Tag: domain

hosting

Moved to WordPress and new domain!

I gave up!

This blog was hacked again and the database taken down. As this is no longer my primary blog (and I post here infrequently now) I decided the best course of action would be to simply take it off my server and give it to WordPress.com to host (the chances of it being hacked there are remote!).

I have wanted to change the domain of the blog for quite some time as well so I decided to combine the two jobs into one.

I already owned TomRaftery.com and it was doing nothing so I decided to use this as it is a more appropriate url for the site.

To upload the site to WordPress.com I first created a blank WordPress.com blog (simply by signing up and verifying email – a 2 second job).

WordPress 15mb Import limit
WordPress 15mb Import limit

Then I went to my old site and created an export file (Tools -> Export) – this downloaded a 24mb xml file to my computer. When I went to the WordPress.com to do the import I spotted that the Import message read “Choose a file from your computer: (Maximum size: 15mb)”. Oops! – this was going to be an issue.

I thought about going into the xml file and manually editing it but when I opened it I saw it was over 400,000 lines long and I really didn’t want to mess it up so I thought again.

I checked the spam list on the site and I saw there were thousands of spam comments in there. What if I deleted them and tried again? I did and sure enough this knocked the xml file size down to 17mb – an improvement but still too large to import. What to do?

WordPress Blog Export options
WordPress Blog Export options

Then I had a brainwave (should have been obvious really) – what if I split the export into two files? So I tried it, I first exported all blog posts up until December 2006 and then I did another export of all the blog posts from January 2007 until the most recent post (November 2010).

This created two files of less than 15mb each which could now be imported. Would WordPress.com allow me to import two files totaling more than 15mb? I didn’t know but figured it couldn’t hurt to try, so try I did and it worked a treat!

Now that all my blog posts (and their associated comments, categories, tags, etc) were imported the next step was to associate it with the TomRaftery.com domain. This required me to update the nameservers for the domain to point to WordPress nameservers (after paying for the domain pointing service from WordPress). Then I had to set it as the primary domain for the site (see below).

WordPress domain management
WordPress domain management

The last step was to go back to the old TomRafteryit.net domain and set a permanent (301) re-direct on it so that people (and search engines) would be re-directed over here to the new TomRaftery.com domain – now safely hosted on WordPress.com servers.

So here we are. If you are reading this – welcome to the old blog on this new site. Thanks for taking the time and hopefully I won’t leave it so long to the next post!

Technology

Google launch attack on the Office Enterprise market

Google has released Google Applications for Your Domain – you can sign up and check it out over at http://www.google.com/a.

Google Applications for Your Domain currently allows you to run Gmail, Gtalk, and Gpages (a web publishing tool) through your own domain. One immediate advantage of doing this is that Gmail’s spam filters seem to be very good so running company mail through it should reduce spam problems you may be having.

It is also planned to integrate Google’s online word Processor (Writely) and Google Spreadsheets so that Microsoft Office need never be fired up (or even installed!).

When you sign up you get the following screen:

Google Applications for Your Domain

The functionality is sparse right now but the great thing about software as a service is that updates are constantly being rolled out to the benefit of the consumer. One nice feature in the setup is the bulk uploader which allows you to upload a csv file for setup of your users:
Gayd advanced tools

Microsoft needs to be worried. Not because this threatens them from the point of view of functionality but because this new model is quickly becoming the accepted norm. And although Microsoft are getting into this arena too, who would you trust with your company’s data, Google or Microsoft?

UPDATE: D’oh! I forgot to title this post. Title added subsequently along with bang on the head to remind me not to do that again!