Month: June 2024

Okay y’all, it’s crunch time. I have everything lined up that I need to line up to be able to put images back where they’re supposed to be. The problem had not been as large as I had imagined it, I’ve just been dragging ass.

(I got a diabetes diagnosis back in March and I am actually doing far better with that now, but I think I’m still traumatized from the past three years, to state it baldly. Working on it, but I still have my moments. Lots of them.)

So I am setting up the new target for the domain DNS right now. What will happen is you will continue to see this website for most of the day tomorrow, and then tomorrow night about half an hour before midnight, shit will go down. Or you’ll load the website and it’ll just be a generic WordPress instance. DO NOT PANIC. That is just me needing to get in there and import the site file and also install the theme and the custom settings. If I’m feeling REALLY ambitious I’ll get at least a few header photos in too. NO PROMISES. That needs work anyway. (Yeah, what the fuck doesn’t here.)

Unless I’m exhausted tomorrow night, likely I’ll at least get the text-based content (blog posts, articles) set up. If I’m awake and frisky, I may get most of the work done. Let’s find out!

Okay. Back into the fray. Just wanted to let you know what to expect.

Yes, things are still up. Here is what I know from the past twenty-four hours’ experience with one site migration:

1. It takes twenty-four hours just to redirect a domain to new nameservers. I don’t remember it taking this long in the past, but it takes this long now. So when, NOT if, this site goes down, it’s going down hard. There is a workaround to make it take less time, but that looked like a lot of complicated bullshit (Old Host really does not want me to leave, apparently… tough shit, I’m done with their highway robbery) and so I’m letting it take the twenty-four hours. Which, it does sort itself out at the twenty-four hour mark. I checked. It’s fine. Just annoying for that twenty-four hours.

I could go ahead and set everything up on the other end in anticipation of stuff working properly 24 hours after I re-point the domain but until the domain name is pointing to the proper WordPress instance, I will not be able to see what the fuck I am doing without more complicated bullshit involved. I’m not interested in complicated bullshit. I have enough to deal with without deliberately adding more. See next item.

2. What I thought was just a media file I could export from Old Host and import into New Host is actually a file WordPress refuses to incorporate — odd, since WordPress is the software that generates that fucking file — and when I looked at the code it didn’t look like it contained actual images anyway. I have no idea what that was about but it’s not going to work, so thank god I am so lazy about keeping up with blogs because this particular site doesn’t have much on it yet. And I will still have that additional work to do adding in the image files it’s missing.

Now imagine what I’ll go through with this one. OMG

So even when it’s back up it’ll be broken for a bit. I’ll set it to rights as soon as I’ve got the spoons and time for it. This blog will import just fine but it’ll be missing images until I get around to that.

3. Along with the images not exporting and importing, I have to install this theme on the other end and then reconfigure it. I will TRY to see if there’s a configuration file I can just export and then import, but I don’t think so. It’s funny, because the structure of WordPress was based on a very old blogging platform called Greymatter, and you could export and import your custom layout settings in Greymatter. I should know. I used Greymatter. I miss it like hell — it was awesome. But this is what I’ve got now and it’ll be all I can do to avoid getting tangled up in AI. Long story short, I’ll probably have to fix the blog theme settings again and if I do have to do that, stuff’s gonna look funny for a bit.

I mean, this is a chance for me to rethink the header though, I suppose, if it comes down to that.

We’ll see how it goes.

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Timeline? Okay, I have until the second of July to absolutely get all this shit done before I’m expected to pay for another month at Old Host. They like to bill me on the 27th, but if I don’t put money on that card for them, they’ll go begging until the second. So I have lots of time, but I just want to get this done. Sooooo probably the next forty-eight hours?

Also, I need to warn you. At some point I will move the bigmanchronicles domain name itself because I want to move all my domains so as to have all on one fucking hosting account finally. I may do it soon, or I may wait another number of months until New Host has another domain sale, which also applies to domain transfers (you have to pay for another year in order to transfer a domain). I’m sure they have them periodically. When I do that, the site will be down for anything from a day to a week. If the latter, it’s gonna suck. You’ll hate it. I get regular daily visitors here in the double digits; I know you’ll hate it. I will too. BUT I WILL GIVE YOU PLENTY OF WARNING. I can’t rely on some site followers to warn all the other site followers, because you aren’t even all aware of one another. But hopefully my warning will reach enough of you that people don’t think I’ve quit.

I mean, quit on the big man? Come on now. This is me we’re talking about. 💙🤍💚

Also. While this shit’s going on, and the domain transfer too when it does, you can check here for updates. I’ll have ’em. No, this is not a ploy to get more eyeballs on my site. It’s just the logical place to go since that’s my home page and I’m the site admin here. Cool? Cool.

Don’t, like, send me text messages asking me when shit’s gonna be up, though. You’ll know it’s up when I do; first I’ll know is when it’s actually back up. They don’t send me notices or anything.

Okay, I think that’s it. If I think of anything else you probably need to know about this, I’ll post again. If this site disappears in the next couple days, the DNS settings change is taking place, so just hang on tight til it’s done. Twenty-four hours. That’s it. Promise.

