Normal Blogging Service Resumed?

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Phew! After another very techy week problem-solving, I think things are now back to some state of normality with my Blog posts.

It’s taken far too many hours days weeks getting it all working again – and I hope I never have go through all this again! 🤬

The Short Version

It’s now working! If you read my blogs-posts on the big social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr etc, etc), then it’s no change for you – you’ll see my posts there as normal.

However, I know a few of you access my Blogs directly at https://blog.StevePalmer.com, and there’s now a slightly different web-address:

https://blogs.StevePalmer.com. Click HERE to see them.

The Long Version

Those that know me, know that I love to blog – mostly inconsequential stuff, but I’m told my ramblings are (occasionally) humorous and sometimes even helpful, (especially when I’m bleating on about restaurants that don’t get the basics right as well as our regular globetrotting).

If I can’t blog, I’m a grumpy bugger (just ask Ann), so when a long-established major blogging platform goes bad, it’s best just to stay clear of me for a bit!

So, what’s the problem? Well, if you missed all my torment over the past month, it’s all Google’s fault (well, mostly!)

My then blogging-platform (‘Blogger’ from Google) started to object to any photographs being added using the offline-editor ‘Open Liver Writer‘ – OLW – (yep, it’s the one that’s been my go-to editing-tool for over 15 years now, more-or-less without issue).

No warning or explanation as to exactly what was wrong – and because OLW’s development is now maintained by a group of global volunteers, the only fixes were when they get the time to look at it – which, given they’ve all got day-jobs, and are spread across dozens of countries, means ‘not very often’.

Three weeks on, and some Bloggers are still struggling with it all. There IS now a workaround, thanks to said volunteers, but it’s a bit of a faff and also makes blogging more time-consuming

…and the kicker is: the fix doesn’t seem to work for everyone! 😠

And just to push the stress to the next level, it’s all going to fail again in March 2019, when Google finally pulls the plug on some crucial APIs to do with managing its photos. 😖

Seriously? It’s just too much hassle to stick with something that’s as unusable as it is currently – and, given that we all now know another ‘fail’ is imminent – a more permanent and reliable solution is needed.

And the solution? After a lot of thought, carefully weighing up the pros and cons, I have decided to completely ‘jump ship’ and shift everything to a competitor’s platform. And, in doing-so, it’s stretched every inch of my technical ability. I really didn’t want to do something this drastic, but in the end, I think I’ll look back on all of this in years-to-come as a somewhat painful, but ultimately correct decision.

Too drastic? These days, surely there’s a simple button to press somewhere, that seamlessly ‘moves’ all the data from one blogging platform to another? Well there is – sort of! (hurrah!) but it’s not perfect (boo!) – and a lot of tinkering is required after the jump.

That jump has taken almost a month of my time trying to fix it all – so good job I’ve not got a proper job then!

After a shed-load of graft, I’ve now managed to import 15 years of posts from Blogger (all 3288 of them!) to their new home, and although some many needed a bit of TLC, all the content and most of their layout seems to have been preserved. PHEW! It was my biggest worry that the appearance would suffer.

The added challenge was to preserve all the historical Google search data, so that anyone using Google to find the Blogs would still be able to get to them – now that was a REAL challenge!

Going forward, it’s ‘Bye-bye Google Blogger’ as my Blog-posts are now managed courtesy of their biggest rival – WordPress – and I’m already seeing some benefits of this more up-to-date platform. 😉

Gotta love technology! Just when you think you have it mastered, it throws in a curved ball to remind you who’s really in charge! 😠

I’m now off for a very long lie-down!

PS: Don’t forget, if you access my Posts directly, their new home is:-

https://blogs.StevePalmer.com. Click HERE to see them.