I Did What?

Photo by PinkMoose

“Well,” continued the watchdog impatiently, “since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking.” ~ Norton Juster, THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH

Why in the world did I move from Wordpress (self hosted) to Blogger when everyone else seems to be migrating from Blogger to Wordpress? Why do I catch myself walking up the stairs when everyone else is coming down, or down when everyone else is climbing up. Why do I pull when it says push and push when it says pull? Why won't those automatic Exit doors open to let me in, and why do those Enter doors always remain shut when I'm in a hurry to get out?

I will only attempt to answer the first question; it's less complicated.

After I've googled 'How to move from WordPress to Blogger', I was bombarded with entries showing me how to move from Blogger to WordPress. I really had to search hard and even questioned my decision.

Why did I try self-hosted WP blogging in the first place?

I wanted to look professional. Haha! I wanted my own domain and the freedom to choose or not to choose ads. Wordpress.com is free but shows you, my dear readers, ads that I can't even see let alone control. That was my biggest peeve. Sure, they offer a no-ads upgrade, but its price tag exceeded what I paid for my domain and hosting combined. No offense to my WP friends, but why pay for upgrades and still be stifled by terms and conditions?

Why did I not switch to Blogger to begin with? I didn't like the interface at first. It seemed very limited and somewhat cluttered compared to my wordpress blog. Besides, I always thought of Blogger as a a free and simple platform to think out loud. A pretty neat concept, actually.

Of course, I've since learned that just because Blogger is free and mind-numbingly simple, many of its bloggers aren't. Yea...um...most of my bloggie friends are not mind-numbingly simple at all...ahem! ;-)

So, let's uncover the biggest reason for my move. I've discovered that I actually like things mind-numbingly simple! Self-hosted might be simple for some, but for me... ha! Every time I'd log into my WP to blog, I'd find a gazillion updates (am I exaggerating?) -- my theme, plug-ins, even WP itself! I couldn't just relax and blog without backing things up, activating/deactivating plug-ins and widgets, researching error messages, fixing security vulnerabilities, slow load time, or timed out messages, etc. I don't really like the techie side of things, and enjoy a good blog post over a how-to forum thread any day. And, I've discovered that I don't like flying solo. So, there you have it. I'm done!

No, wait, there's more. Blogger has really improved. I like the new uncluttered interface and new features, like nestled comments, auto-save, auto spam detection, and post scheduling. Some things seem missing, though, or hard to find, like how to turn that aggravating word recognition captcha thingy off. (I finally found it in the old interface). Okay, now I'm done. I think.

No, wait! The friend connect gadget wouldn't transfer with the correct reader feed, meaning that you, my sweet readers and friends, will have to click 'follow' all over again, that is, if you want to... Follow a snail? :-)

I did forward my 'reader' link, and the old email subscription should work without a glitch (I hope). Please let me know if this blog still shows up in your reader. It would mean that the redirect is working, at least for now.

PS: Here is a simple explanation of how to switch from WP to blogger, just in case you're thinking about switching. :-)

Or maybe you have more than one Blogger blog but only enough time and energy for one. You can merge them all into one. Here's how.

(Pssst! I would not recommend having two blogs with the same content.. Google does not like duplicate content floating around in bloggie space.)

Good day, all!