GarySaid WordPress Migration is mostly done (?)

If you’re seeing this, you’re at the new site. Please leave me a comment so I can see that it’s working!. As the banner, you should be seeing the Detroit skyline at sunset from Belle Isle (not Costa Rica during the day).

There’s probably some broken stuff: the sidebar, some images, who knows what else. It’s hard for me to check it until it’s actually done migrating, I’ve done the minimal basics to see once it kicks over, that it should be functioning on a basic level (main page, RSS and Atom feeds and commenting should be okay) and when I imply that the sidebar might be broken, I actually know that it’s broken; I’d be a little more OCD about it, but I’ve barely blogged in the last month so it’ll be okay until tomorrow…

When I’m done completely I’ll let you know (once the name propagates, I’ll be making adjustments that will break things along the way).

From a geeky standpoint: If telnet, tar or ssh are too geeky of terms, then DO NO read on…

I’m migrating from 1and1.com to Site5.com in this process, exporting and importing the basic way in WordPress looked to be to slow and I’d lose some settings. So I used SSH to connect to 1and1 (basically got a DOS prompt or a telnet session) told it to tar up my files and compress them (basically zipping them up) and then I used FTP to push the file from 1and1 to site5, which was very fast since they are both on fast connections (I didn’t download then upload, I just pushed from one to another).

Then I used the phpMyAdmin mySQL web interface at 1and1 to download the database with my 2000+ blog posts (and comments and settings) to my computer. Then I created a new database at Site5 and then used the phpMyAdmin mySQL at Site5 to import the same data. I should have done all this from the command line too and avoided downloading and uploading, but I’ll confess I downloaded it about 5 different ways with different programs just in case I had any problems.

I used a fake domain name to test out the site and overall, it looks like it will work.

Then I went to 1and1 and said “let Site5 control where the site GarySaid.com is at”. Then I went and told Site5, “you’re in charge of GarySaid.com”. And at some point in the next 2-24 hours people will start getting directed to the new location.