Moving from WordPress back to Blogger

I originally started this blog on Blogger and decided to move it back specifically because of the ease with which you can post via email and add twitter updates via more simple methods than what I’ve found for wordpress. I found a tool to import my WP exported xml file into Blogger, but it was by no means straightforward. So I thought I’d post some supplementary how to info for those of us with rudimentary command line skills:

• First as I mentioned above, I made an xml export of my entire wordpress blog by going to the “Manage” Dashboard page and clicking on the “Download Export File” button (54 posts = 236kb)

• Then I downloaded the aforementioned blogsync-java tool

• After reading the readme.txt included with the download, I was a little baffled, so I went to the FAQ page for blogsync to see what stupid questions fellow noobs had already asked for me. About all I could gather from this page was that because I was doing this on a Mac, I needed to edit the run.sh file instead of the run.bat file (for Windows users).

• I also figured out how to check which version of jdk (java) I was running by opening the Terminal application on my Mac (Windows users go to Start/Run, type cmd), and typing “java -version” at the “Macbook$” prompt (my home directory is Macbook, yours is whatever you named yours when you set your Mac up). Doing this felt safe and sure enough I discovered I’m running 1.5.0_13 (1.5.0_12 and above are compliant)

Macintosh:~ Macbook$ java -version

java version “1.5.0_13″

Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_13-b05-237)

Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_13-119, mixed mode, sharing)

• Then I attempted to edit the run.sh file (to “set the jdk bin path”)by opening it with textedit (Windows users open run.bat with notepad) pasting precisely what I saw on the blogsync FAQ page where I thought it should go:

export CP=./build/blogsync.jar:./lib/ws-commons-util-1.0.1.jar:./lib/xmlrpc-client-3.0.jar:./lib/gdata-client-1.0.jar:./lib/xmlrpc-common-3.0.jar

# set the parameters below and run now.

export PATH=/path/to/your/java:$PATH

java -cp $CP org.easter.blogsync.BlogSync

• This done, I then tried to figure out how to open the run.sh file from within Terminal. I successfully changed directories until I got to the directory where run.sh was located:

Macintosh:~ Macbook$ cd documents

Macintosh:documents Macbook$ cd blogsync

And then I ran it:

Macintosh:blogsync Macbook$ sh run.sh

• To my surprise a gui appeared and I managed to import my xml file using the “obvious” options (finally some “obviousness”!). Clicked on “Choose Rss” button, selected wordpress.xml export file, then changed my “to” field to 55 (I actually only imported 54 posts), clicked “Read from R…”, then clicked on the “im…” button

• But then I got this error: “cannot login to blogger account: invalid credentials”

• And it occurred to me that I had never spelled out or been given the opportunity to spell out my my blogger account credentials. I thought it would come up after hitting the import button, but instead I wound up in an endless loop of the program attempting to import, getting denied access, giving me the error such that I had to force quit the application.

• So I started digging and found the “settings.properties” file within the blogsync download folder. I opened it with textedit and sure enough this is where I could set my blogger credentials. The one piece I still wasn’t sure about was “bg.blogid=” and so I googled it and found out how to determine what my “new” blog’s ID was.

#settings

#Mon May 26 16:37:51 EDT 2008

optionRecentFrom=0

optionPostidFrom=155

optionRecentTo=6

rssFileName=

wp.password=mypwd

bg.password=yourgooglepassword

optionRecentFromRss=0

wp.username=admin

bg.username=yourusername@gmail.com

isPostidInOption=false

isPostidOption=false

optionPostidTo=160

isImportCommentRss=false

optionRecentToRss=8

isRecentOption=true

wp.url=http\://localhost/wordpress

bg.blogid=yourgoogleblogid

optionPostidIn=154,155,158

• Back to terminal to type sh run.sh and open the blogsync gui again. This time the import worked and worked rapidly and flawlessly, preserving dates and times posted, pictures and everything (except comments which I didn’t even try to import as I had exactly two for the life of my pitiful blog)

If you’ve googled your way to me, I hope this has helped, and of course now you can also find this same blogpost here!

MacTouch Anyone?

