Thursday, October 09, 2008

The End of the Original Lair




Greetings from the Lair!

Well, those that follow my adventures with Frank probably already know that the original Wildcat's Lair is going to go "poof" at the end of the month. Fortunately, I've had this mirror version of the Lair operating over on Blogger for a few years now.

Frank's comic strip will continue in all its glory over here, something I'm very passionate about keeping consistent with. Quite honestly, having just the one blog to keep up with will make things much easier for me, and while a nostalgic part of me will get a little misty-eyed over the end of my AIM/AOL blog's demise, I've already done the big transfer thing, mainly to save the comments from the many friends I've made through that blog throughout the years.

I actually prefer the Blogger version of the Lair. The AIM/AOL blogs allowed me to get my feet wet when I first started surfing the blogosphere and had no clue how to mess with the html and all that glorious stuff. I'm more savvy now, and that's why I've preferred the Blogger version for a long time. It's frustrated me for some time now that the Blogger version of the Lair didn't see more traffic. Well, that's already changing.

That's all the good news. Now to the bad...

I've always kept a solid backup of the graphic artwork and even most of the written entries (before it turned into just a comic strip) for my blog. I keep my house a mess, but my computer... let's just say I'm kind of anal about keeping it in order. Unfortunately, I posted almost all of those images online by storing them on the space provided by AOL. This means that even though I can transfer my original journal's entry into an "archive" version of the original Lair here on Blogger, none of the images will show up. That means I'll have to save each image onto a new online storage space (the easy part) and then rewrite the html code to each entry (the not-so-easy part). I'm not sure how long that's going to take. This is an issue which affects even my Blogger version, because the html code I use for each entry still draws on the images stored on AOL. That means a lot of blank entries come November 1st. Not good.

My first priority will be Frank's adventures, and then I hope to restore even my old entries that included book reviews and other fun stuff. I'll be working my way backwards, so do be patient. If I'm lucky, I'll find time this month to get it all done, but I suspect this process will take much longer than that.

My thanks to all of you who've already made the move from my AIM/AOL blog to this Blogger version. It's been a treat to see that. I hope those of you moving over to Blogger for the first time with your own journals will enjoy it and find it a simple process.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bill, I sign up for your email notification. Perhaps if you used the "follower" option you might get more people to follow your blog. It is a lot easier for me to use that function, Bill

Ken Riches said...

Sorry to hear about the graphics link thingy :o)

I agree with Bill, I had a post on my new Blogspot yesterday to your newest entry, and there were not many (1) comment. So, maybe allow followers???

Bill, the Wildcat said...

Thanks for the suggestion, you two. Had to make some major modifications to my blog's template to make that work (part of why I've resisted doing the "followers" thing), but I think I managed to get it all worked out and even give it a bit of a "Wildcat's Lair" twist.

Sandisan said...

Whew..glad I found you again. I love your strip and sense of humour. Oh, I got rid of that vertification thingy by going into settings, it is really hard on old eyes. Look forward to reading you...be well..Sandi