Login
First Update on the Great Update
Ed. note: TypePad, TOP's home for 17 years, is going out of business on September 30th and wiping its contents from the Web. I'm scrambling to build a new site and archive the old one before that happens. I'll be keeping regular readers and old friends updated on the process as we go along. Feel free to skip these if you want—it's just nuts 'n' bolts housekeeping, if that's not mixing metaphors. This is hopefully temporary, just for the month of September. Come back on October 1 and see how we did! —Mike
After failing to export TOP using its own export feature, and failing to make a fully usable backup with either Sitesucker or Sitefetcher, I'm resorting to backing up the entire site manually. TypePad creates a file of all posts for any specific month, as you can see under the header "ARCHIVES" at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar when you look at the full site on a desktop. If I open one of these in Safari, and go to File > Save as... with a destination folder and "Format: Web Archive" set in the dialog box, I can create a copy of that month's archive that will open in Safari even when I'm offline. Unfortunately, although it preserves all Featured Comments, the other comments from the main comments section are missing, as are the larger versions of the pictures and illustrations.
If I do the same thing in Firefox (in Firefox you go to hamburger stack > Save page as... and then set a destination folder and select "Format: Web page complete") it preserves a copy of the archive web page that will open in the Firefox browser offline, but Firefox also preserves a second folder with all the larger JPEGs in it. So that's good. But still, the full comments sections are lost.
I'm pretty happy I've been doing the Featured Comments all these years. Those will be preserved. I sure hate to lose all the other comments, though. There are some very useful things in amongst 'em.
If I go to one single post and save that web page in this way, then all the comments in addition to the Featured Comments are preserved. But while I can save all the monthly compilations with maybe half a day's or a day's work, it's too much work to save all the posts individually—there are 9,369 TOP posts on TypePad. Even if I could put in the time, I know myself, and I know I'm not good at repetitive detail work. As I get progressively more bored and distracted my efficiency and effectiveness deteriorate and I start making mistakes. I'm not the person for such a job. (I should have been doing it all along, but, well, I didn't.)
The saved files open, as I've said, when I'm offline, but they open from within the browser they were saved with. I'm not exactly sure why or how that's the case. But it occurs to me that some future change to the browser could make it so that my archived backups won't open any more. I don't know how to guard against that. I'm thinking I should probably save all the monthly archive compilations in both Safari and Firefox, just to hedge against either one of the browsers breaking the old files sometime in the future. I'm also going to pursue the permissions that would allow Sitefetcher to work (there's a list of troubleshooting steps but I don't understand any of it myself. Maybe I can find somebody to help).
So that's where I am on backups.
As far as hiring a developer, I've interviewed three outfits (unclear whether they are individuals or companies with multiple people) on freelancer com. Most of the freelancers there appear to be based in the Indian subcontinent. They typically quote low hourly rates ($15–$25) but then estimate high numbers of hours to build a Wordpress.org blog site (60–80 hours). I'm feeling like the blind man exploring the elephant when it comes to hiring a developer—I don't know the landscape at all. Plus, I keep waffling between Wordpress and Squarespace, which isn't helping. This is not going to be the month to be indecisive, Mike, I say to myself. Probably not the time to try to cheap out, either. Wouldn't you know this would happen right after I bought a new-to-me car for the first time in 11 years...had I known this was coming, I would have held off on the car. Same thing happened to me with the mono camera, as some people might remember. But you know what they say: Oh well.
More updates as we go forward...feel free to skip these if you want! But on the other hand, comments sure are welcome. They let me feel less alone if nothing else. It's not always easy being a one-man band.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2025 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)
Featured Comments from:
