Some meta
Posted by SpikeNov 19
Someone asked if there was a lot of work involved in making the migration from Blogger to WordPress. On the surface, the answer is “no.” But dig a little deeper and actually, there’s still so much to be done it’s almost daunting!
I’ve been helped tremendously by a friend of mine who has been involved in Internet development since 1995. (He was my boss in 1999 and 2000 back when I was in San Francisco.) He’s recently decided to start a small managed hosting company and I presume I’m one of his first customers. (No link for his company yet but will provide it once he’s got it ready.) So it’s been incredibly useful to have someone to turn to to answer questions!
This blog post has been incredibly helpful in the migration.
Let me just repeat – the current theme is just a temporary one. I understand that some of you are having problems with the color combination and I do plan to change it. I could go in and edit the html for the theme but I don’t know the various values for colors – someone want to point me at a web site that references that? Otherwise I’ll do a search and try to update when I have time.
I need to add in stats, blogroll, various links and widgets, and at least one more “page” showcasing my photographs. I need to add categories – though not sure I will go back through more than 1,600 posts to tag all of them! And yes, definitely some advertising, maybe Google AdSense, maybe something more or different. I spent a lot of time yesterday rewriting the About page and also on the BC page, with all its various links. Obviously being able to add an infinite number of pages (and an infinite amount of nesting on them) is a very powerful feature.
Going forward, I’m planning certain categories that I think both fit in and enhance what I’m already doing. Perhaps a weekly round-up of new releases on CD and DVD, a classic album of the week, classic movie of the week, etc.
Please keep sending me your comments and suggestions. They are invaluable to me and I truly appreciate all of them!
Thanks for visiting.
13 comments
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Comment by shaky on November 19, 2009 at 10:17 am
Where did you get the current theme? I like it.
But what are the German links at the bottom?
thanks
Comment by Spike on November 19, 2009 at 10:28 am
I did a search on “WordPress Themes Hong Kong” and came up with that one. The German links “came along” with the theme and I thought it was only fair to include them since the person did such a nice job with the theme design.
Comment by Lanta on November 19, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Your old blog on blogspot was quite authorative. You had a good PageRank 4/10 and around 30 thousand various inbound links. It`s a shame to throw all that internet reputation away. Could you not just have restyled the blogspot and made this site something new.
Comment by Spike on November 19, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I’d given it a lot of thought and talked it over with quite a few people. Essentially it boils down to I believe that by moving the content here, all the inbound links will eventually move here as well – especially because it is possible for me to set my blogspot blog so that anyone who follows any link to get there gets re-directed to the new blog. And there are various plug-ins for WordPress, tools around Google and SEO optimization, that should actually serve to increase my ranking in the long run. Trust me, this move was not a casual decision, especially with the $$$ involved to do it!
Comment by Jim on November 19, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Hello Spike,
Your new site is probably easier on the eyes and it is certainly less hassle to make a comment. I must say I used to enjoy reading your site prior to July 2006 but since then your writing is still of excellent quality and I still read it despite the lack of lurid content!
Cheers
Jim
Comment by Don Quixote on November 20, 2009 at 12:49 am
“Going forward”
The two most redundant words I know of.
Like your blog in general. I’d suggest keeping your comments open for anyone, otherwise you just get a pat-on-the-back-club.
Also, “mountain village”? I can guarantee that you are at a far lower altitude than Tse Lang Shue or even Tai Po Tsai, and they are a million miles away from being mountain villages!
Comment by Spike on November 20, 2009 at 5:54 am
Great Don. Except that was a play on words (that I suppose only I would get) because “mountain village” is a direct translation of the Cantonese name of the village I live in.
Comment by Dan on November 20, 2009 at 11:25 am
I like your new site Spike. I also find the white on black difficult to read. I like the picture of the HK skyline. It would be good if you could add arrows to the next and previous post since I usually access your site through my rss feed in firefox, that way there is no need to keep going to the rss to get the next post.
Comment by Don Quixote on November 20, 2009 at 11:48 am
My apology in that case!
Comment by Spike on November 20, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I’ll think about it – though I’d need to find that already built in somewhere, as it’s not the sort of thing I can code from scratch. You can always click on “Hongkie Town” up top to be taken to the main blog page – where the blog entries are shown in full, not summarized. (And at least give me credit for publishing full content in my feed?)
Comment by Dan on November 20, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Yes kudos for that! How about listing the latest 10 posts on either side of the blog making it easier to navigate? Also the ability to search your site would be useful.
Comment by Dan on November 20, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Forgot to add that the colours on the photography section are also hard on the eyes!