Hmm. That's a nice offer. What happens to archives, blogrolls, unique items added to the blogger template?

I find it hard to believe that the Blogger folks are just ignoring this bug. Does anyone know why permalinks on Blogspot aren't very perma?

Dean:

Hope you are making a few pennies on the deal. No one would begrudge you that, right guys??

Cool, I will advertise the offer, even though I am likely to do something else.

He really, really is good, and speedy, setting up MT everyone. He'll only get faster with repetition.

Jeff, I have asked myself the same thing. How can they NOT KNOW and be frantic to try to fix it and not look like maroons and lose all their customers? All I can figure is maybe their "solution" is the new Blogger version they are supposedly migrating people to. I can tell yuo the new Blogger is night and day better than the old, but I haven't experienced yet whether archives are more reliable.

Hmmm. Does this offer count for non-blogspot-bound little dogs like me?

It's a damned good offer.

"...except hate sites or troll sites."

What if you have a site devoted to the hatred of trolls? :)

Bill: archives can be ported automatically. It's a snap. Blogroll is also exceptionally easy and I'll port that for you as well. Unique template changes, you'll have to do for yourself.

You're a damn fine blogger, Bill. $5 a month for your blogging hobby is a pittance. Say the word and you're alive with billhobbs.com, or whatever it is you want.

Zombyboy: Oh, hell, I'll do it for you too, just cuz you're cool. Say "go" and we make it happen.

CG: Shaddap, ya damn Okie!

As for me making money: Nah. I'll just do it. It takes me maybe 10 minutes now that I've done it a few times. Besides, several people have done BIG favors to me on this weblog, including Jerry Kindall first and foremost. Plus, Dodd Harris, Susan B., Craig out west, and at least one other person I've probably forgotten. Call it "paying it forward."

Besides, here's how I see it: I will do this favor for you my friend. In exchange, one day--and this day may never come!--I may ask a favor from you in return.

;-)

Nice move Dean. I wonder how your critics would start insinuating [this and that] about the choices you make. Let the Esmayan Jihad begin.

...or they could just wait a bit until TypePad gets up to steam.

I'm not a lawyer, and it's been a while since I've read the MT license, but it seems to me that this sort of arraignment kinda skirts the edges of the license. I think that it's a great idea (having set up several MT installations for friends for free myself), just that you might want to clear it with Ben & Mena first.

Nah, the license allows this. I'll suggest to anyone who takes me up on it that it's good karma to donate $20 to Ben and Mena, which will also help your traffic anyway. But I'm doing this gratis, so who could complain? :-)

What costs the $5 a month? The license fee?

Dean, you're the man! Seriously, I hope people take you up on this amazingly generous offer.

I've been tracking these moves at my site since May 26th, and we’ve found 37 moves since Google took over, most of them new since the 26th. I say “we” because it is a collective effort of a bunch of folks (like Jay) to get the word out, and get me the new addresses. ATS just linked to the list today.

If you succeed that means more work for me, but it is the kind I am happiest to do: Help publicize a move off of blogspot. If you could take a look at my list (to see how it’s formatted) and drop me a line when you do a move it would be a little extra publicity for the mover. Long live jihad... I’ve got to go link this…

Kevin

Bill - move now, you’re too good for blogspot
Jay - ditto

To make it clear to anyone who asks: I am very serious, I make NO money on this transaction. I'm doing it in part because I'm sick of Blogspot's quirks, and in part to "pay it forward" for other bloggers who helped me when I was just a wee blogger.

Plus, honest to God, I can do this VERY easily. It's not hard for me at all. It's not a big deal. I just had to learn the ropes, and now I could practically do this in my sleep.

The $15 is to register your domain name. The $5 per month goes to a company called Verve Hosting. I have no (zero, zip, nada) finanical connection with them. They are just very reliable, reasonably priced, and, I know how to set up a blog on their service with minimal effort. I've been with them over a year, and they are solid as a rock. Indeed, the best thing about them is I never hear from them--their shit just works, and is problem-free. What else could you ask for?

So, there it is. Just say, "Okay, Dean, I'm ready. I have a credit/debit card, I have $20 handy, and can spend $5/month. Make my own domain and blog happen." And it will be so.

Bloggers of the world! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Very interesting offer.
I hope you keep it open until I get a new job. I know $5 is not much but I am cutting several other costs in that range until I am once more gainfully employed. I already have a domain name.
Would you still do it on a different host,say like Hosting Matters?

