And I’m already done moving my blog. That was easy.

I’m moving TCOB to Dreamhost after experimenting with GoDaddy for several months. GoDaddy was fine, but it didn’t allow for as much technical experimentation. Furthermore, several of their processes seemed convoluted. I’m looking forward to trying out Subversion on Dreamhost as well. I’ll post again to this blog when everything seems moved.

Along with the move to WordPress, I’ve broken TCOB’s RSS and Atom feeds. I tried a couple of mod_rewrite additions to fix that to no avail. So if you’re using the excellent Google Reader or any other RSS aggregator to read TCOB, you’ll want to update your subscription.

The irony of this post is that the intended audience will not see this article, as it alerts them in a way they probably won’t read. Fortunately, I’m sure “they” refers to one person.

While I’m mixing things up, I’ve decided to experiment with the WordPress “personal publishing platform”. MovableType had served me well, but WordPress seems tighter and more versatile. It’s certainly a lot shinier.

I also like that it’s Open Source. I try to use Open Source software as much as possible, but I only do so when it reaches the same level of polish found in comparable commercial versions. This is rare, but WordPress seems to exceed that standard.

Anyway, you’ll see various pre-built themes here until I can figure out how to implement the one I designed myself, at which point you’ll barely see the difference.

Update: back to my theme. Woot! Still a bit of updating left on some pages and posts, but I’ll get to that eventually.

tcob.com now resides at GoDaddy after a sadly frustrating experience at its former host. Dominet had been fine for a couple of years, and I even recommended it to friends. The uptime was never great, and in comparison, they offered fewer services, space and features for the price than my other providers. The last straw was when they decided to upgrade my server’s OS in the middle of the day without warning. That wasn’t resolved by the time I went to bed. Once it was up, it took another day and a half to get my CGI working.

GoDaddy seems pretty sweet so far. Before starting, I had a couple of questions in email that were answered very quickly, and the one phone call I made found a human at the other end of the line with no waiting. Setup was very smooth, and I had easy access to all the CNAME, MX, and SRV records I wanted to change before the transition (I use a lot of the Google Apps for your Domain services). Adding a MySQL database, installing MovableType, and importing all of my blog entries was a piece of cake.

While I’ll miss the shell access I had with Dominet as well as their online file editor, I don’t think I’ll miss them for long. So far so good with GoDaddy.

If anyone is trying to reach me by phone, wait until tonight or tomorrow. I just switched carriers to T-Mobile. My number remains the same, but it has been switched to my new phone, which is still on a truck somewhere between Minneapolis and Plymouth. I’m very excited about my new Blackberry Pearl.

This is a test post for Windows Live Writer. What do you think? Not sure what to think of Writer, but it certainly looks nice so far. One thing I have noticed is that it already has applied my styles to the post, so as I type, I know exactly what it’s going to look like. Neat. I will keep using this and let you know how it goes.

Now, I’m updating the post. I can edit properties below, but I’m getting an extra break between paragraphs. That should be easily fixed. Done.

One thing I don’t like is that the recent posts list only seems to include posts created with Writer. It would be nice to see all posts. Wait, correction: I can open all posts. I just opened The Return of the Tray, checked the spelling, made a few corrections, and updated it online. Wow, this is great! Thanks to Patrick for pointing this out to me. Let’s see if my trackback to him works.

Google continues to impress me with their latest free application, SketchUp. It’s a 3D-modeling tool that’s so fun and easy to use, I’d call it a toy if it weren’t so obviously powerful. Just walking through the tutorial this morning had me saying “wow” outloud several times. You can model your fantasy house, and add it to Google Earth at your own address.

I’ve been all over Google’s stuff lately. Gmail for Domains lets me use the incredible gmail interface for my tcob.com mail. Google Desktop takes the small-applet/widget movement, organizes it, and makes it useful. Google Calendar is already the coolest app for managing my personal schedule.

I’d like to be able to add Picasa to this list. It’s also great at what it does, editing and organizing your photo library. But it’s based on the idea of saving your changes to the database. This is a neat idea, but I need the option of easily applying those changes to the original file. Until then, it’s all about IrfanView.

It’d be great if I learned the lesson taught by Patrick’s situation and actually got myself a backup system. What are the chances?

Not even finished with my photo upgrade, I somehow got it in my head that I had to try Movable Type.

One thing at a time, right? Maybe not. Anyway, Movable Type seems very cool so far. Compared to my old blogging package, Blosxom, it’s certainly more professional and thorough. I’m not 100% convinced yet, but it looks like I’ll be switching. The installation was a bit more involved than Blosxom’s, but within an hour (and thanks to this import script), I had my test blog up and running with all of my old entries in place. The next step is to see if I can bring the old beautiful look to the new system.

Update: I’m sold. As you can see, I’m on the new system. Now to adjust the look!