Goodbye to Blogger

This will be my last post on Blogger. The next time you log on to this site you will be redirected to the new URL: http://www.stuckinsideofknoxville.com. Beginning with tomorrow's post, I will be writing at that address using Wordpress software on a self-hosted site. If you are not automatically re-directed, please go to the new site: Stuck Inside of Knoxville

A tremendous debt of thanks goes out to Joy Miller at Five J's Design. After starting this migration on my own, I realized I was in way over my head. For a fee ($225) Joy did much of the work, gave me great direction on other parts and went beyond what I should have reasonably expected for the money. I highly recommend her if you are considering a migration from Blogger to Wordpress.

This blog has been quite a journey for me personally. I barely knew what a blog was when I started writing nearly two years ago. I knew there was an information gap about downtown Knoxville and I thought, though I had no way of knowing, that there might be a few people who would be interested in information about downtown Knoxville if it was provided.

I could not have anticipated that through this blog I would meet such great people, have so many wonderful experiences and that I would accumulate so many tremendous, consistent readers. I also had no way of knowing that Blogger, which is free software, wouldn't always meet the needs of the blog or be as flexible as I would need it to be as the blog grew.

So, reset your bookmarks (and links if you have me linked to your site - and if you don't wouldn't this be a great time to do so?) and join me in the next phase of this grand adventure. There will be some immediate improvements, such as notifications when someone replies to your comments, to note just a small example. In the long term I think the site will be far, far better than anything I could have accomplished on Blogger.

When you log in tomorrow everything will not be perfect. In fact, it may take some time for me to work out some pretty significant issues. One example is that while you will find every post I've ever written, you will find that the text from the comments disappeared. I may work some more on that, but they may just be lost. The ads are also an ongoing headache as I can't get them to go where I want them, just yet.

Perhaps more significantly, all of you who were "followers" through Google Friend Connect (the 84 with their pictures to the right of this post) will no longer have your pictures displayed. Google Friend Connect isn't very friendly if you don't use their software. I may also place NetworkedBlogs as an option on the site which would display pictures - because I like seeing your faces. Will you still be able to read new posts on your RSS readers without doing something additional? I don't know. You will certainly be able to make a new connection if the old one does not work.


And what of you guys who have subscribed? Again, I'm not sure. I think you will still get e-mail notification and, if not, you will be able to re-subscribe through the link provided. I need to hear from you guys exactly what is happening. I hope I can help with any problems.

And I would love to hear from each of you (though if you make comments today they will not appear on the new site unless you go there and make the comment) as you get to know the new site. Let me know what is working and what isn't, what you miss from the old site - and, hopefully, what you like about the new site. We've been through a lot together over the last couple of years, lets hope this is but a minor speed-bump on the way to even better days ahead.