That sounds like a great deal -- is registering a domain and MT as user-friendly as Blogger? If so, I'd think I'd like to take you up on this offer.

Thanks, Dean. I'll take you up on that. Do you take American Express--honestly, how would the monetary transaction occur?

Charyl and Zombyboy--check your email.

Starhawk: I don't wanna be a jerk, but, the reason I chose Verve Hosting is because I am familiar with their system and can set up a blog on their service with very little effort. Hosting Matters has a good reputation, but, I don't know how they're set up. So, I guess I'm not saying "no," I'm just leery. If I knew for a fact that it was identical to Verve, I'd say "no prob" but I just don't know.

this is a great idea. Xoverboard recently made the MT switch, too. Personally, I love MT, and there's so much more you can do with it.

Just a suggestion....

I know that one MT installation can support multiple Blogs. Some people may even want to go in together, which would lower the costs even more, and make you need to do fewer installs.

They would have to share a domain name though, but could have a unique first part of the domain name.

This is how Dodd has Blogfodder setup. Multiple blogs all on one MT install, and each of us has a different url, in the format of .blogfodder.com

Ok, I need to know if I'm a troll. If not, I'm game to your offer.

Dean,

A great service. How does donating money to the Trotts (which is a good idea, anyway) increase one's traffic?

-James

Tony: That is a fabulous idea. Yes, with Movable Type you can set up as many blogs on one server as you like. So if two or more people want to set up a single domain and just run blogs off of it, I can set that up too. It would be trivial.

Rook: You don't look like a troll to me. Come on in, the water's fine.

James: When you donate to the Trotts, they put up a link to your blog, and, every time you post a new message, a notification is displayed on the Movabable Type home page.

It's not a monster traffic boost but it's there, and is just a bonus for the good karma.

Well, what would you be doing different at Hosting matters? Probably paying more. Shop around - there are a lot of hosting companies out there that charge less, have the necessary features, and offer more bandwidth (not a concern for smaller blogs, but you may want to check Bill Hobbs' traffic levels before setting him up, Dean - as he gets regular references from Glenn).

The subdomain option is also a player. That is the setup at Blogfodder and Blogmosis, and I'm somewhat doing the same thing at Silent Running, although I'm not throwing out a blanket invite. This is a good option for folks not comfortable with playing around with server setup, or MT installation.

Templates. Templates. Templates. Anyone using blogger right now is already using one, although they may have just selected a default, and started posting. Template construction/massaging is not much different than building any other website, you just have additional tools in the form of the MT tags, which are fairly straightforward. That, and you have several other templates involved than just the main and archives templates, as with blogger. Anyone needing assistance? Just ask - as Dean has mentioned, there are a lot of folks out there that are more than willing to pitch in to help in the blogger exodus.

Dean - excellent move - hats off to you. Anything I can do in the way of assistance, just gimme a shout.

Dean, I just looked at the packages Verve offers - the bandwidth limits are somewhat small for someone like Hobbs, that gets a lot of traffic from Reynolds. He may want to consider something like PowWeb, or the SR host, ANHosts. PowWeb offers packages with 45Gb/mo, which may be more in line with what he might need. Like I said, check their traffic volume.

Shouldn't this be a Blogspot Exodus, not a Blogspot Jihad?

Wind Rider: I looked at Bill's site meter. He could easily quadruple his daily traffic and still not hit the 10 gig monthly limit of the Verve $5 plan. This is a non-issue.

I'm in the process of moving two blogspot friends off blogger to my domain right now.

It will be so nice to be able to read them without waiting for their comments system to load up!

Templates? Go look at mine! And no, I am not shamelessly promoting myself, I am proudly promoting Wind Rider! He-he.

What's the money for? I already have a domain and a host. Please let me know what you need to move me over.

Thanks, Brian

I was considering Hosting Matters becuase they have a plan where I could host all 3 of my domain names and get MySQL support, I think the cost was $11 per month. If Verve has a similar deal,or cheaper, I could easily go with them on your recomendation.
I never used trackback before but I stuck the link on my post about this, I hope it works.

Sounds great, and I'm really interested, but can you post from the road or a public computer? How much memory is available for pictures and additional pages?

Dean, This is a sort of practical generosity that is very impressive! (Especially to someone like me who is just too busy to want to huff-and-puff my way up yet another learning-curve) I may take you up on this in the near future. Thank you..

