Not that people have been rushing to leave comments, but if you do, currently moderation is enabled. I may leave it that way regardless, but on the agenda I will also enable Akismet to block spam. Once I do that, then maybe moderation will get turned off…
Category: blogging
I need to do .htaccess tricks that I haven’t yet figured out, and while I may have time to experiment more today, I thought I’d toss it out here. Probably nobody will know, because I’ve had no response from mailing lists that should have people with guru knowledge, but hey.
We had a blog in Expression Engine. It was at blogblivion.com and its URL structure for links to posts went something like:
blogblivion.com/index.php/site/whatever
Those posts are in many cases found in Google search results. If someone clicks one, they now get a not found page generated by WordPress, which we switched to in a blog in the same location as the old blog, but with a different permalink structure.
The Expression Engine blog has moved to a folder, eeblog, so the URL structure for posts is now something like:
blogblivion.com/eeblog/index.php/site/whatever
The same, but inserting the folder into it. Wouldn’t you think a redirect would be simple? And prominently documented?
I need to either modify .htaccess to intercept any request for a URL with the old structure and direct it to the same in the folder eeblog, or I need for the error page handling in WordPress to use PHP or whatever it can use to detect a URL clearly looking for the old blog posts and send it along.
If it issues a 301, that’s bonus.
Got interrupted, so I forgot what I was saying, but I think that covers it.
What this is not:
Thanks!
Categories
Progress!
As you can see, there’s been substantial progress in setting up the new blog. I’ve just finished what we are most obligated or in need of having before it can be deferred until later. I’ll resume fussing with it after I shower, do some paperwork, go to the post office, go to the gas & electric people to try to keep us turned on, go to the bank, go to the store (though that might be able and better to wait, apart from the toilet paper shortage, but may as well get that at least while out), see if I can inflate the tires, and whatever I am forgetting.
Looking for the old blog? Blogblivion Archive. Feel free to maintain a link to that if you’d like. We’ll include one here, in any event. Just like Accidental Verbosity before it, you’d want to visit to see previous pictures of kids, if nothing else.
If you have links to posts at the now archival blog, they will be broken until I can figure out how to make those redirect. They’re all the same, except for the inclusion of the \eeblog\ folder in each URL.
Okay, off I go. Need to eat, too. Getting shaky.
I am about to make a backup of everything, purge the original Blogblivion blog, setup WordPress, crossover some recent posts and make sure there’s a prominent pointer to the archived old blog. Then I’ll crash into bed as I already should have by now. Tomorrow I can tweak some of the details, in between errands and trying to keep the gas and electricity on at least until the baby turns a year old (not sure why they want to turn it off if I don’t pay or make arrangements by 5:00 tomorrow, considering they already have the info).
If all goes well, very shortly you won’t see this post at all, and then you will, on a different blog in the same location.
Update:
It helps to stay awake! Really, here goes…
I haven’t figured out yet exactly how to modify .htaccess to make permalinks to posts on this blog redirect to the same posts in the eeblog folder. While I’m waiting for guru help – at least, I think I have former colleagues who may know the answer offhand and can cut me to the chase – I will probably go ahead and setup a new blog with WordPress, pointing prominently to the old blog and overlapping several recent posts. That gets it done, and worst case I may be able to do the same with the other blog I need to work on, just to get it started, knowing the redirection is possible and just tricky.
I just hate to see any links broken. Certainly not for long, even if it’s for the same of Google.
I also have a small client site update to do with static pages, which I am about to start so I can have it done and billed by Monday. That ought to get me a check by the end of the week, even if it’s small.
I’m going to regret being awake now, but apparently it was a bad idea to drink seven mugs of coffee during the course of Saturday. I was able to do very little on this with the kids, so hey, I can be a zombie for them and muddle through.
This is a post made after a copy of the blog was moved to the eeblog folder. Because they share a database, until I remove the original blog, this will presumably appear there too.
It was a rough night and has been somewhat of a rough morning. And here’s Henry to stop me again! Despite having his sisters for entertainment.
You may see less of a blip than I thought, if the migration works as I expect. Stay tuned…
The contents of this blog, as published with Expression Engine, will be archived to a subdirectory, to which I will link when the dust settles. At the address where this blog is now will be a new version, published using WordPress. Thinking about it as I type this, probably I’ll replicate the last several recent posts, so there’s overlap and we don’t start completely empty.
The objective, which is supposed to be possible if moderately confusing, will be for any link to a post as it existed before to redirect automatically to the archived content.
I plan to attempt this tonight.
The goal is to work out the details on ours, so even if it’s undercooked tomorrow I know the technical hurdles, and then apply the knowledge to one I expect to do for another blogger tomorrow night.
During the surgery, you may find us down entirely for a while, or you may get an unexpected and incomplete site if you visit during the process. I’ll post in both places indicating it’s done and how it went, once it is done. Worst case, before I sleep tonight I will try to leave something in place that says what’s going on, even if the archive isn’t working yet and I have to continue with help from the kids during the day tomorrow.
Update:
Note to self… Good luck with that! It’s 9 PM. You just finished in the kitchen, have dishes soaking, have 3 kids to put to bed, and are going to start this from scratch when that’s all done? On about 5 hours of sleep and after more than 13 hours awake? Yeah, right…
I needed a post with a picture so I can test messing with the RSS feed, and these were good ones. This is why the VCR and DVD player are now on top of the TV. This one he pointed defiantly, but he also does a full fledged “talk to the hand” as he did to me in the bath tonight. He is so incorrigible.
