Comments on: Blogging 310: Taking the Self-Hosted WordPress Plunge

By: Braddo (Brad Ovenell-Carter)

Braddo (Brad Ovenell-Carter) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:59:54 +0000

@julieoc read this re moving to self-hosting http://bit.ly/tT62

By: AGX Hosting

AGX Hosting — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:40:04 +0000

Nice sharing of thoughts. Especially from that of Bill Ferris. =)

By: My Last Wordpress.com Post (I Hope) « Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:00:44 +0000

[...] Social Media University, Global (SMUG) Suus Non Ut Difficile • Home of the SMUGgles « Blogging 310: Taking the Self-Hosted WordPress Plunge [...]

By: Bill Ferris

Bill Ferris — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:08:05 +0000

Also, if you’re interested, here are some of the plugins I find are most valuable:
http://baseblogging.net/2008/02/23/what-works-for-me-wordpress-plugins/

By: Bill Ferris

Bill Ferris — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:31:37 +0000

I’d actually go with as few plug-ins as possible in case there are any problems. You can test for the plugin compatability with MAMP, but I’d lift it without the plugins. The majority of plugins are pretty easy to add on the fly. It would only be if you had to hack your templates to display the plugin that I’d do it ahead of time.

By: leeaase

leeaase — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:05:57 +0000

Thanks for the guidance, Bill. As I’ve been playing with MAMP, which let me install WordPress 2.7 on my Mac, I’ve been able to get a copy of my blog imported and I have been playing with plug-ins. It also was really cool that WordPress had an option to automatically download the attachments/graphics.

I was afraid I would need to get the DNS changed in advance, but if I can do the same thing accessing via IP address as I have with my local host (on my Mac), that should work well.

I’m also thinking maybe I should get everything working on the local server, including installing plug-ins, and then ftp the whole site to my new hosting service. Does that make sense to you?

By: Bill Ferris

Bill Ferris — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:01:22 +0000

If you wait and switch the DNS for social-media-university-global.org until you have your new site all set-up, broken links shouldn’t be an issue. Your hosting provider should have a way to access the new site using IP address. You can use this to configure and test the new site, and once it’s set up you can then put in the DNSchange.

People will continue to be accessing the old site until the DNS starts to point the name to the new site. The only thing you would potentially lose would be comments that are left on the old site during the 2 day period where the DNS propagation takes place.

For your sanity though, once you make the DNS change, you can test to see which site your accessing (the old or new) by going to a command line and typing ping social-media-university-global.org. This will show you the IP that is responding so you’ll know if you’re at least seeing the old or the new.