Brian: As I explained, the money is for the hosting service and the domain. If you already have the host and the domain, then okay, but I don't know anything about your hosting service so I'm not sure how easily I can set you up there.

Starhawk: Verve includes MySQL, and you can host 5 subdomains. You can also have multiple domain names if they're all just going to the same IP address.

I set people up on Verve because that's what I know. It's cheap, it's reliable, and I can set it up there quickly. I know nothing about Hosting Matters' setup. From looking at it, though, their setup is very similar to Verve's. If you register with them, I'll try. I won't guarantee to make it work, but I'll try.

Ariel: you get 25 megs of disk space that you can do whatever you want with. We're just talking about the "starter plan" at Verve Hosting -- http://www.vervehosting.com

As for posting from the road or from public computers, yeah you can do that no problem. I do it constantly. That's a non-issue.

John: Please do take me up on it! I want to see you in your own domain and better blog software!

Hey, all, I registered with Verve today and found quite a few options and possibilities. It's looks like a great service. Go check it out--all of their options and plans are easily found on the Web site and the reg process is quick and painless. It took me about ten minutes to get a domain name purchased and a hosting plan selected.

Once I've got everything set up and have a basic understanding of the workings of MT (with Dean's generous help), I'll be more than happy to help others with the set up and administration, too.

Thanks, again, Dean. You're far too kind.

Dean,

I just set up MT on Hosting Matters, and it was very easy. As with Verve, 25 MB is the starting plan, though it costs $6/mo instead of $5.

If you'd rather stick to Verve but some of your readers want HM, I'd be glad to help out.

My wife Catherine King and I run a brand-new art weblog out of Phoenix, as well as an art gallery called Art For Our Times.

We are definitely interested in your offer. Cox.net cannot support MT, according to Cox.

In the meantime, I urge you to check out
The Tears of Things. Read it and weep.

http://thetearsofthings.blogspot.com

Jerome du Bois

Very cool. I just moved off Blogspot last week, and it's night and day. Let the di(ary)aspora continue!

That's very generous of you Dean. I hope Blogspotters take you up on your offer.

How about you, Jonathan?

As one of the three bloggers who have thus far received Mr Esmay's help, I can say without hesitation that taking him up on this offer was one of the best blogging-related decisions I've ever made.

Bah, I say. My permalinks always work. It's the freebies that break all the time.

Older archives are horribly slow, though

Ok folks, even just one more "Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!" bumper sticker, T-shirt or lunch box sold, and I'll get a commission check, 100% of which is going towards getting me off of blogspot.

Support capitalism! Never a donation button here!

Okay. I'll take you up on that offer. Incredibly generous and cool.

Dean-

Please send me the info.

You're a champ for doing this.

-DC

That's a very nice offer, Dean. As I have just crossed over to the good side, I now appreciate how valuable your offer really is.

Dean, this is awesome. I have installed MT four or five times now and will help you if you need it.

If folks already have a host (like Jerome and Brian) I will help them install MT, for free.

Just recently moved out of Blogger, http://wasted_electrons.blogspot.com over to Blogstudio which has not been much improvement and I still need to migrate archives.

I'll bite with your deal, it sounds very promising. Can you deal with PayPal?

Just to let you all know, we at Six Apart (the makers of Movable Type) are creating a hosted service that's based on Movable Type and will let you switch without having to configure a server or install anything. You just sign up and go. We're about to launch the beta, and you can get information about it at our site. The service is called TypePad.

I used Blogger Pro too, and my permalinks were 50/50.

Dean, you really don't know me and I'm a little late to this commenting party but I just wanted to add my name to the list of people applying for this offer. It's good to see a fellow Michigander making a difference in the world.

Thanks,
-David

P.S. Send me an e-mail with any unposted details or questions, before you set me up. Thanks!

So if you have more than one blog on a domain name, do you also split the $5 hosting fee? How does the billing work?

Dean tell me more. Judging by the number of bloggers, MT must be pretty good. I like blogger but it does have it's bugs.

Mr. Esmay - I'd appreciate it if you could help set me up. Thanks!

Lone Dissenter

Dean,
I forgot you were from Michigan. Should I get a written release from you that you will not deface, alter, fold or mutilate any of the pictures I took at last years OSU/UM game?

I went ahead and paid for the Moveable Type people to set it up for me --- it's a good cause anyway --- but this is a righteous offer, sir!

