Brave New World – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Brave New World

by Big Dave  

Brave New World

A leap into the dark!

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After having availed myself of the free hosting on WordPress.com, I have decided to take the plunge into unknown territory and transfer the hosting of the site to Evohosting, based here in the UK.  This transfer should take place soon after midnight BST, in time for a fresh start in the morning.

I am told that it can take up to 48 hours for the Domain Name Servers around the world to be updated, so I have taken the precaution of acquiring a new domain – bigdave44.co.uk – and that is already pointing at the new site.  Comments will be closed on this new site until the transfer of all of the data has been completed, but you can get a sneak preview right now!.  At this moment in time, only posts up to the end of February have been transferred as the others are still open to comments – they will all be transferred after midnight.

So why have I taken this step?

Although I have been thinking about it for some time, the main motivation for doing it now has been the fiasco over leaving comments that was caused by constraints imposed on the system in order to prevent people from posing as well-known industry personalities – in particular Google’s Matt Cutts.  Before you shout “Who the hell is he?”, I’d never heard of him before the introduction of the restrictions either.  If you wish to leave a comment then you will need to enter name and email address, just like before – hopefully this will result in no more “Anonymous” comments.

Among a number of other benefits, I can now add java apps and html code to the site – starting with this weekend’s NTSPP puzzle which will be available on the site in interactive format.

What’s the downside?

It’s obviously more expensive for me, but I hope to recover most if not all of the extra cost through advertising.

What has not been transferred?

It has not been possible to transfer the page view statistics or the ratings at the end of each puzzle.  I do not intend to transfer most of the media files – they will remain on the old site.  By the way, the old site will still be accessible via bigdave44.wordpress.com, but I hope that no-one will need to go back there.

What else has changed?

Very little, but I have taken this opportunity to tidy up the sidebar as this was getting to be ridiculously long.  Some widgets have been dropped completely, and the links to other sites have been transferred to a fixed page which will be available via the menu at the top of the blog – imaginatively titled “Links”!

What if I am sent back to the old site?

If you find that a link somewhere takes you back to the old site, then please leave a comment giving the address of the page and I will try to fix it.  Please note that this only applies after the transfer of the domain name has been completed – i.e. if you have to use the .co.uk address to get to the new site, some links from fixed pages may end up on the old site.

 

19 comments on “Brave New World”

  2. Good luck with this and many thanks for the efforts you and others put into this great community. No doubt there will be hiccoughs along the way but I’m sure it’s the right direction.

    Best

    W

  3. In God and you we trust, Dave. I hope that everything goes according to plan and I’m sure that you’ll go from strength to strength.

    1. Mary, my main concern is about your little dog! Don’t let him/her out of your sight tonight! A tight leash is required. :smile:

    2. Or thinking of it another way, I hope we don’t lose Big Dave and that the new site still permits him to post his wonderful illustrations of hints:)

  5. I’ve logged into the admin side and all looks very similar (due to the BD/Sandbox styling). I am sure that all will go well and any little issues are now under the control of BD himself and not a Happiness Engineer!

  8. Hope I get back here………..well there, wherever that may be, well done Dave and I trust all goes well you old dare devil you :-)

  9. This all sounds SOOOOOOOOO complicated! Oh dear!! Completely beyond me. :sad: I do hope to be able to find you all tomorrow.

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