James Kendrick lobbed a hand grenade into the mobiquiblogosphere yesterday with his assertion that the company best capable of producing the “handheld computer” to attract the masses is of course, Apple. Since JK posted at 0dark:30 yesterday morning, a veritable who’s who of mobiquizoid all-stars had all day to chime in with their thoughts in the comments section, and it was a fascinating conversation to say the least. One mobile tech guru glaringly MIA during this discussion: Where for art though Hugo?

My 2 cents: An Ultra Mobile Mac might look like an OQO sized iPhone/iPod Touch minus the slide out qwerty (a MacTouch or iPhone “Fatty” if you will). It might have included in the box the new wireless Apple keyboard, and some sort of Samsung Q1esque Organizer Case. It would weigh less than a pound and the screen would have an 800×600 resolution, scalable of course via the same multi-touch funtionality of the iPhone/iPod Touch. An integrated stand would certainly be nice, but I can’t figure out how to do that in my head while still conforming to Apple’s minimalist design ethos. Ports might include 1 USB, 3.5 mm headphone jack, HDMI Out, iPod like dock receiver, and maybe a SIM card slot. 5 Megapixel camera on the back? Maybe. Under the hood: x86 processor of the Silverthorne variety, 30GB of flash memory and, an embedded but beefier version of the iPhone flavor of OSX with a somewhat compromised version of iWork included. Writing on the screen with some sort of stylus with a Magic Marker like tip – very hard to imagine but imagine how nice an Apple Stylus might be?

Of course this begs the question: who the heck is going to buy this and at what price point? Obvious answer: mobiquizoids at any price point!

Will Hugo Ortega become the next Microsoft evangelist?

Hugo is on his way to Redmond and I can’t help but wonder if with Gartenberg’s sudden arrival to and departure from filling Scoble’s shoes, someone at Microsoft isn’t kicking around the idea of gaging Hugo’s interest? Is there anyone more enthusiastic about the TabletPC or UMPC than he? I wouldn’t be blogging this from a Samsung Q1P were it not for him and I clearly own a Mac (and love much about it). If you want someone Redmond, who can combat the effectiveness of the Mac vs PC commercial campaign and win people over to the possibilities of Vista mobilized, Hugo is the One.

And yes I now own a UMPC and intend to write periodically about that experience. How do I like it so far? At least part of the Samsung fanboy question has been definitively answered! God they make great looking and performing electronics!

Blog Wars

I have recently posted comments on 2 sites that I visit frequently about a war of words between James Kendrick of jkontherun.com and David Ciccone of Mobilitytoday.com (now with a personal blog davidciccone.com) over James “awarding” the DualCor cPC his “Vaporware of the Year”designation. I appreciated Dave’s response to my post as he sounded at least somewhat apologetic, but I have to stand by my man Kendrick who is anything but apologetic in his latest and final response to Ciccone. The biggest reason I’m giving James the benefit of the doubt is the fact that I’ve always assumed Dave and Jack Cook (formerly of MobilityToday and now with MobilitySite which seems to mirror his posts on his own blog experiencemobility) had a falling out over Dave’s decision to go to work for DualCor (pure speculation on my part). I love Jack and I thought he, Dave and Steve Trotto were a terrific (another word Jack uses with I think endearing frequency) podcasting trio, primarily because they seemed to enjoy each other so much. I was really disappointed when Jack left because whatever the cause, I knew it was serious to have broken up such an obvious friendship. I really like Dave too and I was sure he was sticking to his guns on whatever their differences involved for a good reason, but I could’t help but think that he must have left Jack with no choice but to move on. The fact that Dave also threw some mud at jk’s fantastically talented and affable blogging partner Kevin Tofel put another check in Kendrick’s column (for those now sadly keeping score). There has been plenty of cross linking love between jkontherun and mobilitysite since Jack’s emergence there, and I thought he was was probably taking veiled and unecessary stabs at Dave, especially since Dave’s departure from his stint on James’s and Kevin’s MobileTechRoundup podcast back in June. Little did I know of the enmity between Jack and Steve you can find from the link to Steve’s blog above. Regardless of how this budding geek opera plays out, here are 5 great human beings who used to like and respect each other and who not long ago would have loved to have been in the same room together (and a year ago at CES I think were) who I now can’t imagine ever being in the same room together again……. Merry Christmas!