export

T is for Transfer

Fandango25 Comments

Some of you don’t know that when I started this blog in May of 2017, the name of this blog was “This, That, and the Other” and its URL was “https://fivedotoh.com.” By August of last year, I had published almost 12,000 posts, had more than a million views, more than 141,000 comments, and more than 327,500 likes. And my blog had more than 6,400 followers/subscibers at that time.

But then I had to abruptly shut down that blog because some internet nogoodniks hijacked it, stealing every post I’d ever published, and every comment others made on my posts, and started publishing them all on a dozen or so different bogus daily news roundup sites.

WordPress was no help in finding out what was going on, and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t identify who the actual culprits were in order to stop them. So I shut “This, That, and the Other” down at the end of this last August. That left me with two options: quit blogging or start a new blog from scratch. I chose the latter.

I created a new blog that I titled “Facts, Fictions & Fantasies” because most of my posts fall into those genres. My new URL became “https://mymindmappings.com.”

Fortunately, I didn’t really have to start totally from scratch. WordPress supports a process that enables the transfer of files from one blog to another, say from an old blog to a new one. Using that tool, I was able to create an export file from This, That, and the Other and import that file to my new blog, Facts, Fictions & Fantasies. The import included my posts, images, and comments, which were transferred to my new blog. I was unable, though, to transfer likes or followers (subscribers), though.

I started posting on this latest blog in late August and took my former blog, the one that got hijacked, private. I still have it, but I haven’t posted anything on it since late August and downgraded it to the free plan.

I appreciate those of you who followed my former blog and found and subscribed to my new blog here after I shut down my previous blog. And I welcome all of you who have only discovered my blog since September. I have so much gratitude for all of the support and encouragement you had given me over that difficult period. It’s because of all of you that I am still here, still blogging, and hopefully informing and entertaining you.

2025 A to Z posts: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

FOWC With Fandango — Export

Fandango16 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “export.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

Putting It All Behind Me

Fandango18 Comments

August is finally over, and for me, from a blogging perspective, it was not a good month. I spent a lot of August dealing the the consequences of the pirates who stole my blog and began replicating it in its entirety on nearly a dozen bogus daily news roundup sites.

I figured something was wrong when, starting on July 21st, my blog’s views began spiking from its normal 250 to 400 a day to over 1,200. On another day, more than 1,600 views, and on August 23rd, more than 2,400 views.

I used another source I have, StatCounter, to check my views and that was how I learned of those bogus news roundup sites, where most of my views were coming from. When I brought this to the attention of WordPress, they listened attentively, shrugged their shoulders, and wished me luck.

My only option, I figured, was to shut down my old blog and start a new one. So I went about doing that. I created this blog, Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies, and then, five days ago, I created an export file of all of my posts, pages, images, and comments from the other blog and imported them into this blog.

Now that I’ve done that, today I set my old blog to private and this is now my one and only public blog. Below is what shows up when someone goes to one of those news roundup sites:

I will likely shut my old blog down entirely by the end of the year or sooner.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Just a few words about the blog export and import process. When it came to posts, pages, images, and comments, it worked well. Easier than I expected. They all came over. But not everything came over. None of my 6,400+ followers came over in the process. So as of today, this blog has only 49 followers.

Two other things didn’t get imported, which is kind of weird. All of my imported posts have zero likes, which looks strange. Posts that have 20 or 30 comments have no likes. Fascinating, huh?

And my theme (blog template) didn’t import, so I had to rebuild that from scratch. That took a while, but I ran into issues recreating my sidebar. These days widgets are all configured for the block editor, versus when I originally created my blog using the classic editor. So my widgets don’t look or behave on this blog like they did on my previous one. But all of them are there.

Oh, one last thing. Where my blog was averaging between 250 to 400+ views per day, since I started this blog, I’ve averaged just 211 views a day. But, hey, when you have only 49 followers, I guess that’s not too shabby.

Anyway, I am ready to put all of this behind me and I shall never speak of this topic again.

Success!

