I guess what I just wrote in answer to Peter also addresses your advice… I feel not ready for wrestling with browser code. Maybe in my next life

Cheers,
T.

So I guess I will take your advice. The more so since the older I get, the less skilled I become on software issues…

Thanks
T.

I run my own copy of the WordPress software on our department web-server. The main problem has always been that security problems are regularly found in their software, so you have to keep updating it often. In the past this has been an annoyingly elaborate process, taking much more time than it should. I think they may now have some new way to do this which is easier, but I haven’t tried it.

The spam situation is horrific, with floods of the stuff coming in, and an ongoing battle between the spam recognition software and the spammers. The WordPress Akismet plugin seems to work as well as anything, but regularly lets spam through and misidentifies legitimate comments as spam. My main problem with it is that it is completely unconfigurable: as far as I can tell I can’t whilte-list addresses (e.g., my own..).

All in all, unless you really enjoy spending time fiddling with software, I’d suggest you stick with your current set-up changing only if the WordPress people get significantly more annoying. You’re not going to do better on spam recognitions, and the cost of controlling the thing yourself is a lot more work.

Peter

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

(just the “Post” tag) and almost immediately found

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-layout/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sniplets/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/header-footer/

There are probably more, but judging by the descriptions, any of these should be able to display a link to your new blog in, above or below all your posts.

I like a lot the image of francophones messing up by dialoguing in English. As for the Pope and Berlusconi (yes, they still are two distinct entities), well – they both seem to have their hands full: the former with anglican marriages taking place between gay priests (!), the latter with fixing his own lawsuits.

Cheers,
T.

GW: hearing you talking about hacks makes them look easy – but I am not such a hacker. Not anymore, anyway.

But thanks for the advice, I will do some research next month (I’m on vacation in mid July).

Cheers,
T.

I know typepad, thank you… I used it in the Quantum Diaries year (2005). I do not know whether the features have improved since then. Also, the accounts we had had been dealt with by our editors, and so I do not know what to make of my experience there…

I was thinking about something I could set up by myself, though.

Cheers,
T.

When I read “this blog is inactive” this morning while trying to visit your site I excitedly thought, “Ah Ha! I know exactly what happened! It was just a matter of time!”

1. Berlusconi’s government finally caught up with you for reasons they can’t reveal.

2. The Vatican was going to make you revisit ‘the inquisition’ for not kissing the Pope’s ___.

3. Fermilab decided to accuse you for the recent lack of funds by photoshopping your official company I.D. to a long list of co-authored failed experiments.

4. They found your fingerprints on an empty bottle of Chianti in one of the secret passages under the LHC. The Swiss and French authorities are arguing over your faux pas in English.

5. You were just about to expose the first real evidence of the Higgs Boson creature, which was hermetically sealed in the black queen’s side knight of your portable traveling chess set. (This was the kink in your armor as nobody carries a traveling chess set anymore.)

p.s. I think you have time to gather any relevant info before you make any rash decisions.

If the new blog uses WordPress too, the hack should be able to generate the corresponding URL for each post. But it may not be good netiquette to automatically redirect visitors. Just giving them a link should be enough.

Hi GW,

ok, but the incoming links ? Maybe I should create some kind of mirror instead, and continue working on wordpress ? I have no idea how to create a mirror though.

Cheers,
T.

The email SPAM filter for my ISP catches many good emails as spam (very inconvenient), & lets some spam thru as “good”. It’s an ongoing research topic (@Microsoft Research & other places), about how to combat illicit use of the Web.

I have a lot of xxxx.blogspot.com Blogger blogs. I was blogging from Egypt (for the ‘06 solar eclipse), & all of a sudden Blogger shut down my blog (like in your case). A quick succession of blog entries flagged their spam filter. Like in your case, it was very inconvenient.