I got an email from blogger telling me that they will be discontinuing their ftp publishing tool. Apparently I am one of the .5% of bloggers that use this tool, thereby hogging most of bloggers IT resources. I have until March 26 to move my crap over to a Blogger managed URL or kiss it all good bye.

For a long time I have thought about moving my website. I started with blogger back in 2000 when it was still new and shiny. Before that I had run a blog the old fashioned way by updating a website every couple of days with html. Being able to use a dashboard and have just type text and have it automatically update a website was a great idea. It still is. However, there are somethings I just don't feel like blogger can do for me -- one of them is comment management. I'll admit. I didn't even attach the comment feature to my blog for years and years after it became available for the sole reason that I didn't want people telling me how much they loved me on a posty basis. To be far, it was in the infancy of bloggdom when lots of people responded with "I love you!" and "Lol" and "so funny!" or even just " :) ". All of which I hated and was a total waste of time and resources. I mean, I didn't need to be validated by this.

Along the way I got a livejournal account. I needed one for the all the private angsty stuff I was going through regarding infertility that I could lock and no one would be able to see it except personally approved friends. I also started it so that I could join IF, TTC and likeminded communities. Over the years I gained a great collection of smart, interesting women from all over the world. All women and most with children. It was through this that I realized the value of comments had evolved over the years and grown up. Now they really do contribute to a more community feel.

The problem I have had with bloggers comments features is that they do not email the person back or in any way reflect that I have responded to a comment. The only way the commenter can tell if I responded is to check that very blog post, click on comments and scroll down. It has always sorted of bothered me that there was no continuity. I read all comments, however I dont' always respond because it's kind of buried. In general I end up responding in a post, but then again that isn't very professional.

Comments aside, I need something a little more stable. Part of the problem I have had with Blogger, especially over the past two or three years is that they have problems with their FTP program every time they make an update. I realize that this is exactly the kind of thing that they are talking about, and every time it happened I vowed that I would switch. Except, you know, switching is hard. It's a lot of stuff move over and start anew.

I also want to change www.wazika.net to be the page that my blog starts on instead of right now where it's just a link. I also want to eliminate the whole 'quatschen' part. I had originally started this journal with a friend and she had given it's name. I have long since parted ways with this friend but kept the name because that it what it was named and I had already had followers. Then the name of this journal is actually wo-wunk but that just doesn't make any sense now does it. What is it -- quatschen, wazika or wo wunk? Make up your mind!

Here is my chance to resolve all of these issues. Oh, and one more, I want to be able to easily add on to the list of blogs that I read because there are so many other great blogs I have found by merely following the blog roll.

I have a deadline now. I dared my husband to help me with this transition. I wrote him an email that pretty much said something to the effect of "you know how important blogging is to me...help me obe wan keno0b tim ... you are my only hope!" He is now researching the how and why of moving my blog to word press and started over as I have already mentioned. We expect some glitches along the way, there will be a redirect URL but eventually you will and probably should update your links to just www.wazika.net or whatever.

I thought I would be sadder about the end of this website -- but you know I built it all, did my own graphics and blah blah blah. My knowledge is outdated now and I just don't have the hours to devote to relearning it all and doing it myself when it be done much easier. I may have that time in the future ... but yeah. You know how it is with two kids under three.