Crashing Worlds

Documenting our Trip: ISP Hazards

Panic set in when Vox announced it was closing down (in Sep, 2010).  Completely shutting shop!  And all its blogs of wisdom would be lost – including ours if we did not act.  We had a month to export or were doomed to perish.  A month isn’t so bad if you’ve got unlimited internet access, all your old photos on hand and several slaves to help you achieve the impossible.  We were on a boat and only in town for a few days.  And we had been posting since 2008.  Our only immediate internet access was Starbucks – a 20 minute bike ride away in downtown Staten Island. 

Vox offered the opportunity to export to Wordpress or Typepad.  GS chose both.  Then on BW’s words of wisdom, proceeded to copy and paste every post into a Word document.  Just to be sure!  Safely locked away, the decision then (to settle on the best blog platform) could be left for “afterwards”.  Starbucks were amazingly patient.  For the price of a few too many coffees, WJ3’s blog world was saved. 

Do you think they'll have an internet connection here?

New Premises

Now, Vox was just so easy to use!  They had even made uploading photos from Picasa a dream too.  After much fiddle-faddling, Wordpress was the first for the executioner’s sword.  The import had gone well, but the software’s inner workings were not as agile nor as artistic for me.  Typepad was easier to use although the free version we were offered had some limitations – mainly size.  Also, the transfer had not gone well and most of the posts needed to be cleaned up.  Font styles and colours changed, photos disappeared or were smaller or larger than before.  This was a job for (much) later on….

In the meantime, we still wanted to record our boating adventures.  So at the Captain’s suggestion, GS took a look at Blogger.  Having read some e-reviews that rated it less desirable than others (only minimally), she was not too sure.  However, a few friends were happily blogging on it, so we trialled a blogspot. 

There was no looking back.  Blogger was easy to use, almost intuitive and an eminently  suitable replacement for Vox.  So began WJ3’s fresh, new start; a record of her sailing journeys, 2011 onwards (link here).  Meanwhile, Typepad sat at home with the posts from cruising seasons 2008 to 2010  - waiting, waiting for a new home…sigh!

We were able to relax & enjoy the delights of Maine after all that hard work

(Ed. And are still happily using it today at the end of 2022!)