New Digital Dream Machine Blog URL

You can find the new URL for the Digital Dream Machine blog at:

www.digitaldreammachine.com/blog

Please update your links and bookmarks.

I decided to make the leap and use WordPress for the new blog. I found out I have the ability for MySQL databases on the Dreamhost web hosting account we purchased and since it's required to run WordPress, I dove in and managed to set it up the new DDM blog. I'm certainly no coding guru, but WordPress support and the web searches helped guide me through setting up the database and blog.

It took me a few days, but thankfully I was able to import most of the Blogger data over into the WordPress blog without much hassle. There were a few things the import missed (Amazon.com and Amazon.ca links) and the images could still be modified to better fit the WordPress template, but overall it went relatively smooth. Over the past few days I have been cleaning up the links, adding and tweaking code, and enhancing the DDM blog with plugins. Expect more revisions in the coming months while I optimize the site.

So why the move?

1. Blogger has been having a lot of downtime recently. Many times I have tried to log into the blog to find the service down for maintenance or I can't connect to upload a new post.
2. Features. Simply put, WordPress has more. Including:

• Themes - WordPress makes switching the look of one's blog relatively painless. There are numerous websites devoted to WordPress themes.
  
• Categories - a very nice feature for organizing one's posts by just that - categories.
  
• Plug-in capability - great since there are a lot of extras people have developed to enhance WordPress.
  
• The WordPress-powered blog seems to load faster despite the amount of images I usually include in the site.
  

I'll be leaving the Blogger version up for archival purposes and just in case things go awry on the WordPress version.

The Alberta Movie Guide is also staying on Blogger for now. You can use the new URL to access it though at http://www.albertamovieguide.com.

Ken and I will also let Luxo stay up on Blogger for now, so you can find that at the same link.

I think Blogger is still a good blogging service and I've heard they'll be doing some upgrades to the service soon so it's a good choice for getting people blogging, but for more advanced features, WordPress looked too enticing to pass up.

Thanks for the support here on Blogger and I look forward to seeing and hearing from all of you over at the new URL!

P.S. I also had a nice birthday dinner (roast, potatoes, carrots, gravy, and cake courtesy of sis, mom, and dad) at my sister's place last night and visited with one of my grandmothers later that evening. I even managed to squeeze in two of my favorite films, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, while working on the blog update and scanning paperwork last night and early this morning. Thanks for all the birthday greetings and digital cards!

I Missed The Woz

As some of you know, my wife met Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak back in April.

I caught the local news here in Edmonton tonight, and imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I found out he appeared in Edmonton this morning to speak at a tech conference. I wasn't aware of the conference so of course I missed out on his keynote conference speech. I'm guessing he's been touring around guest speaking and helping to promote his new book, iWoz.

Woz is certainly the more accessible of the two main Apple founders and it's likely I'll get to hear him speak at a later time, but it's still disappointing that he was right here in Edmonton and I didn't know until it was too late. Even if you're not an Apple or Woz fan, you can't deny his contributions and effect on the worlds of personal computing and education. Hopefully the attendees were able to realize who they were listening to.

Oh well.