Finding the floor

Apologies for the infrequency of updates since I’ve set the new blog up. The reason for it is not any sort of “blockage” but rather an attempt at keeping my frustration managable. The new host was down for six hours yesterday afternoon. However, at least it was easy to communicate with them about it. My previous host still has all my files hostage, 72+ hours after they said it would be 24-48. They remain incommunicado. My low update rate is because I’m running out of writing space.

I started a test blog when I shifted from Greymatter to Movable Type and posted six test posts before going live. I’m hoping that if I post six here first before I import the 2.0 blog (if I can ever get at it!) then the permalinks will match if I transfer the visibledarkness domain here. I hope this will prevent the problem of breaking the complex web of links within the entries, and the external links as well. This is post number five. I really hope the access problem is taken care of soon.

In the interim, I really must thank Arete, Wood s Lot, and Burningbird for helping to get the word out that I’ve relocated. There are many things I want to improve in new design, and there are some brain waves regarding design issues that I’ll append to this entry later. My design parameters for the 2.0 version were in many ways both a blessing and a curse. This new design is an attempt to compromise between my first blog and its second generation.

I added an updated about page recently, and placed the galleries from visibledarkness online here. I don’t have the time to really give them the update they deserve right now. Maybe next summer. The primary project lately has been attempting to find my floor underneath the carpet of books, my kitchen under the compost of bills, and some feeling of clarity as the world falls apart. I have been playing with a referrers script to acknowlege those who care to read me and have several other improvements on the way. As my troubles continue, even on the new server, I find that there is a DOS attack going on. I just can’t get a break.

*Update

It’s not looking too good tonight. Visible darkness is back, but showing a server dummy page. I suspect this means that my content has been wiped. This means I’ve lost three months worth of posts. Maybe that situation will change when I wake up.

Just to further demonstrate how crap my luck has been, I finally decided that blogrolling seemed dependable enough to install. I was going to make a donation—but in the three hours I spent messing around with it a few days ago, it switched to its “pay” business plan. Fifteen dollars for at least two years seemed like a good deal. Twenty dollars for one year does not. I started playing with the PHP script I used in the 2.0 blog again, and got the update feature to work a little. I’m undecided if I’ll switch back. I really don’t think there are enough features on the planet to make me want to spend twenty dollars a year to maintain a simple thing like a blog roll—as long as the free service is there, I suppose I won’t have to.