James Spratt .org » web http://jamesspratt.org Analogue since 1975, digital since 2001 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:54:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Moving A WordPress Blog on Dreamhost From One Domain Name To Another http://jamesspratt.org/2008/02/12/moving-a-wordpress-blog-on-dreamhost-from-one-domain-name-to-another/ http://jamesspratt.org/2008/02/12/moving-a-wordpress-blog-on-dreamhost-from-one-domain-name-to-another/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:54:20 +0000 James http://jamesspratt.org/2008/02/12/moving-a-wordpress-blog-on-dreamhost-from-one-domain-name-to-another/ In the end this was so much easier than I’d an…ticipated. There’s quite a few posts out there informing you how to go about moving blogs, but this one is specific to domains on the same host.

  1. Backup everything from your old domain locally.
  2. Consider putting a warning notice on your old site to inform visitors of the imminent move.
  3. Purchase the domain name. The hosting should simply reside side by side on your current web server.
  4. Use this opportunity to delete any old plugins you no longer require. Streamline your blog as much as possible.
  5. Consider inserting an auto-redirect line in between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags of your old site’s header:

    6. <meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="5; url=http://newdomainname.com">

  6. Copy (don’t move) everything from olddomain.com to newdomain.com
  7. Using their excellent one-click install, install WordPress on the new domain.
  8. Link the new domain to the old SQL db.
  9. Once I thought everything was in place I started deleting the backups. I then noticed that all of my uploads had disappeared in amongst it. A very handy feature that Dreamhost supply without you even requesting is the .snapshot. Dreamhost takes regular ‘snapshots’ or backups of your file structure which you can then restore from. Go to the root of you host and cd to a hidden folder named .snapshot. Bingo.
  10. SearchandReplace.zip plug it in, activate it, run it. I’m no coder and don’t know my SQL. This plugin runs a SQL statement to search and replace every instance of a known phrase. For me I just searched for jamesspratt.com and replaced this with jamesspratt.org. Get it right though as there’s no room in this plugin for human error. Then deactivate and delete it to keep your installation as light as poss.
  11. Change any site reference codes if you’re using certain stats providers, e.g. Google Analytics or Clicky.
  12. FeedBurner: Replace your old rss feed with the new, this way there will be no loss of continuity for subscribers.
  13. Sitemaps: This move will obviously have screwed up any search engine page rankings, and links elsewhere on tinterweb that point to specific posts. It will take a while to regain your traffic levels, creating a fresh xml sitemap will help bring you back up.
  14. Give the site a sanity check, have a click around to ensure there are no glaring errors. Or better still, get someone else to do this.
]]> http://jamesspratt.org/2008/02/12/moving-a-wordpress-blog-on-dreamhost-from-one-domain-name-to-another/feed/ 1 Photos on Site Sorted At Last http://jamesspratt.org/2007/10/13/photos-on-site-sorted-at-last/ http://jamesspratt.org/2007/10/13/photos-on-site-sorted-at-last/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:56:26 +0000 James http://jamesspratt.com/blog/2007/10/13/geek/photos-on-site-sorted-at-last/ At long last, I’ve sorted out phot on the site after a large gap with nothing up. I’ve hunted high and low to find some blog imaging software that I’m happy with. These are the ways I could have gone but dismissed them. In order of the next most likely to be used:

  • Gallery2 through WPG2: Was looking great until I saw how heavy and slow it was. Also, as he name suggests, it’s embedded, so it’s just doesn’t slip in neatly to the blog, themes were overiding my css, content pages distorted my theme, far from perfect.
  • YAPB: I just didn’t get it. It looked nice on a couple of examples I found out there but somehow the UI wasn’t intuitive enough to grab me into using it.
  • Adobe CS2/ Dreamweaver: Been there done that, not fit for this purpose. I need everything proper-automated and integrated within the blog. These 2 are too generic in their themed designs, I want the ability to easily make changes where needs be, and again has to blog software related.
  • Coppermine: A mess, no thanks.
  • Flickr / Picasa: wanted to keep it personal and ‘in-house’.

So from now on there should be regular photo updates. Am off out, camera in hand…

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