Okay y’all, word of warning. I have set up New Hosting Service. That bit’s fine, but I’m going through a bit of a learning curve with the site migration. I am not sure what’s going on, but I’m picking at it to find out. I started this with a throwaway site I’m barely maintaining just to make sure everything works before I start on this one here.

I did learn that when you export a WordPress file, it’s only the text stuff and the blog settings. There is a separate setting for exporting media so MAYBE, when I import that, that means I’ll be importing the images properly. I hope so because I’ve got a shitload of images here, just in this blog itself, and I don’t want to have to go through and upload them all over again. I mean, I will if I have to, but I don’t want to. But I’ll find out presently if I can even get the damn domain name to parse correctly. Apparently there’s a bit of a delay. ARGH.

Point is this site hasn’t been moved yet but if shit gets weird, it’s because I am moving it. And I’m on Pacific Daylight Time now, too, so just be aware.

Stuff will be right as rain eventually though. I’m stubborn that way.

Ah, yes, the summer solstice. Anyone remember the solstice five years ago?

Look here for a hint.

Anyway. I’ve got news. You may or may not like it.

Okay. I love my website host. I see some people grumble about them, but they’ve always been solid for me. Five years. Probably the longest I’ve ever been with a hosting service.

Problem is they’re also massively expensive as shared hosting services go. They were $19.99 a month, I think, when I first started with them five years ago and I may have even gone for an annual plan that first year, which would have ended up being a lot less per month. But month-to-month was twenty bucks. And that was a little ouchy but I said whatever, I pay at least this much for Netflix and I don’t get any more out of that except the odd Rory thing and Supernatural and The Walking Dead, anyway, and so I went on with my life. Then after I moved out of my daughter’s father’s house, I had two price hikes in three years. So now instead of twenty bucks a month it’s more like thirty-five.

I lost my main source of income when I moved to California — long story, no one cares — and I’m working on that situation but it’ll take time. I had starting-out money, at least. But that’s not going to last long at all if I don’t get my expenses down a little more. I got my phone bill down by happy accident, but I still have this albatross to deal with.

NO I’M NOT KILLING THIS SITE.

I’m making it cheaper. I will be moving to a new hosting service shortly.

The reason I say you may not like it is that there will be downtime again. I am going to see about using their site migration service, which allegedly is free, and which should also minimize the downtime. I make no promises but that’s my goal.

I intend to work on this tomorrow (Friday) if nothing weird happens. So if you see things glitch or disappear, that’s why. If shit is weird with the site after it’s all done, I’ll go back and fix it — I’ve been working on this thing in fits and starts anyway. It’ll just be one more sub-project. I don’t care. Happy to do it.

Anyway, so that’s what’s going on. Nothing bad, just trying to keep things running smoothly.

The GREAT news is that I’ll be purchasing an annual plan and they are on sale dirt fucking cheap right now. So we won’t have this song and dance again until at least April. And probably not even then because I should be able to migrate the domain over to the new host and I may even be able to do it while the host has their dot-com domain sale going on. Won’t THAT be a hoot.

So look forward to that, I guess. I’ll let you know when it’s moved. Mwah.

This is Rory when boating season starts

Facebook friend posted this. I don’t think I’d ever heard it before. Enjoy the earworm.

Oh, wow! Does this mean we might get to see The Damned in the United States???

I mean… C’MON, BIG MAN. You need to be in stuff we can see outside of Europe!

In other news, I was just peeking to see if anything major had come up on the front page of Google — of course, it almost never does — and turns out Rory’s Instagram is now on the front page of his search results. That’s pretty much like if he had an official fan site and it turned up there. Excellent news! See? Google says it’s the big man too. NOW ARE Y’ALL HAPPY?

(I’m still there too… near the bottom… but it’s my own fault, I don’t update here enough. At least it’s not the “love life” page anymore.)

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Bit of a personal update for those of you who haven’t figured out where I am on the web yet. Am in California, settling in, trying to figure out where I go next. Caught a cold, it was nasty, seems to be getting better now but anymore when I get sick I also get kind of stupid, so that was fun. I’m also having to manage things without having a car — sold the car to make this trip, didn’t really have anywhere else to go and needed starting-out money — but oddly, for California and not being in L.A. or San Fran, I can probably get around all right. It’s just going to take me a lot longer. Walmart is walking distance from here and the bus line stops there too.

I actually did not love moving even farther away from Scotland, so to speak, and I miss Ohio. But I don’t get to go to the fun places or live where I want to live until I can fucking pay for it. Just the way it is. And this bit of NorCal is positively lovely. I think even Rory would dig it. I have redwoods in my (my roomie’s) yard, y’all. Redwoods. And bears for neighbors. And huge doggos for housemates. Great Pyrenees. They’re adorable. I have never thought of myself as a dog person, but most of them have liked me, and these are no exception.

I’m not going to make any guesses about which way things will go. I am just gonna fucking vibe and do the best I can with what I can control.

And if that sounds like “hey, more improvements here,” yes. That too.