Change seems to be something I not only accept, but bring on often. This is specifically true when it comes to my web site. After about 7 months using Livingdot.com as my web host, I spent the last week or so moving the site over to GoDaddy.com. From a cost perspective, I’m going to be saving a good chunk. Livingdot.com was charging me about $11 per month for their service where GoDaddy charged me $36 for the full year. Moving the domain name over to GoDaddy from Network Solutions also saved me a little. Network Solutions charges $35 per year. I was able to transfer the domain and extend the registration period for a full year for $8. It’s always nice to save some money.

However, the move wasn’t all roses. GoDaddy uses a custom installation tool for third party / open source software called Metropolis, which uses an older version of the mySQL database than the one supported at LivingDot. This resulted in my blog data not to being imported correctly, if at all. All this means I had to custom install the WordPress blogging software on my own using FTP. This was surprisingly easy as it only took about 5 minutes. If only I would have thought of doing this right from the start and not wasting a day trying to troubleshoot the automated install using Metropolis.

Another problem that I knew going into the change was the lack of a photo album software that is either easy to use or provided by GoDaddy. Livingdot provides access to their custom built photo album software which was easy to use. This was the reason I moved the site over to them in the first place, but the cost was too prohibitive compared to other web hosts. So now I’m in the process of using Gallery, which is an open source software that I’m just beginning to understand. An interesting thing about Gallery is it’s ability to integrate with WordPress. We’ll have to wait and see how easy that is. I’m sure I’ll screw up the site a few times before getting it right. Maybe I’ll be smart to do what I promote as a technology auditor and use a test version for trying new things out. It’s going to be a while before the photo album is up and running to my satisfaction, but it will get there. One of my goals is to put a lot more photos on the site from vacations. I’ve already started with the sailing trip in Greece during the summer of 2005.

Anyway, there’s always more to come.