Right now, I'm blogging via my comments section. Ugh. Hopefully this weekend (!) there will be a new and improved version of my site

Dean,

I'm not much of a blogger yet but I need all the help I can get, so I'll gratefully take you up on the offer. Between struggling to learn a little basic editing skill and learning the kinks of Blogger, things are coming along very slowly.

I need help and this may be the place. I am getting my domain tonight, and would love to have some help setting up MT. what do i need to send you?

What exactly is the knock on BlogSpot? Yes, the permalinks don't work right away, but they do once the posts get archived. This is a pain, but I've gotta believe Pyra is addressing it with their upgrade. As for the archives themselves, I've never had a problem with them, and I've been posting daily since August 2002. I even cross-link to my previous posts extensively, and never had a problem getting back to permalinks that were months old.

So, beyond the archiving issue, what else? No trackback, but I'm not sure that's anything to cry about; I don't think most people understand what that is anyway. Having your own domain and storage for photos and other files would be nice, but if I were going to do that, I might as well set up my own site independently. As it is, I have plenty of storage through my ISP, and simply load up photos on that account and then link to them. Hasn't been a hassle so far.

You like Blogspot? Stay on Blogspot. I'm glad you haven't had any trouble with it. You're in a distinct minority from what I've seen.

Eighteen bloggers converted as of today. The offer's still open, too.

Okay, I am ready to move, too.

Dang blogger is busted. And I've been at it for 6 months - that is long enough to know that blogger is the suck.

I have an MT box I ran here for testing, so I already have my templates converted, and everything, and can get my archives easily enough.

Where do I sign?

Ugh, I hate when deals like this come up and I realise I don't have a credit card! If there's a way to do it without a credit card, even if I have to pay extra...

But no, that's silly, of course you need a credit card to pay for web hosting. Sigh.

(P.S. the url in my name is a Blurty blog, only because I've temporarily defected from blogspot. I hate Blogspot with a passion. dowingba.blogspot.com is my blogspot address, which you'll find has been reduced to a post explaining that I've left.)

No, actually, you can pay by check or money order. However, Verve Hosting will keep your account suspended until they get the money.

P.S., I'm rather adept at learning new computer applications. Although I've never installed MT anywhere (read: no credit card). If someone were to show me the ropes, I'd gladly join the cause of rescuing people from Blogspot. I don't know how much trust would be needed (I don't know how this monetary transfer is taking place), but if no trust is involved (obviously you don't know me...). There should be a full on jihad against Blogspot. Blogspot sucks bad.

If they have a deal where they automatically take out payments from my bank account, I'd seriously consider taking the deal...as for the domain registration...it's a one time payment of $15? And then I own it for all eternity? If they/you take paypal, I'll sign up for it just to get the domain.

No, no, I'm afraid that's an annual fee, although I'm pretty sure you can sign up for 2 or 3 years at a crack for a discount.

Just go to http://www.vervehosting.com and look at what they've got. Just go through the signup process, it's self-explanatory.

What I'll probably do is, in the next few days, sign up for verve on my own (unless I find a better host), and if I can't install MT, I might take you up on your offer.

Hey Jihadis. I'm using a service offered by a bunch of Iranians, called "PersianTools" (www.persiantools.com) which sets you up with a MovableType account, twenty Megs of webspace, and domain registration for 25 bucks a YEAR. How's that for a deal? I'm not one of them and I'm not being paid to advertise this. I just love their service. Unfortunately, registration forms are in Farsi, but there is a way around it. And payment is through PayPal.

Correction: It's 25 Megs. More space is also available (up to 250 Megs or more for the Byte hungry).

When you get Salam switched to MT, that's when the real flood will begin. Everyone just follows Salam around anyway.

Dean,

Would this work for someone who wants to start to blog? I discovered blogs at the start of the war and have been seriously thinking about getting into one.

I have zero experience on what is required. We are also Mac users, (G4 powerbook, OSX.2.6).

I also have zero experience programming.

I would certainly understand if starting from scratch is way more than you thinking of with this offer.

glorybbb

Dean,

If the offer's still on, I'd love to get in- so long as I am not the prohibited troll, et al. I'm ready to send money where need be...where is that?
Thanks for this. Please inform as to what further info you need. (email's apowens@email.unc.edu) I look forward to a future with MT!

andrew

I would like to take you up on your kind offer to convert my blog to Moveable Type.

