OK, so you know how I accidentally deleted my old blog a few months ago? Yes, I’m that stupid. Well, I had some of the entries backed up via livejournal and already imported those. The rest I had backed up in this long ass sql file.
I got to thinking (thoughts can be very dangerous) that I’m pretty smart (uh huh) and I should be able to find a way to import them here. It would be fun …
First, I imported the sql file into a fresh database. Then I exported those entries as xml. I wrote a perl script to parse the xml and put it into RSS format so I can use the RSS Import Plugin import the posts into WordPress. This all should have been much easier than it actually was …
My first problem was that I had to convert the date into RFC-822 format without any perl Date modules because I couldn’t figure out how to install them. I had to hard code some stuff, but I figured no one else is going to be using this piece of crap script anyway. I also had to do things like convert the html encoding for < > into the actual symbols and get rid of escaped quotes.
After all of that, I was able to run my script and import my posts. Most of them anyway. Between June of 2002 and June 2003, I started using b2. I guess some b2 developer decided it would be a good idea to have smart quotes on by default. MySQL doesn’t seem to care for smart quotes much. What I didn’t realize is that when those posts were imported into the database, mySQL cut them all off after it saw the first smart quote. I had 402 unusable blog posts.
So I went back to my perl. I wrote a script to get rid of the smart quotes and escape them properly. Then I imported all of the posts into the database again, deleted the ones that came out OK the first time and exported the newly unsmart quoted posts. Then I ran my script on those. I deleted the junk posts from wordpress and imported the good ones.
Then I hit another problem. Some of the posts were somehow identical to the ones I already imported and deleted and the importer didn’t want to import them again. I had to modify my perl script so it only outputted the ones that didn’t want to import and change the timestamp by a second. Then I imported them again.
It was worse than it sounds. On the bright side, I have all 1400 or so posts now in a readable format and maybe I did have a little fun in a totally geeky way.
I started using blogging software in December of 2001, so anything before that was either done in notepad or copied from my handwritten journals. Most of the posts are badly written and boring, so I only recommend reading them if you’re having trouble sleeping.
Did you ever start a project you wished half way through that you hadn’t?
Oh, this amuses me. I wish I was smart enough to do the same! I only started using WordPress in mid-2009. It seems a while ago now… but before that, I had about a years’ worth of posts from FanUpdate. I wish they had some kind of importer for that. They had one for Cutenews (shocking…) but not for FanUpdate, maybe because it was not so well known.
My posts pre-2007 were manual. I used Haloscan for comments and I do still have the entries coded in HTML, lying somewhere on my laptop. Before that I did have a Livejournal, and owee… I had an MSN Space with a LOT of entries. Apparently that’s all getting changed to WordPress now. But I don’t think I want to import all that stuff into my current database. Not worth reading; I’ll just keep it for myself though, in a backup or whatever. 8D
About starting projects – I have 6000+ songs in iTunes, and I planned on fixing the album art and song information on every single one. I thought it wouldn’t take that long. But I concluded that even if I did 100 a day, it would take me a heck of a long time. :| I started, got to something like “Ae” [Aerosmith] and gave up. XD Now I just try and put in new songs with the right information straight away.
I have way less music than that and I actually did go through and fix everything three years ago when I got my iPod and now I have new stuff and everything’s all messed up again, lol.
That sounds like too much like hard work to me. Also, I doubt any of my visitors check my archives therefore on my website I do not think it would be worth the effort.
Most projects that I start, I wish I had not bothered. One that comes to mind atm is tidying my house because after tidying I can never find anything. I am used to my moisturisers being on my dressing table and not in a drawer. I am used to my plates being in the draining board and not in the cupboard and I hate it when my house smells like bleach :P
In reply to your comment on my blog:
I woke up at 5am by some miracle called my alarm clock, the radio station was not set properly so it hissed at me, this annoyance got me out of bed. Going to bed at 1am was much easier … I crash at around 5pm and put off going to bed until a more reasonable hour such as 10pm and by that point I have my second wind and cannot sleep lol.
Oh boy, that sounds like something I’d encounter for work! Never doing anything with my sites until I can have time to troubleshoot… LOL, that’s why I don’t start any projects online anymore, whether updating, or a new project, just because I know I won’t have time to fix any bugs that I’d encounter because work already exhausts me. =( But glad to hear that it came out well after all that hard work!!!
scary scary scaryy!! i am jealous of how productive you are with your blog and i am jealous of your intelligence. besides accidentally deleting you old blog. :( lol
I’ve been through many blogs and have changed URLs many times that I don’t have all my entries. It is a good and bad thing because the other day I stumbled across a journal and realised how lame I was back then. haha. Though I should learn to back up my entries because some memories are worth cherishing :)
Oh yeah, I’ve started numerous projects where I thought “What the F. was I thinking” somewhere in the middle =P Your project sounds like it was very time consuming XD But you got it done, yay =D
Ohhh man, if I could have half of my old blog entries from old domains and livejournals that I had over the years. I’d love to go back and read about the young, angsty Christine, haha. I had to do something like that way back in the day when I was using Greymatter. I had deleted everything and had to re-upload files and edit everything back to how I wanted it before. It was a major pain in the butt. Though I’m glad you were able to do it! Not finishing projects is what I do best (ha!). This year was my resolution to finish things I’ve started when it comes to my creative projects.