Importing an Archive
Nov 26th, 2009 by Alex
I’ve been blogging since 2001.
After a brief stint using my own PHP-based blogging platform, I started using an external blog host in 2002. Then in 2004 I started using MovableType, hoping to provide a more polished and professional-looking site. Back then, my writing was mostly technical in nature (mostly scripting solutions, hardware troubleshooting, and mini how-to articles).
Then I changed jobs, working in a different office for a while. I found it difficult to translate what I was doing professionally into words. My technical writing slowed, but I still had thoughts to get out but I didn’t feel like cluttering up the “professional” site with musings and rants.
In late 2005 I started this blog — this time using Wordpress — as an outlet for everything non-technical. Except that I never really got back into the technical stuff. Also, sometime between then and now — for reasons unknown — I removed the front page in favor of something more vague and corporate-like. Google still retains a fairly good record of the blog’s contents, despite the front page being removed for many years.
Which brings me to today. After seeing a coworker’s web site, I’ve been inspired to import the old archive of technical posts into Wordpress (and maybe, continue to add new technical articles from time to time). All of the imported posts will be tagged, post-dated, grouped under the “archive” category, and except for minor typos left unedited. You wouldn’t believe how many times I misspelled “separate.” Some of the content is clearly dated, but I think it’s cool to see how things have changed. Broken links, references to old software versions, and more than a few practices that I would never condone today.
It’s like the WayBack Machine, just localized.
