b2 Community Board closing January 2008

 

 

Wednesday, November 21st 2007

category: computerwelt

My good friend has been hosting the official unofficial message board since 2005, for the few of us who still use the blogging software on our websites. But four days ago Michael made it clear that the long-pending closure of the board has been decided for January 2008, due to the non-existing activity the last months and his own switch to the 10th of November this year. Some of you may already know that Wordpress is the successor of b2, and is in many ways what b2 would've become (or became, even). In any case, I'm glad that he bothered to run it because the community was very much alive back in 2005, and I also completely understand why he doesn't bother running it the way things are today. Thank you! And thanks to all the participants who drove us forward after the b2 makers abandoned ship or disappeared.

Myself I've hosted the for those who needed access to any of the source code or hacks (especially the hacks), and will continue to do so, since I have no reason to delete the files. But unless you see the need for it and want to host it yourself the message board will be taken down in January. I am not going to do it myself. It's a bit sad but it's time to face the facts.

Wordpress (and others) is better and more modular than b2 is.
I've had the dubious pleasure of setting up a Wordpress blog for someone at work @ wordpress.com, and although I was impressed at the simplicity and sense of data safety, it is way over my head in terms of use. But I'm old school/old fashioned. I started with a text-file, moved to flat file databases and ended up with b2. Ended up? Well, I will have to migrate to something else one time or another, because my PHP version will be lagging behind the rest of the world, and recently I have paused my efforts to redesign this site because I realize I will have to change the underlying cogs and wheels.

Anyway, here are the steps I [Michael] took for those of you wanting to migrate:

  1. Make a copy of your b2 database, duplicate it under a different name and drop extra table/fields 
  2. Install WordPress 2.1.3 and this script 
  3. Run that script on your duplicated b2 database and the new WP database 
  4. Install WP 2.2 and upgrade your WP database 
  5. Repeat #4 with the latest version of WP 
That’s all! :)

It looks like a cumbersome process, but since Michael managed to keep all of his posts there is no reason not to do it.
I just have to find out whether Wordpress is the way I want to go:)
post number 1143 @ 5:54 pm | 10 comments

This page is a permanent link to b2 Community Board closing January 2008: http://www.sigg3.net/entry/1143

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