Houston, We have WordPress

If you are seeing this, you probably realize things look a bit different around the blog. Not terribly different, but different none the less. It is slightly more than changing the theme this time, though I managed to find one that was close to what it previously was. Today’s change is slightly bigger. We’re running WordPress 3.0 (RC).

As I mentioned on Monday, I’ve been considering a possible migration. Since Sunday, I’ve been spending some serious time tinkering with WordPress. At first it was just a test site, then it was a possible migration platform, finally it became a full fledged copy of the blog (but in WP). Basically I haven’t found any major issues stopping my migration. Sure, WordPress isn’t without its flaws, but it sure is nice. The fact that posts auto-save the draft literally brings a tear to my eye. You have no idea (Editor’s note: Seriously, you don’t.) how many posts John and I have both lost because our cookie to Serendipity timed out or F5 was hit by accident (Hell, I lost the “possible migration” post from Monday once because of F5).

Since I had several days worth of “futzing” time under my belt, the physical switch from Serendipity to WordPress wasn’t all that big of a deal. The switch was executed shortly after 0000 (midnight) and by 0100, I had most of the minor kinks that popped up, worked out. A few of the issues included: changing the site name, changing the table prefix, creating more mod_rewrite rules to catch 404s. When all is said and done, less than an hour to fix the minor issues is fantastically small. Even still, I’m sure something will show up to pick a fight with me over the next week.

Just as a note, I will share my experiences in depth with the world. Among other things, I’ve got scripts (for importing), mod_rewrite, template hack tricks, and a few fun “this is what not to do” to share with you.

PS. There is a mobile site now too. Just load up snowulf.com on any run of the mill portable device (Android, iPhone, Blackberry, etc) and you’ll automatically get the mobile friendly version. It is quite nice.