Thursday, December 14, 2006

Beta Switch

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Forgive me while I indulge in a little meta-blogging.

Has anyone with a Blogger/Blogspot blog taken the leap from Blogger Classic to Beta yet? If so, how did it go? Any problems? Caveats? Gotchas? Lessons learned?

I got my "invitation" to migrate this blog to Beta earlier this week:


I understand that at some point we'll no longer have the option to do this at our leisure, so I guess I'll try to get it done sooner, rather than later. Now that my blog is over a year old and I've published a fair bit of content and pictures, I'm a little nervous about the whole move to the newfangled version. (Will my fine china get chipped?) I've researched it a little bit, but would love to hear from anyone who has already gone through the move themselves, (and survived it, hopefully).

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Update (12/15/06):

I've found a few helpful resources as I've researched this migration. Three of them are as follows:

Before taking the migration plunge, it's also a good idea to monitor or at least be aware of the following helpful websites:

A few commenters to this post mentioned an issue where Blogger Classic users are not able to leave comments on Blogger Beta blogs, and vice-versa. I, myself, have had this problem, which cropped up for me for the first time yesterday. I believe Blogger tech support is aware of the issue and is working on it, but for the time being, my work-around is logging in with my Google Account logon when leaving a comment on a Beta blog. It's confusing, because the login field says "Username", but for Beta blogs, it really wants my Google logon, which is my email address. And if one reads and comments on a generous mixture of Classic and Beta blogs, this requires constantly switching between the Blogger Classic logon and the Google (Blogger Beta) logons, as the two accounts are not merged. Here's hoping Blogger can help make them play better together.
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7 comments:

Beth said...

I haven't gotten my invite to switch yet ::waahhh::

Friend started her blog this week and it's a beta - new blogs don't get a choice. She said it was pretty easy, but there seems to be a problem with leaving comments. I haven't been able to leave one yet, regardless of the method (blogger acct, anon, other). We're not sure if the problem is because it's beta, or because it's me ::grins::

Even though hers wasn't a switch, it makes me a little leary to switch mine, even if I'd received an invite already. I'll be interested to see/hear what you do.

Bess said...

Eeek! A switch to the New and Improved means my old Windows 98 machine at home will have an even harder time with it. Ratzratzratz.

I will NOT give up my sweet morning routine to go in early to use the public machines at work, just to blog.

I don't think.

bummer.

Unknown said...

I made the switch this week, but I haven't done anything with it yet. I'll fiddle with my template this weekend and add the stuff I'm glad they're offering -- labels and a better archive list. We'll see how it goes!

Krista said...

Hillary at knitting4shirley recently went to Beta. I don't know how her swtich over went, but now I can't leave comments on her blog. Others can though. I have my invitation too but have yet to switch (for Naked Sheep). My family blog is in Beta and it's much easier to use.

Anonymous said...

delurking here to say that i made the switch yesterday. so far, the only recurring problem i've had is trying to leave comments if i'm not logged into my google account (this is my second attempt at leaving this comment).

the only mistake i made in the switch was that i changed my template *before* i switched, which wiped out all the sidebar stuff that i'd added (links, my site meter, etc). if you make the change, they save the old settings for you, so you can go back and add them in. and i don't think you have to change your template if you don't want to. i'm not sure if it still wipes out the sidebar stuff, though.

i had to go and re-enter all my old sidebar links. once i figured out how to add that section, it was pie! it's far, far easier to do that in the new blogger.

oh, and i did the switch and re-added my links & site meter in less than an hour. not bad for not having much of a clue!

good luck!

somebunnysloveDOTcom said...

I only use Blogger and Blogspot for the groups that I am in, BUT I really despise that I cannot leave comments with my login id. Plus my GMail account is a completely different login that I use for work purposes to test my software. (Banging head against wall saying "WHY???") Beta also seems not as intuitive as the status quo.
=:8

Moxie said...

Thanks for the heads up on the migration issues! I haven't yet converted mine, and I'll probably wait until they've worked some kinks out before I do convert. I love Google and their features, but the migrations seem a bit premature.