Migrating your Blogspot or Blogger weblog to a hosted WordPress installation should be easy.  But you may run into some problems along the way, so here are some quick ways to make it less painful.

When I first attempted this, I used the Blogger Importer plugin found in the “Tools” → “Import” menu of a new WordPress installation.  It went OK.  The importer pulled in all of the posts and the comments, but there seemed to be some extra markup that made it’s way into the posts.  All of the post titles now started with “>”:

>Why Hello There!

Also, while images in the content seemed to be fine, none of the media was actually imported into WordPress, they were still being hosted on blogspot.com.

Resetting the WordPress installation to start over

So now WordPress has a bunch of content that I want to delete so that I can start over and hopefully get it right the next time.  For this I used WordPress Reset.  I was able to use it to remove the (bad) imported content and reset it back to a new installation.  It’s multi-site friendly and only restored the one site and left all the content from the parent and sibling sites alone – although I can’t vouch for what it would do if you ran it on the parent site of a network installation.

A 2-Step Approach

Now that I was back to square one it was time for a different approach.  After some reasearch, someone on the WordPress Forums mentioned using WordPress.com to do the Blogger import, then exporting from WordPress.com as a native WordPress export file (WXR / XML), and import that file into your new WordPress installation.

Importing Blogspot / Blogger to WordPress.com

So over at WordPress.com, everything is like a normal WordPress installation, except they have turned it up to 11.  They have powerful servers, and a dedicated staff that make amazing additions to the most popular free plugins – one of which is the Blogger import.  On WordPress.com you have an additional option to import a Blogger export file:

Rather than authorizing the plugin to get everything from the site, we’ll export it to a file. Log into your Blogger account. When you’re logged in and viewing your blog there’s a “Design” link in the upper right menu bar, click that. Once you’re at the Blogger administration page click the “Settings” menu, and then “Other.” You will have an option under “Blog Tools” to “Export blog”:

Take that file and import it into a new WordPress.com site. You’ll want to make sure that this blog is public (but not necessarily indexed by search engines) as our hosted WordPress installation will need to be able to pull media files from it, but we don’t want it to wind up on Google, as it’s only temporary. It might take a while to fully complete, but WordPress.com should bring in all your Posts, Comments, and Media just fine. Once you’re sure that it’s done, export the WordPress.com site through the “Tools” → “Export” menu, selecting “All Content.”

Importing WordPress.com’s export into a hosted WordPress site

Before we begin importing the content from WordPress.com, two things should be changed in the WordPress Importer plugin‘s wordpress-importer.php file, which can be done through the plugin editor.

Just so we know when the importer runs into issues, change IMPORT_DEBUG to true:

/** Display verbose errors */
define( 'IMPORT_DEBUG', true );

Then to make sure we get everything, find the line that starts with:

$post_exists = post_exists( $post['post_title'], ...

This was on line 539 for me.  Comment it out using slashes:

//$post_exists = post_exists( $post['post_title'], ...

Then just below that line add:

$post_exists = false;

I did this because when WordPress.com imported images from Blogger, it gave them the same name as the post title, So if a post was called “Why Hello There!” and it had 5 pictures in it, all 5 pictures also had the title “Why Hello There!” This was preventing the importer from getting everything. Plus I already reset the installation, so there’s no content to duplicate or overwrite anyway. And I reasonably trust that I want to retrieve everything contained in the WordPress.com export file.

Run your import and everything should go smoothly. After you’ve verified you have everything in your new hosted WordPress installation, you can delete your WordPress.com site or make it private. You may also want to undo the WordPress Importer changes for future imports.

So why not do it on a regular basis?

We are proud to announce the start of our online training program, 9seedscoaching.com.

What is 9seeds Coaching?

We are starting a weekly series of online training classes. Each class will be about an hour long and will focus on a specific aspect of WordPress. For example, on Wednesday February 15th we’ll be covering WordPress 101, a quick guide to getting started with your new WordPress site.

Each week’s session will cost $7.00 and we’ll let you know ahead of time what topic we’ll be covering so you aren’t locked in to paying for weeks that don’t interest you. Basically, you can come and go as you please. Learning on your time at your speed.

We will be recording the sessions live on Wednesday afternoons with moderators taking questions in real time. Previous sessions will be available via the 9seedscoaching.com website for replay soon after.

