Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Monday, November 15, 2010

Not Only No, but HELL No!

There's a business opportunity out there for some bright coder as of right now.

Many of you (yes, you, U-J, among others) have been complaining about my comment system. I started off with JS-Kit's HaloScan free service back in 2003, and last December JS-Kit transitioned to Echo. Shortly after I started with HaloScan, I started paying JS-Kit a bit of money annually to allow looooong comments, which my readers over the years have often taken advantage of. When the switch to Echo occurred, paying was no longer an option, it was mandatory, but it cost only $9.95 for the "upgrade," which included comment threading, and. . . and. . . I'm not sure what else.

But now, via Anarchangel, I discover that beginning December 18 my renewal isn't $9.95 a year, it's $10 a month.

Sorry, Echo, but NFW. I'm not paying $120 a year for what you're providing.

I've gotten well over 40,000 comments in the last seven-plus years. I don't know exactly because I can't seem to find anywhere on Echo that will tell me. I can export my comments, but not into any format that will handily import into any other system that I'm aware of. Chris puts it this way:
So, I start investigating how to get rid of Echo comments... not so good... Apparently, nobodies comment service will import the XML file Echo exports to. The only way to migrate to another system without losing comments, is to resync back to blogger comments, then migrate from blogger.

In theory, Echo comments should be automatically synced to blogger comments... except they aren't.

In theory, this is because I'm using a legacy .css template for my blog, rather than the "new" blogger "advanced layout" templates (well... not "new" four years old now).

In theory, "upgrading" my template to a blogger advanced layout template will allow Echo to resync comments with blogger. Once that happens, then I should be able to add Disqus, or Intense Debate... or for that matter just migrate the whole damn blog (which I may do, to wordpress).
I'll be honest: I have no desire to relocate TSM to another format. I'm actually pretty happy with Blogsnot, though I, too, am running a legacy template.

I've exported my comments to this date at this time. Right now the download tells me that I've received, let's see, 46.2Mb of a 13.2Mb file. And it's still counting.

It should be interesting to see what I end up with.

56.2Mb, and it's done. The oldest date in the file that I can find is June 1, 2010. Somehow I don't think I got everything.

This is my surprised face.

Here's the opportunity: Some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed programmer could get paid some good dough if he/she/it can write some code that will take my comments from Echo and convert them into a format that is importable to some other commenting system, carrying along with them the links to the appropriate posts. (Are you listening, Robb Allen?) I'd be willing to pay money for this service - on a one-time basis. I don't want to lose seven years and 40,000+ comments, but I WILL NOT pay Echo $120 a year. Period.

HEEEEELLLLLPPPP!

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