They're right, of course. Shelley, AKMA, John. All of them. I should be running this blog on a domain that I control. And it's not that I don't have any--I've got lawley.net and evilwoman.org. I've registered mamamusings.com and mamamusings.net. I've got my business domain, itcs.com (registered in the dark ages of the 'net, before there was even a charge for it...though Network Solutions seems to have messed up the history on the account and doesn't reflect that).
I've dragged my heels on this because of the exact issues that Shelley raises regarding weblog portability. As a neophyte blogger, I naively chose the default individual archive templates in MT, which use an entry number that's not hard-coded to the content. If I export the entries here and import them elsewhere, those ID numbers will change, making redirection extremely difficult. When I switch servers, I'll switch to name-based individual archive pages (like what Joi uses). But before I can get to that point, I have a couple of things to figure out.
Bottom line, I'm afraid that if I move, nobody will find me. Sure, I can leave lots of forwarding address markers here. But will that be enough? What will happen to my Technorati Cosmos, for example? To incoming blogrolling.com links? (Hmmm...now that Dave's providing a way for people to claim their blogs on Technorati, ∑ la Blogshares, that may be centrally correctable. Jason, would there be any way to do something similar at blogrolling.com?)
But first things first...which domain to use? I'm not the one who has to remember it, of course, so I'm particularly interested in knowing what my readers would prefer. My top three choices for domains for this blog are lawley.net, mamamusings.net, and mamamusings.com. Then there's the issue of subdomain, which complicates it further.
Some possibilities...
- liz.lawley.net
- mamamusings.lawley.net
- www.mamamusings.net
- www.mamamusings.com
What do you think? One of those? Something else?
Actually, in your case you can probably move and have forwarding managed for each of your entries.
Just as a suggestion:
First, export from the database, and do not use MT export -- this will preserve your exact numbering, trackbacks and comments.
Next, create an .htaccess file with a pattern that will trap all entries such as 000505.html and move it to the new location, using a server-side redirect. Since the RIT site isn't going away for some time, if ever, this is a viable option for you.
Once you've moved your numbered entries, then you can move to name-based for new ones and you should be okay.
Just some ideas. I've been working this issue a lot lately, trying to get the permalink weblog-port essay written.
As for domain name, do you want to be known as mama musings forever? I like burningbird, and will always like this -- this was a good choice for me. But others prefer their names, and something like weblog.name.com or net is viable for them.
Liz, very interesting idea. Yeah, Technorati profiles will help people to find your new blog, and could help by providing a pseudo "weblog DNS". gotta think about that some more.
Dave
Shelley, thanks for that suggestion. Hadn't even occurred to me to do a mysql export rather than an MT export. D'oh!
Will definitely do that, now. And then I'll be posting here for help on crafting the .htaccess statement, I suspect. It's one of those things that I understand perfectly in concept, but am weaker at in execution. (A typical problem for a university professor, I suspect. Too much concept, not enough execution.)
Dave, I'm totally intrigued by the idea of a weblog pseudo-DNS. Hope you'll find some time to explore that. Let me know if you want me to dig up some students to help with implementation issues.
I like liz.lawley.net. Short, simple, easy to spell out loud (god, if I'd only thought of that when I came up with my domain name!), and it doesn't tie you to any persona (so to speak) or username.
As for redirecting...you could always do what I did, and just let everything be broken & start over. ;)