Another Blog Change

That’s it. I’ve had it with WordPress.com. This blog is moving to Supersized.org, the free version of Serendipity. My blog can now be foundt at http://manda.supersized.org. Happily, they have the exact same template I used here, so it should look much the same.

 

Dude, I’ve got a Dell!

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

After 8 years of wallowing in Windows 98 I’ve finally entered the new millennium!

Old computer: Windows 98 (initially Win98, upgraded to WinMe then back to Win98SE)
New computer: Windows XP Media Center 2005

Old computer: AMD Duron 950 Mhz, 256 MB RAM
New computer: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM

Old computer: 6.4 GB hard drive
New computer: 80 GB hard drive

It’s a bit like culture shock when I work on it. I’m transferring things over very slowly since it’s likely some of the hardware and software I’m used to won’t work on XP. For one, my printer has a parallel port, so I’ll have to find a way to make it use USB instead. And I only have one monitor, so I have to undo/redo the cables every time I switch. With holiday plans and such I probably won’t be able to say goodbye to the old system until next week.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

 

Enough with ‘Heros’ Already

Edit (12/5): The “save the cheerleader…” promo line has been retired! Yay! [TV Week via EW]

If I hear/see the phrase “save the cheerleader, save the world” one more time I swear I’m going to scream. Much like SciFi and Battlestar Galactica, Bravo and Top Chef, you can’t turn on the channel without seeing something about Heros and I’m getting fed up about it. I don’t watch much NBC, so if they could just keep it out of Days of Our Lives’s timeslot, I’d be super happy.

Anyway, I’ve spent the majority of today with WS_FTP backing up every element of the old blog that I could ever conceivably want or need. Three thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight entries (my 6-year blogging anniversary is later this month) and every one is saved in three methods: mySQL database dump, Movable Type export file, and static HTML files. Considering how much cringe-worthy stuff that’s in there, it is doubtful I’ll resurrect those entries elsewhere on the web, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. [Incidentally, Kevin Donahue's method for exporting large MT blogs works great. Most of the other ways I came across needed command line access or involved writing special perl scripts or other overly technical ideas.] The domain expires today, and I’ve received a cancellation confirmation from 1and1, so the old blog should disappear in a matter of days, if not hours. Farewell, old blog. Farewell, Movable Type. And thanks for the 3 free years, 1and1.

So, on to the future. I fear my time here at wordpress.com will be short. My knitting blog has been on wordpress.com for many months now, but since I use BlogDesk to post to it, I didn’t realize just how sloow these servers are. Why don’t I use BlogDesk here? Well, I tied both blogs together under the same wordpress.com username. That seemed like a good idea at the time (no logging in and out all the time), but whenever I try to post to this blog using BlogDesk, it shows up at the other blog.  So I’m stuck using the slow and buggy (see all these weird line breaks? I didn’t put them there) web interface. At the moment, though, I’m too lazy to seek out an alternative. November isn’t a good month for decision making - or at least it isn’t in my head (think ADD to the max ;)), so I’ll stay put for the present - and perhaps try out Firefox to see if it works any better with it.

BTW, have I mentioned that I’m getting a new computer? :) Dad has surprised me with a Dell! It’s supposed to arrive late this week or early next week. Plus, I think I may have talked Mom into DSL. I’m trying to do the same with TiVo too, but I’m probably pressing my luck. ;)  2007 is going to be a good year!