Fandango34 Comments

Last night while I was sleeping, I successfully exported all of my posts, pages, media, comments, etc. from “This, That, and the Other” and imported them to here, “Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies.” And it was remarkably easy. Believe it or not, I did it all on my iPhone!

The only thing that wasn’t imported were my followers (or as WordPress now calls them “subscribers”). On my other blog I have 6,458 subscribers. On this blog I have 24. A big thank you to the 24 of you who have come over here to this blog.

Oh wait. There was one other thing that I lost. As of August 24th, the day of my last post on This, That, and the Other, I had a streak of 2,635 consecutive days of posting. As of now on this blog, my streak is three days. Oh well.

But now that I have completed that export/import process, I think it’s time to shut down “This, That, and the Other.” There’s no need for it anymore. So, I have an announcement to make:

As of this coming Friday, August 30, 2024, “This, That, and The Other” will be deleted.

I sure hope that the 6,434 subscribers to that blog will be able to find their way to this blog to re-subscribe.

Let’s Get This Show on the Road

FandangoLeave a comment

Over the next few days I am going to begin the process is of setting up and migrating to a new blog by:

  • Creating an export file containing all of my posts (11,866 as of this writing), my 3 gigabyte media file, and my 140,600 comments on this blog.
  • Setting up my new site (name and URL to be determined).
  • Importing contents using the previously created export file to a new site.
  • Shutting down this blog after I’ve confirmed that the three above steps were successful, and go forward with the new blog.

I was warned that, due to the size of my blog, I may have to create multiple export files in smaller chunks (e.g., 2017-2020 and 2021-2024 or more) and to import each file individually. So this process may take a while. But with any luck, my new WordPress blog should be up and running by sometime next week.

In the meantime, I will continue to post my daily word prompts here and to participate in at least some of the prompts you guys are posting. I will also read and respond to as many comments as time permits.

Then I will post one last time on this blog, sending a big “fuck you” to all of those bogus news sites that hijacked my blog and continue to replicate it their sites.

A Record Breaking Day

FandangoLeave a comment

And no, I’m not talking about the Olympics. Nor am I referring to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Nor the number of dollars in a single day raised by the Kamala Harris for President campaign.

I’m taking about my blog and the 1,580 views it received yesterday.

You would think that with 1,580 views there would have been more than 129 Likes, right? I don’t think bots are capable of clicking or tapping on the Like button. And I think that somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 of the 1,580 views are bogus, bot-generated views. 83% of the page views yesterday were on my Home Page/Archives, while my top viewed new post yesterday received only 39 views!

So I’ve made the decision to shut down this blog, fivedotoh.com, and to start a new blog. It’s going to be a long, tedious process. First I need to create and set up my new blog. Then I need to go to this, my current blog, and export all of my posts, pages, images, and comments. And my blog is big: 11,758 posts so far, almost 140,000 comments, and more that three gigabytes of images in my media folder. So I don’t know if that’s too big to import everything!

Here are the instructions WordPress provided.

Sounds simple enough but I know it’s going to take a long time to do it all — if I can do it all. My target is to have my new blog up and running by September, but in the meantime, I will continue posting here.

Worst case scenario, if I can’t do a successful export and import, I will keep this blog up, but stop posting anything new. All of my new posts will be on my new blog once it’s ready.

Copyright © 2017-present by Fandango, fivedotoh.com, This, That, and the Other. All rights reserved. This blog, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

MLMM/Weekend Writing Prompt — it’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity

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“It’s so damn humid,” Daniel complained. “I’m feeling so languid. I don’t mind the heat, but this mugginess is killing me. I’m literally doing nothing and yet I’m sweating like a pig. I’m more accustomed to dry heat.”

“Well, you’ll just have to export yourself back to Phoenix,” Jimmy said.

“Or import the dry air from Phoenix.”

(57 words)

Written for the Weekend Writing Prompt from Sammi Cox, where the word is “languid” in 57 Words.Also for the Saturday Mix – Opposing Forces from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, where the word pairs are humid and dry and import and export.