So Blogger finally pushed me over the edge.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve been wanting to jump ship to WordPress for a while now. I think I’ve posted about it and/or mentioned it several times over the last year or two. In my mind, there are so many advantages to WordPress over Blogger–like threaded comments, yippee!!–but the real kicker was Blogger’s new user interface.
Because hello, it’s infuriating.
In the past, I was always able to revert back to the old Blogger interface and continue on my merry way. But then they made the switch the new interface permanent and irreversible. I wrote two posts using it and I was ready to throw my computer through a window (and it’s not even its fault–I love you MacBook, I’m sorry).
Anyway, so things are looking a little rough around here. I am trying to figure out how this new thing works, and it is not as easy as I’d hoped it would be. There seem to be a lot of little things about WordPress that I don’t quite understand yet (as far as themes, plugins, layout, etc. are concerned) so truthfully, this transition might take a while.
BUT hopefully none of you will experience any problems accessing the site. I have experienced several random 404 errors (Page not found) when trying to access heatherdriveblog.com from my cell phone, so I’m trying to figure out the cause of that. If you are experiencing the same thing, please let me know.
I’ve done some work in the code so that if you try to go to an old heatherdriveblog.com link (like from Pinterest, or wherever), it should lead you right here to my new home. If you still happen to have bookmarked my REALLY old URL–heatherdrive.blogspot.com, that is–it’ll even bring you here, though the redirect might take an extra few seconds. So you may just want to take a minute to update your bookmark!
If you subscribe to my blog feed through Google Reader or some other reader, double check to make sure new posts are showing up for you there. I did my best to ensure that everyone’s feeds are updated to direct them here but I am not an expert at this stuff, so I just want to make sure I don’t lose any of you in the shuffle.
And, just so no one is fooled into thinking that WordPress is perfect or something, here are some things that are aggravating me thus far:
- When I make changes to my layout/theme, they don’t immediately show up on my blog, despite doing a “hard refresh” in my browser. Annoying.
- I can’t figure out how to add a photo to my “gravatar” for my profile.
- Post thumbnails–Why can’t I figure this out? Mine won’t appear. Is it because my images are all hosted on Flickr, and not within WordPress?
- Speaking of themes, it’s really hard for me to pick one and stick with it since it seems like they all have different functionalities–and that’s something that is definitely different from Blogger. I pick something based on how it looks in the example and then when it is installed it looks a lot different and I can’t seem to figure out how to make it look like I want.
I just hope I can manage to get myself through this sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I hope that you’ll bear with me?
If you have a minute and can leave a quick comment with any issues you are experiencing (linking, feeds, accessing the blog from your phone, or whatever it may be), I would greatly appreciate it. I’ll try to do everything I can to address any problems!
Oh, and in general, what does everyone think of the “preview” type layouts (like this one is set up right now) on the homepage as opposed to having the full posts available for reviewing right away? I think it looks less cluttered and obviously involves less scrolling to get to the last few posts. If I could get the thumbnails to work, I think it would look really nice! But are the “continue reading” links irritating?
If anyone has been through this Blogger => WordPress transition before, or has successfully set up a WordPress.org blog with the themes and all, and wants to drop me a line with some tips or helpful links? Greatly appreciated.
While I’m sifting through code and working with plugins, I hope that you all have fantastic weeks. :)
16 Responses to Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Leave a Reply
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
I read through google reader and everything came through fine there!
Thanks, Bailey!
Take your time…there’s definitely a learning curve with self-hosted WordPress. If you’re able to…you may want to hire someone to create a design that’s uniquely yours so you have all of the features you want and none of the ones you don’t.
I subscribe to you in my Google Reader and had no problems getting your latest post.
Thanks, Jennifer! And good to know that it’s not just me. I have wanted to pull out my hair a few times already, but I keep hoping that I will eventually be REALLY glad I did this. :)
It works through my Google Reader as well!
Thanks, Michelle! I actually just checked my own and it came through for me, too–although I did get about 10 duplicate posts come through as well. I think I am actually still subscribed to heatherdrive.blogspot.com, so if it worked for me, hopefully it will continue working for everyone else as well!
Came through on my reader and site works on my phone.
Good luck with the changes!
It might just be me, but I hate going through blogs that have the preview look where you have to click on “continue reading”. The reason is, if I haven’t been on the blog for a few days, there might be a few posts to read. I’m most likely going to read (or at least scroll through) them all anyway, so there is no reason for the quick/easy access to the prior post(s). Also, once I click “continue reading”, at least on some other blogs, I then have to click something else to get back to the main page again to scroll down and see the next prior post. To me it is just easier to scroll and read than to have to click a billion times and wait for something to load and then scroll anew. Better for the repetitive use injuries, you know? :)
This is a good point, Lucci! I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I do the same thing with some of the blogs I read, so I would feel a bit inconvenienced by all the clicking, too. Well, I’m definitely not sold on the preview view–especially since I don’t even have half of my stuff in the sidebar, and it’s already longer than all of my posts since they’re shortened. :) Plus, I miss my photos being on the homepage! I’m still figuring things out and moving things around, so expect to see some changes around here. Thanks for weighing in!
WP layouts can be a little overwhelming to customize until you get used to them. The theme I use on my blog is a freebie that I edited the crap out of. If you have questions, I can try to help you out.
Colleen, your blog looks fantastic! You did a great job. So how did you “edit the crap out of it”? LOL. Just a whole lot of HTML tinkering? I’ve done it before with my Blogger blog, but man… I was just hoping it’d be easier this time. How did you figure out/decide which theme to start with? I guess that’s my biggest issue right now. Which are the “easiest” to modify?
Hi Heather! I tried accessing your blog earlier today and it gave me the 404 error. I actually just figured you were in the process of transitioning. :) It worked for me now. My opinion of the “continue reading” link is that it is annoying. I don’t like that when I click the link, it takes me to just that post, rather than allowing me to scroll through all blog posts. I don’t subscribe to your blog through a reader, so if I’ve missed a few, I usually just scroll down and then read backward, so to speak, until I end with the most recent post. Going back and forth between the pages if I needed to catch up on a few posts would be a little annoying, in my opinion. Just my thoughts. :)
I guess I should have read Lucci’s post…our comments are basically the same. Oops! :)
It pulled a 404 on me this morning, too… so I guess I’m not completely out of the woods yet. I’m going to contact my hosting company to see if there is anything going on there. I’m still hopeful that it’s still the “first-48-hours” bugs and that it’ll work itself out very soon.
Hi Heather! Good luck with the transition. FYI – I am still getting the 404 Error on my iPhone as of this morning.
Hi Heather,
It’s odd not signing in on Google to leave a comment lol. My user name on there was Wishing on Stars.
Anyway, hang in there, I’m sure you won’t lose anyone because of the switch. We like what you write, it doesn’t matter what the format looks like :-) … Well it helps but you know what I mean.
I just had to update my book mark to see it on my cell phone, no biggie there.
I’m another one who doesn’t like the “continue reading” link. It drives me crazy actually and I think it’s also becuase of the whole clicking back and forth. I end up clicking “Open in new Window” just so I don’t have to deal with that but even that gets old.
Good luck with getting everything switched over. HTML is a bitch. I have to google everything lol