Yet again, another change of focus. I've had a go at C++, was already familiar with various dialects of basic and now I'm looking at Java from the ground up. That is, starting with the console side of things. I still want to learn a cross platform GUI system and I reckon Java is the way to go.

Even though I spent many months studying C++ (at the console level) that time has not been wasted. Programming techniques or how problems are solved do not change between programming languages it's only the syntax that changes. In the case of Java there is very little syntax change and therefore I'm finding the transition relatively easy.

I was checking my website hits and came across this article:-

Converting Data

Converting data over for my tests was rather simple. I used the Wordpress to Drupal converter offered by Prime357 , which made the work very simple. However moving over our live data had some extra obstacles. We were using a few special plugins in Wordpress to store our video data in the posts, plus to handle embeds easily. Before doing our final conversion I had to write a couple of short scripts to handle the converting of our media data so a new custom Drupal module I was working on could deal with it. I also decided to remove our embed plugin we had used in Wordpress and instead inject the embed code directly into the node->content field for Drupal. Once that was handled, I ran the Prime357 converter and we had the data fully ready for Drupal. The conversion program took approximately an hour to run on our 600+ megabyte database containing over 30,000 posts and over 800,000 comments. The time was really amazing considering that large amount of data.

The full article can be found here.

There's a slight change to the downloading procedure. No longer is it necessary to create a user account simply to download any file. Download to your heart's content.

At this stage, in order to leave comments or seek advice then a user account is necessary.

Wordpress 2.6 is out, as of a few weeks ago. I've briefly checked the relevant tables and fields against Wordpress 2.5 and there is no significant difference. This means the current version, 1.04, will convert Wordpress 2.6 blogs.

As already mentioned, SmartFTP has a feature known as 'server to server' which basically means being able to transfer files from one server directly to another server.

Fire up SmartFTP and log into both servers, that is, the source (where your getting your files from) server and your destination (where the files are going) server. I'm not detailing every click required to achieve this.

With the program there are a number of ways to achieve the one process, as is the case with any modern software. I'll detail the menu way.

Open the files listed in the source server panel and drag and drop the relevant folder into the lower 'temporary queue' panel.

Okay, the title said 45,000 posts but in reality how does converting or transferring, call it what you want, 45,936 posts from Wordpress 2.5 to Drupal 5.8 sound. I helped out a registered user HitBoy with the conversion, that is, I did it on my machine locally for him. Before I go any further here's a screen-shot of the Analyse Wordpress section.

I didn't specifically time the process but I reckon it was closer to the two hour mark than it was to the one hour mark, so transferring 45,000 posts is not a 5 minute process. Obviously, if done using remote databases it would take a little longer. How much longer, well I don't know and I'd only be guessing.

HitBoy's going to make a follow-up entry in Check My Site thread and there he'll promote his site, so at least you can see that it is possible to convert massive amounts of data.

During this process I was chatting to HitBoy about other things, as you do, and found out that he's starting a new venture, a hosting business. If you're after some free (or paid) web-hosting why not check him out at OpenSourceSetup. His site went live yesterday (Monday 29 July, 2008).

The link I provided IS NOT an affiliate link and I do not benefit in any way.

At your old host, access phpMyAdmin, you're going to prepare for the backup procedure.

Since a download and an eventual upload is required, you may want to reduce the size of the backed-up sql file. This step is not overly necessary and can be skipped if you prefer.

Select the database to be backed-up and click the Structure tab so as all the tables are listed in the main window. In order to reduce the eventual file size certain tables can be emptied, that is, all the records deleted, not the table itself. The tables that can be emptied are:

A tool that you will definitely need is a File Transfer Protocol ("FTP") client program. These programs are more or less explorer type programs in which files can be uploaded and downloaded from the server.

There are a number of freely available FTP client programs and here are a few:

• Smart FTP (31 Aug, 2008, no longer free)
• Filezilla
• Core FTP
• Cyberduck (for Mac)
• Google Search Results

In order to utilise an FTP client you must first set-up FTP accounts at your host. I'm assuming that this particular process doesn't require detailed explanation as most likely you would have been using an FTP client at your old host. Suffice to say, that at my host, when creating the addon domain names corresponding FTP accounts were created as well. If this is not the case with your host, simply follow the prompts to create an FTP account(s). Even if automatic and default FTP accounts were created I'd recommend purposely creating an FTP account that purposely points to a specified folder. That folder's sole purpose being to receive uploaded files. Once uploaded, they can be moved to where ever you want.

As seems to be the case these days most hosts are offering one free domain for your use. Obviously, if you are transferring from another host you already have a domain name registered and you will eventually be changing the nameservers at your domain registrar to point to your new domain. Don't do it now, that is the last step.

In regards to the 'free domain name' accept the offer and use that domain name purely for administrative purposes. I recommend not using the free domain name for public purposes. It's not a good idea for your host to also be your domain registrar (they will be for the free domain name), it only leads to problems down the track should there be any issues with your host. Effectively, your host could hold you to ransom as they hold the key, the domain name registration.