My host Myhosting.com runs a Windows-based server and does not support Perl scripts. Thus ---

FROM THE MYHOSTING.COM SUPPORT PAGE:

Do you provide Perl scripting support?
---------------------------
Answer: No, but you can convert your Perl Scripts to .EXE files which you can use in your cgi-bin directory. Please follow the link below for more information. Note: We do provide ASP, Visual Basic, Visual C++ CGI support.

Related links : Perl2Exe Home Page
http://www.indigostar.com/perl2exe.htm
-----------------------------------------

What do you think? I'm getting very fed up with Blogger response time.

Thanks

Dean,

Saw this post and would like to have your help. I signed up a bit ago for hosting and domain name already. I did a (very) brief stint on blogspot as a way to check this out and wanted to move to MT after reading about it in www.pc-mike.com. That's where I saw his info about your offer I would appreciate it if you could help me as well. I am a fellow Michigander down here in Adrian. Please let me know what info I need to provide.

Thanks,

Keith

ok im totally interested..what do i need to do? how do i sign up / send the money, etc ?

ok im totally interested..what do i need to do? how do i sign up / send the money, etc ?

That's quite a good offer you've got-But at the moment I dont think i can do it.

Just would like to say it's a great service that you're offering here. I've moved a couple of my own friends off blogspot and got them setup with MT. However, for a hosting company, I think the packages at Total Choice Hosting are very reasonable especially at $44/yr with 300mb and 5GB transfer.

I don't currently use them myself since I self host, but my friends have and they have been very pleased. They even provide a tutorial on how to set it up on their own environment.

Again, I'm not affiliated with them, but just wanted to bring them to your attention. Once again, it's great of you to offer this service :)

I've taken Dean up on his offer. I'm sick of Blogspot being down on weekends. I'm really excited about this. Not only that....how often does a stranger offer to help? I'll gladly pay it forward when I have the chance. And yes Don (Dean)Corleone I owe you one. Thank you!

I have my own site and domain, and I use Blogger.com to post my blog "Journal of the Tempered Storm." I wanted to use Movable Type, but I don't know anything about CGI scripting. Is the problem just with Blogspot, or Blogger.com overall? Any advice for someone like me?

Forgive my ignorance ... what's a troll site?

Dean,

Do you take paypal?
Blogspot lost my archives.
Even though I paid up $100 for the unlimited blogspot I would be willing to make the change.

I already have barrybozeman.com
on register.com
There is nothing up on that site I want to keep.

Since the blogspot deal is paid for the year I will just keep it in place. Can I COPY it to the new domain - moveable type deal and keep the original in place til I decide what to do with it?

Barry

Just wanted to add the following link that I ran across that may help in the Blogger -> MT transition. It's called Upgrading to Movable Type from Blogger listed on plasticbag.org. Good Luck :)

dean
This is SUPER idea! :) If I can lend you hand, let me know!

I dont need to move, I am on MT, but I wanted to put out a testimonial or Verve. I use them too.

I cannot sing it's praises enough. Top notch, everything, fabulous control panel and features programmed in, Christine the owner is fabulous.

Best host I ever had. I'll be here for a long time hopefully.

Would you be willing to give this same help to a livejournal user? I registered a domain name last night and signed up with verve for the $5 a month plan too. I don't know how to install MT.

Just to let you know that I've just joined the jihad against BlogSpot by getting my own domain and host.

I wrote a short fatwa on BlogSpot, but I still use blogger--for now.

http://www.truckandbarter.com/2003_07_01_truckandbarter_archive.html#105819795741343883

Dean, I've taken to making the same offer to people too. It's so mindnumbingly frustrating to have to deal with comments being down or pages not loading, or getting that blasted 'page can not be found on the blogspot server' whenever I want to check out someone's site.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who was fed up with the whole thing!

Look, Article 3.f.1 of the MT license clearly states that "All who fail in the search for the molten lenscap must sequester a pound of ball bearings in the bluest of all rooms in the technosphere." Look it up if you don't believe me.

link to poetry subittal blog I found

http://www.gedapub.com

The site owner was trying to do something very similar I think. He was running a chat/blog, with free samples and some ebooks and hardbound copies for some of the authors.

Actually, Blogger archives work just fine: Just not with the code described in the help files. (Unless it's been updated, I can't tell.) I had to scream back and forth via that thing where you could leave a message for a Blogger techie for weeks just to get a response, then go through 3 rounds to finally get the right answer back in July. My blog has had perfectly functional links ever since. I'll try to break it down and see if I can figure out how the fix works.