RichMercer.com has changed Wednesday, November 14 2007

I've made the move ahead of schedule, but it feels good having done it. I spent some time today fixing my redirect module to keep Google links working, and working with Jayme to beta test the migrator tool he's writing.

The most obvious thing however is the fact that I've changed the skin. I'm really pleased with this one. Like most people, I wanted to go to something simple, clean and easy to use and I hope I've managed to do that. I can't take credit for the design, but I still tried about 5 other themes first and this is the first time I've been truly happy. I hope to polish the other ones up and get them on here available for you to download ready for the Graffiti beta.

I'll also likely be making the redirect module available for anyone else that wants to migrate from Community Server to Graffiti, and hopefully I'll be able to add support for other blogging platforms too. For me, losing my Google page rank wasn't an option, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Now that I've made this move to Graffiti, it will be the beginning of a new series of posts, themes and add-on's and I'm really excited about it! Stay tuned for more stuff soon! :)

4 comment(s) so far

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Andrew Tobin wrote on January 23, 2008

Hey Rich,

I'd love to give Graffiti a go when it becomes open - what was the migration from CS like?

Was there much tweaking or was Jayme's tool pretty much there?

That, and obviously licensing, etc is the story I'm after right now - I've got my blog which I haven't been using much, but I'd like an easier experience maintaining, and as part of the local .NET User Group we're looking at doing a site for a NFP group that we're looking for an ASP .NET CMS to base off.

Thanks

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Rich Mercer wrote on January 23, 2008

Hi Andrew,

By the time Graffiti is released your migration path should be very easy. The tool worked really well for me and I had over 1500 posts to migrate including comments so it was a good test DB.

I know I'm biased but I am very excited for people to get their hands on Graffiti and I'm not even involved with it's development. I will link to any news on licensing when it becomes available, but I'll echo what ScottW said yesterday (as that won't get me into trouble).

"No prices yet, but there will be a very usable free version. "

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Andrew Tobin wrote on January 23, 2008

That's really good news, and yeah I'm kind of excited because although I've been a fan of CS - I don't really need all the forums and things personally, and after seeing apps like wordpress and how simple they are to operate I'm eager to see what Graffiti will compare like.

If you could do a review sometime it'd be good, because I haven't seen much out there.

I'm wondering how it would go for multiple users of a site/seperate blogs/or shared blogs would be like.

Also if you can set different "security" permissions for areas, or set up editor settings.

I should probably go back and check out the vids Scott's released..... :)

But yeah, I could see it easily being used for blog driven sites like the Joystiq, Engadgets, etc of the world if there was options for multiple submitters and editor approval.

That said I've signed up for the beta, hopefully I hear something soon and I might pester Jayme for the tool!

(thanks for the heads up on email, you're right about following up on comments - typically I flag posts I've commented on, on del.icio.us for just that reason!)

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Thomas Freudenberg wrote on January 23, 2008

Well, I think it's time the CS MVP can get hands on the bits ;)

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