I am one of the “few” that have been let down by Blogger. They no longer support FTP export which makes it a no go for me.

I’ve decided to move over to a self hosted Wordpress. It was a very easy process overall, this blog summarizes the few steps needed.

1. Install Wordpress

The first step is to install Wordpress. My provider offers a very easy install via SimpleScript.

I have personally installed Wordpress in a subdirectory of my blog site to avoid messing with the existing files.

2. Find a theme you like

Moving along, nothing to see here. Pick and chose from the theme explorer in the admin console of Wordpress.

3. Move your Blogger blog from FTP publishing to myrandomblog.blogspot.com publishing

For the import to work, you need to expose your Blogger blog as a blogger hosted website. Don’t worry, since your blog is already published, your users will still be able to access it while you are messing around.

4. Create a user (optionally)

By default, the user is admin but you can create a dedicated user (in my case emmanuel).

5. Import your posts and comments

In the Wordpress admin console, go to Tools, select import, Blogger, the specific blog you want to import (in this case myrandomblog), and click. You can optionally associate your posts to a user in Wordpress ( hence step 4. )

6. Adjust the .htaccess (if in a subdirectory)

In the root directory of your website create an .htaccess file if you don’t have one already and add the following rule.

DirectoryIndex index.php wordpress/index.php
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
#point to the wordpress directory
RewriteBase /wordpress/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^atom.xml$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^feed$
RewriteRule . /wordpress/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

7. Adjust your feed to point to Feedburner (optional)

If you use feedburner and want your feeds to point to the feedburner feed, install FD Feedburner Plugin (from the Wordpress admin console, select Plugins-> add new

Then burn your feed in feedburner (or reburn it if you already have a feedburner feed). The URL to burn is typically blog.mywebsite.com/feed

Copy your feedburner feed URL in the Feedburner plugin configuration (you can reach it form the Plugins menu).

Note, you can also burn your comments feed using the same solution.

8. Redirect your old feed to the Wordpress feed

Blogger publishes your feed in atom.xml by default (unless you have overridden that in the publishing panel). Let’s redirect the old feed to the new feed, you don’t want to lose your existing followers, do you?

In your .htaccess file, add the following line

Redirect permanent /atom.xml /feed

You might have noticed that one of the RewriteCond rules is about the atom.xml file. If your feed is publicly available to a different file, change that as well.

9. Do not delete your old .html files (optional)

I’ve decided not to delete the old .html files that were pushed by Blogger. My reason was to let old references to still work. It’s up to you.

And you are done. Happy blogging

For people who either don’t speak French or are not in Paris tomorrow, skip this post, it’s useless to you

Le ParisJUG a maintenant deux ans. Difficile de se rappeler Paris sans un JUG vivant et actif. Difficile de se rappeler la France sans ses 437.654 JUGs. Merci à Antonio et toute l’équipe pour avoir initié cette aventure.

La soirée d’anniversaire est aujourd’hui mardi 9 février 2010 à 18:45. Venez nous rejoindre pour une soirée qui célébrera l’open source français avec Sacha Labourey (voir plus ) en guest star. On est déjà au moins 348, donc un de plus, un de moins Inscription gratuite mais nécessaire ici.

Now that I am done with my what took a lot of my time recently, I will be on the road for pretty much the whole month of november all over Europe to spread the word.

First and foremost, I will inaugurate the new MarsJUG (in Marseille) on October 15th. I will be talking about Hibernate Search and how to implement clever full-text search engines using approximations (phonetic approximation etc).

I will also be speaking in Munich at the W-JAX conference on November 10th and 11th. This time I will cover:

• Bean Validation (JSR-303) and Hibernate Validator 4 (just released)
• What’s new in Java Persistence 2.0. I will spend a good chunk of it to explain the new type-safe Criteria API
• Hibernate Search and how to do full-text searches with Hibernate-based applications

Next in line is Devoxx where I will give a university talk on Hibernate Search. If you want to know everything about Hibernate Search, this is the time! This is November 17th in the afternoon. This is an interesting format (3 hours), where i will cover a bunch of what is in my book Hibernate Search in Action and do a handful of demonstrations.

Last but not least, I will be speaking at JavaEdge ‘09 on November 16th in Israel. This time about Bean Validation and Hibernate 4.

If you come by these cities at the right time, come and join me! Between one of these conferences is my birthday )

Edit: I forgot that I will be speaking at the ParisJUG on December 8th about Bean Validation. Right after a healthy debate on Spring vs EE 6 (I heard that extra medics and blood supply have been planned)