Switching to WordPress

A year ago (Back in 2003) in my girlfriend’s basement weblogs.us was born. Now a year later and 800 1,600 noncommercial blogs later, I’m happy to announce some changes.

We are:
#1 switching to WordPress for all new users, and any old users that want to switch. Repeat, existing users can stay with MT 2.66 🙂 [this section clarified in response to Chris’s comments and posts]
#2 adding FTP support
#3 increasing storage space from 100MB to 1GB.
#4 adding full statistics reporting
#5 plus a few other treats…
if there’s anything missing, that you would like added, please let me know! This switch will be for any of our current users. Once everyone that wants to is switched and happily blogging, we will start on the hundreds of people that signed up in our queue, and finally we will reopen signups to the world (possibly using an invitation system much like Gmail uses.)

I would especially like to thank all the great people in our community. Over the past year I’ve met and shared ideas with so many people from all over the world that I can hardly believe it. Thank you all for being so awesome!

I’m very excited to be working with new software that has a wonderfully open and free license, as well as investing in the hardware that will insure weblogs.us users have a free place to blog for as long as they want. If anyone doesn’t like WordPress, I would suggest TypePad or one of the other great hosts out there.

Respectfully,
-JD

PS I would also like to thank Robert Scoble and Dave Winer for linking to us early on and sending many great bloggers our way 🙂

Updated: Jan 14th, 2006
Updated: Nov 3rd, 2004
Updated: Oct 28th, 2004

25 comments

  1. Great News JD.

    But how does this affect us with Custom Templates?

    Does this mean that you are moving to a PHP based system?

    Thanks for everything you have done to make Weblogs.US the best host.

  2. Hey Kevin!

    I’m not aware of an easy way to convert layouts and templates from MT to WP 🙁 Thankfully there are some beautiful WP themes/templates out there. Here is Alex King’s WordPress Styles page to get you started:
    http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/styles.php

    We will be using a PHP based system; that is my #1 favorite thing about WordPress, it is SO customizable. Anything you can program with PHP, you can easily add to your blog 🙂 Also, each use will have their own WordPress installation, it won’t be shared like the current MT installation.

    Your work on 2WR always pushed the MT limits IMHO, so I’m VERY excited to see the amazing things you’ll do with WordPress.

    Respectfully,
    -JD

  3. Thanks for the Kind words JD.

    I am currently setting up a PHP/APache/MySQL server to convert my templates on my own. I’ll let you know when I break it.

    Any Idea what the timeline will be?

  4. Excellent news, JD!! WordPress is showing that it’s a cooler platform than MP. And, with this move, you are showing that you are the cooler guys around! I’m eagerly awaiting the conversion to WP.

  5. This sounds really exciting! I have read such good things about wordpress…. here’s hoping everything goes smoothly for all of you in the changeover.

  6. Wonderful news JD. When we had the UTF-8 problems and delays during the V2 upgrade, I had moved to create a WordPress based blog already. However, the host has several server problems starting from those hurricanes in Florida.
    When you complete migration to WordPress, I would be very happy to move my blog back to weblogs.us

    As usual you are providing a wonderful service and making the right moves.

    Will you provide phpMyAdmin, etc?

    Thanks
    Selvaraj.

  7. Selvaraj,
    We’re glad to have you back! Currently we are trying to figure out how to give users as much control as possible, while still making sure the entire system is secure.

    If phpMyAdmin is something our users* want, we will find a way to give it to them.

    *NOTE: for the near future, signups to weblogs.us will likely be on an invitation basis (as per Gmail.)

  8. Thanks a lot, J.D.!!! You are always adding nice things for us to use. I would like to make the switch to WordPress…what are the steps that I take?

  9. Hey J.D.! I downloaded WordPress but did not have the brain power to edit my wp-config-sample file. Do I need to edit this….and if so…how! LOL

  10. Hey PenguinBoy!

    For right now there’s nothing you need to do. This week I’m finishing a couple projects and then I’ll move on to WP.

    The current plan is to have automated signup available to all our current users. You will be able to keep your old MT blog and test drive the new WP blog. Even use the both concurrently if you want.

    To do this we may add a 2nd domain, or else just let people choose a new blog prefix…

    Sorry I don’t have more info for you right now PenguinBoy, but rest assured you’ll be one of the first bloggers to have the WP opportunity!

    PS If you want it now, http://www.blogthing.com/ looks like a nice free WP choice. They have advertising on their blogs (we don’t have and won’t have) but I still like what they’re doing!

  11. Nice work, I’d be willing to switch – looking forward to it actually. Thanks again for the update (although I’m reading it late)

    -Andreas

  12. You guys really suck!

    Transferring all your users over to wordpress is really gonna suck and its really unfair to your users. You obviously don’t know shit about what you are doing. If you’ve got PHP working on your web server, MT worked absolutely fine with it.

    If any users read this, get out of weblogs.us as fast as you can. Check out this article

    http://tweezersedge.com/archives/2004/10/000499.html

    Update: http://www.chrisfryer.com/blog/archives/2004/11/i_think_i_am_an.php

  13. Chris, if you read a couple of posts above you JD said you will be able to keep your MT blog if wanted. You will have the opportunity to switch to WP.

    JD, regarding phpMyAdmin. Im not sure its something the uses would need unless you give them access to their own MySQL database. All you can do with phpMyAdmin is control the database. Just something to think about.

  14. Yeah Ronnie, I agree that it’s really only an issue if somebody needs MySQL DB access. It would still be nice to give folks the option if they want it (sometimes I find it easier to do stuff in SQL than having to do it through code/CMS)

    For our current users, Ronnie is right, you don’t have to switch! I’m awaiting permission from SixApart to share all the details 🙂

    Best wishes,
    -JD

  15. Cool news, JD. I have been trying to get started with WordPress for some time now, and this looks like the best opportunity to do it.

    Thanks!
    Sandeep

  16. I have tried many blog hosts and services, from original Blogger to mBlog. You are the guys who showed more respect for us, users. Bad stuff happens, like the UTF-8 move, but I know it’s always on the best intentions. Waiting eagerly for the WordPress conversion (that’s good news).

  17. JD,
    Thanks again for all the great work ya’ll do! I’d just assume stay with MT, ONLY because I love my layout ‘as=is’… although I sure could use ANOTHER blog… and that would be fine in WP….
    Noreen

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