Goodbye Blogger

Feels like almost four years ago that I last did this, posted a Testing Testing post. Only now I know what's involved in blogging, where it can take you and what you have to do to keep it going. One of the things I had to do recently was get off Blogger. See, sooner or later, Blogger makes sure that anyone who is uploading via FTP: (i.e., anyone who hosts their blog on their own web site) becomes miserable. Blogger sends plagues of locusts and boils and finishes those prideful souls off with plain old recalcitrance. Blogger (which I refer to as Booger) slows down to a crawl, and then flat out refuses to take any photos at all. For a photographer, that qualifies as a major bummer.

Bill of the Birds had to flee from Blogger to Blogspot, and I had a few more months of joy, and then one fine day in July Booger wouldn't take my photos atall. Hey, it seemed like symmetry, given that my laptop had been out of commission and flying back and forth between here and Houston for most of July anyway. Nothing more than I deserved.

And I sighed and uploaded via Flickr, which took a mere eight to ten clicks, leading to something like six different pages, for each berloody photo I put up. Can you say Clunky Interface? Flickr. Please. Figure it out. And even then, I had to manually resize each durn one, or they'd flop all outside the template. Sometimes Chet's head would look stretched or too tall and I was just too durn tired to go back in and twiddle with it. Doesn't take long before that gets old.

The other thing about Booger is that it won't let you use any but one of a handful of designs, each more generic and worst than the last, if you are hosting your blog on your own website. I chose Rounders, that hospital-green, generally inoffensive template. It was the least worst. Meanwhile, I drooled over friends' truly pretty blogs, blogs with artwork and photos and curliques on them. For almost four years I have looked at that moss-green template and rolled my eyes. Clearly, it's time to go.

I do have to remind myself here that Booger, with all its frustrations, is still FREE. Duh. You get what you pay for. And I really am grateful for this self-publishing forum that's held my attention for all these years and thousands of posts. I am. I'm just moving on.

I'm going to post a photo now, and see if it takes under a half hour. Hmm. Which photo shall I choose?

This is what happens when you leave your Mac alone. This is how uploading photos via Flickr makes me feel. You may have noticed that I have been a bit testy lately. Little things like "Jack" selling his alarm systems in my comments living room drive me up the wall. Well. Blogging five days a week is hard enough without getting a raft from Booger and Flicka.

Farewell, Booger. Bye bye, Flicka. I'm headed to Blogspot, where a gal can have nice pitchers on her blog template, and upload photos nice and fast. It's been real, but I'm moving on.

Blog redesign to follow. I spent a lovely afternoon choosing oh, two hundred photos and bits of artwork that I thought summed up my blog perfectly. I burned them all on a DVD and sent them to Oz. It's up to my WebWizardess, she who stands behind the curtain, to decide which ones work. She has the most unenviable of jobs, but she is unfailingly kind and professional with me. I am sure from her perspective it's like being employed by J. Fred Muggs.

I want dis one and dis one and dis one and dis one and DIS ONE! Eeeep! Eeep! Eeeep!

What will you all have to do? Just change your bookmarks, that's all. Update your RSS feeds. Delete the old Zickblog bookmark and use this'n. Do it on all your browsers, and do it now, while I'm standing over you shaking my finger.

OLD BOOKMARK: http://www.juliezickefoose.com/blog

NEW BOOKMARK:

http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com

Those using Feedburner and LiveJournal to access my blog should have uninterrupted service, since those are being swapped over. After tomorrow (Tuesday, August 25), everyone visiting the blog directly via the web should be redirected automatically.

Thank you. Keep on reading, and I'll keep on keepin' on.