Buzzword.Com Will Shut Down May 21

Buzzword.Com will shut down on May 21, which means the last two dozen weblogs on the free Manila hosting service have one month to find a new home.

I've enjoyed running the server for the past two years, but I'm doing all of my work these days on Linux servers running Java, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Buzzword runs on UserLand Frontier with Windows 2000 Server.

All Buzzword weblogs can keep using their domain names after they move, so Google pagerank and existing traffic won't be lost. I'll provide free name service for any publisher who requests it.

There are several options for bloggers to consider:

Move your site without modification to a commercial Manila host. Erin Clerico of Weblogger.Com has offered Buzzword users a discount -- the first year of hosting for $49.95 -- and UserLand also provides commercial hosting.
Move your site to Movable Type, WordPress or another tool that supports Movable Type's export format.
Create an HTML archive of your existing site.

The easiest option is to stay on Manila. BookNotes is moving to Weblogger.Com today, and it takes around 10 minutes to export the site, copy the files over and install it on the new server.

Moving to other weblogging software takes around 8-16 hours, depending on the size of the weblog, and requires some testing to ensure that all links and images continue to work properly. Some features won't be copied over, such as the site's blogroll and page templates, but all weblog entries, articles and images will be transferred.

Creating an HTML archive takes 1-2 hours, but you won't be able to edit the site afterward with Manila or any other blogging tool.

Buzzword users should let me know which option you'd like to pursue. I can package sites for export to another Manila host at no cost and handle the other options for a fee.

When I launched Buzzword, the server was front-page news all over the place. A lot of bloggers wanted to know what I'd do with 3,018 sites that had been hosted on Weblogs.Com for years until they were taken offline in an abrubt shutdow-, er, server outage.

With a lot of help, I installed the blogs on a dedicated Super Celeron 2.4 Windows server at ServerMatrix that had a monthly 1,200 gigabyte bandwidth limit (later expanded to 1,400).

The server never exceeded 150 gigabytes a month in bandwidth, primarily because less than 100 of those 3,018 blogs were still active. My total cost for two years has been $2,200 -- a $400 setup charge plus $79 a month for hosting and backups -- and around 2-4 hours a week to keep the server ticking.

Manila · 2006/04/21 · 8 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Just 'cuz I'm curious, what are you planning to use for any site exports from Manila to MT?

#1 · Jason · 2006/04/21

I had good luck with your script in moving BookNotes, though Craig ultimately decided to stick with Manila.

I wish I had a script like that when I moved a Radio weblog last week. I ended up coding a Java application that used Radio's XML archive, rather than iterating through the data with UserTalk.

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2006/04/21

Rogers. First, thanks for the two years of free hosting. Second, someone was kind enough to arrange, without my asking, a redirect from my buzzword site (bubkes.buzzword.com) to my present blog address as per above. My thanks to whoever it was! Good luck ... Stephen Lewis

#3 · Stephen Lewis · 2006/04/24

PS. My present blog address is www.bubkes.org<>

#4 · visitor · 2006/04/24

(Sorry -- I had forgotten to check in here!)

I'm glad that my script was useful to you for moving Manila sites; if you continue to use it and find any glaring errors or issues, I'd appreciate a line letting me know so that I can correct them on the version over here.

And I once tried to delve into a Radio site to figure out the structure of the DB records, but got a little lost and didn't have the patience to keep digging. My familiarity with the Manila site structure was based on running (and tweaking the hell out of) my own Manila site for a few years, and building two other apps atop of Manila; that being said, I *still* found that there were places where the data was ambiguous, poorly-described, or just baffling. The idea of getting into the same morass with Radio, without the benefit of a few years of hands-on knowledge of the app, made me queasy. :)

#5 · Jason · 2006/05/02

I saw your post

buzzword.com

I'd like a copy of this please. It is my old weblogs.com site and although it's no longer online I can't help but wonder if there's a copy lying around somewhere. I appreciate you looking into this! My weblog is from back in Oct. 1999 which was just before all the other blogging programs had 'import' software, my new blog has been missing a lot of posts, due to everything having been hand-imported.

#6 · Bobbi Jo Woods · 2006/05/14

Nice site!
tramadol online | cheap viagra | discount phentermine | buy viagra | buy phentermine online

#7 · Diana · 2006/06/26

mhpcwwka kycczago http://nopekxwn.com zsvnrkio ppjfuufr

#8 · qzqvsull · 2006/07/16