Goodbye iBlog, Hello Blogger...

Yes, I've neglected my blog. If it were a child, it would be dead. If it were a puppy it would have run away. I'm going to change that, but let me explain first.

I've neglected my blog mainly because of the iBlog software (for my mac) that I started my blog with over 3 years ago. iBlog restricts me to posting only from home (since that's the only place that I have access to a mac)... and to tell ya the truth, I'd post a lot more often if I could do it from anywhere.

I've spent a lot of time looking for a solution to my blogging problem. While iBlog was a great free beginners tool for me, overall it was a large pain in the ass! Hard to format pics, easy to backup but hard as hell to restore it 100%.

So... the search was on for a web based solution that would meet my needs.

I looked at SEVERAL solutions. My Space, Vox, Serendipity, WordPress, Drupal, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Blogger, etc.

Features I was looking for...

*Ability to make a few categories within the same blog
*Ability to add images inline with the text
*Minimal or no ads
*Ability to search
*Not My Space like
*Web interface so I didn't have to install anything

Blogger, now owned by Google (and I love google) was the perfect solution. I just wish I found it first instead of pissing away all that time trying the other solutions I listed above!

With Blogger, I can update from home, from work, from my cell phone, from pretty much ANYWHERE I can get some sort of internet access!

Once I decided on Blogger, I soon had to come to a decision. Start from square one or transfer over all of the posts from my old blog? There was a lot of good content in the old blog (at least I think so) and it would be a shame to just ignore it all so I decided to transfer everything over.

That's not an easy task. It's not like there's a "transfer from iBlog" button here. It has to be done manually with every post.

So, I've spent the vast majority of the past weekend slowly copying, pasting, re-adding links & pictures to over 300 posts from the iBlog days.

Was it worth it? You decide... I'm just glad it's done.