Cottleston Pie

There were several things that had been irking me about Movable Type (MT) which I won't bother to detail. So I decided to switch to WordPress (WP).

The switch was very easy, with one caveat I'll get to in a minute, and I'm glad I did:

• No more re-building pages
• Faster web interface
• Easier web interface
• Easier backup
• Very easy initial setup and configuration
• Multiple blogs can share a single database (simplifies both setup and backup)
• I can use WordPress at work if I wish because the license is more liberal (GPL)

The caveat involved the MT Import/Export trouble that I had back in March. The data export from MT and subsequent import of that MT export file into Wordpress suffered that same problem. I tracked down the problem this time. The import process was becoming seriously confused because of dashes in MySQL tables. MT is incorrectly exporting data that it cannot import. I was able to correct the problem for my purposes by escaping the dashes myself: changing the dashes in the table to - entities. This problem should not have occurred. That entry, like all my entries, is validated XHTML 1.0 Strict.

I'm glad I spent a few hours today making the switch. I think I'll find it very worthwhile in the long term.

Oh yes, and I've renamed the blog. I think that the old title, Wind in the Wires, might be misconstrued as being too computer-technical. The Wires primarily referred to the humming sound produced on a sailing vessel when a strong wind causes taught lines (stays, shrouds, sheets, halyards) to vibrate like guitar strings. As a double entendre, it also alluded to the wires of the Internet over which information is communicated. There is something ironic about my mentioning that the less-technical meaning should dominate at the end of this this very technical post.