending (but coming!)
As you might surmise, it's not a trivial exercise; but it can be automated, as far as I can tell, and I'm certainly not the only blogger who wants to be shot of Blogger, so I think it's a worthwhile exercise for the wider community for me to come up with an automation tool set.
As for why I'm doing it this way, it's so that any existing inbound links do not break (yet contain forward pointers to their equivalents in the new blog), and the posts (and especially, the comments) which I've migrated can be verified against the originals. To that end, once the Radio blog is live (which won't be today, because my brain is pretty much toast by now, but I estimate there's only about another day's work required) the existing Blogger blogs will remain; they just won't be added to.
This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/
On the one hand, it's a pretty tedious exercise. But on the other, it's curiously satisfying. The manual process is sufficiently straightforward that I can perform it successfully, post by post, comment by comment, even though I'm feeling lousy. *Doing* the manual process has made clear to me how an automated migration should be done; if I was feeling sharper, I would stop and write the automated tools right now. However, I won't, because a) I'm *not* feeling sharper, b) although more elegant, it would take me longer to write the tools than it will to manually migrate the number of posts in question, and c) because I'd like to use this blog as a showcase for some of the technical stuff I've been working on outside of work for the last few months, *and* because I'd like potential future employers to get a feel for my abilities without my breaching any of my current employer's IPR, I'd like to get this blog migrated and rocking as quickly as possible. So I'll complete the migration manually, hopefully today (but realistically, tomorrow), and *then* write an automated migration solution for the Userland community in a few days.
As a reader of this blog, or listener to one (or both) of my audio shows, you should experience no downside and plenty of upside as a result of this activity. But rather than take the time to explain now what's coming, I'd sooner just do it, and then describe the changes afterwards. As a result, however, I probably won't post much until I'm ready to roll out the changes; and, given that my voice is pretty croaky right now, I won't record any audio shows for a few days. But I have plenty in the pipeline, so please stay tuned! ;-)
Update: 17:39 BST 8 May 2005
For those who are interested in such things, the steps in the migration (and my current status) are as follows:
* Export posts from Blogger to Radio - Done
* Categorise posts in Radio - Done
* Correct internal links and validate / correct external links - Underway
* Export comments from Blogger to Radio - Pending
* Add reverse pointers in migrated posts / comments in Radio to original posts / comments in Blogger - Pending
* Activate Radio blog - Pending
* Update VoiceOver and CrossOver listings in podcast directories - Pending
* Add forward pointers in Blogger posts / comments to equivalent posts / comments in Radio - Pending
* Disable new comments on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone posts" (instructions on what, if anything, a reader needs to do to continue reading) on Blogger - Pending
* Place "tombstone audio files" (instructions on what, if anything, a listener needs to do to continue listening) on VoiceOver and CrossOver - Pending
* Freeze Blogger blogs - Pending
* Roll out new features - Pending (but coming!)
As you might surmise, it's not a trivial exercise; but it can be automated, as far as I can tell, and I'm certainly not the only blogger who wants to be shot of Blogger, so I think it's a worthwhile exercise for the wider community for me to come up with an automation tool set.
As for why I'm doing it this way, it's so that any existing inbound links do not break (yet contain forward pointers to their equivalents in the new blog), and the posts (and especially, the comments) which I've migrated can be verified against the originals. To that end, once the Radio blog is live (which won't be today, because my brain is pretty much toast by now, but I estimate there's only about another day's work required) the existing Blogger blogs will remain; they just won't be added to.
This blog has been migrated to new software on a different server (http://www.multidimensional.me.uk) and comments on this post on *this* blog are now closed. All existing comments have been copied to the equivalent post on the new blog. If you still wish to comment on this post, please use the equivalent post at: http://www.multidimensional.me.uk/
posted by Koan @ 8:22:00 am
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