What do YOU want to learn about?

When you sign up at 9seedscoaching.com, the first thing we ask you is what the #1 thing you want to know about WordPress. Believe us when we say, your vote counts! We want to provide the information you are looking for. We read each and every submission and we’re planning our upcoming training sessions accordingly. If there is something special you want us to cover, just let us know.

This has been something we’ve talked about doing for over a year, so we are VERY excited to see it take shape. We look forward to seeing you in class.

It’s probably not anything you’d expect from a big, bad biker. In fact, Joe the Biker – aka Joe Wojcik – is a really nice guy on a mission as a motivational speaker and advocate for kids who are victims of bullying. The passion behind his work stems from his personal struggles being bullied in his childhood, and dealing with the effects of that experience well into his adult years. Joe’s triumph over those challenges is a valuable lesson that he continuously shares to empower kids and their families, and his online presence serves as an important tool that connects him to the community and those he aims to help.

Unfortunately, keeping his old website current had become an increasingly frustrating task for Joe. He had gone through several iterations of his site and was getting tired of dealing with a webmaster to have updates done. A personal friend of his was kind enough to recommend 9seeds to help Joe find a solution for his website woes.

Joe wanted to be able to modify content on his own, and his old site just wouldn’t let him do that. He was willing to give WordPress a shot. Since he was generally happy with the look and feel of the old site, we customized a Genesis Child theme to match his existing design. We then moved all of his content over and made some adjustments to his liking. Since Joe was new to WordPress, we set him up with a bit of training and provided him with a number of key instructional videos that he could reference at any time.

Managing the new Joe the Biker WordPress site has restored Joe’s sense of flexibility, and he’s expressed how happy he is with the end result. Joe recently wrote, “For the first time in four years I feel a sense of freedom knowing that as my project unfolds I can readily update my site…”

We’re pretty proud to have played a part in enabling Joe to continue spreading his message and make a difference for those who can benefit from his movement. Kudos, Joe!

December 14th will be our last full day in the office this year. We will be back at our desks digging out from under a mountain of email on January 2nd.

Have a terrific holiday and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

Cheers!

A few months back we got a call from Michael Spremulli from the Chrysalis Corporation, a service provider of pre-employment assessment solutions. The former Chrysalis Corporation website was comprised of static HTML pages that were becoming increasingly cumbersome for him to update and maintain. Although Mike was brand new to WordPress, he knew that he wanted to take his website in that direction, and that’s where 9seeds entered the picture.

Mike came to the table already armed with a vision for the new Chrysalis site. Based on his needs, we took an existing StudioPress theme on the Genesis framework – the Enterprise child theme, to be exact – and made some custom design changes to match what Mike was looking for. On top of that, we created some custom post types to allow him to easily add new assessments. To ensure Mike would be comfortable with his new WordPress back-end, we provided him with a bit of training, and walked him though all the steps he needed to update and maintain the site.

In the end, the newly-converted Chrysalis website went live and is working well for Mike. He likes the SEO-friendly aspect of his WordPress site, and is thrilled with the ease of updating content without having to contact a developer. As it turns out, he’s received a consistent string of compliments from his existing clients about the changes and is also converting leads better than his old site did. It’s definitely the kind of turnout we like to hear!

Getting kudos from clients we work with is always very much appreciated, so you can imagine how flattered we were to see this video review that Mike made about our services. It was quite a nice gesture to mark the implementation of another 9seeds project. We’re just glad that he’s happy with the end result.

Thanks for your kind words, Mike!

We are proud to announce our involvement with a new event coming to Las Vegas, Digital World Expo! From their site:

Digital World Expo debuts an annual forum for professional education in all forms of interactive marketing, media, communications and advertising. Attendees will learn, train and build awareness of technology application in media and what’s to come. Four areas are presented to meet the needs of today’s media professionals in digital advertising, marketing, public relations, development and strategy.

DWE will take place at the Mirage Event Center here in Las Vegas and will contain 30+ classes on all aspects of online marketing. The classes are going to be less about being a simple presentation and more about actual “Next Steps” that attendees can take action on when they return to the office. One of the courses will be lead by 9seeds’ John Hawkins who will be talking about… you guessed it, WordPress.

9seeds will also be involved in something we find really cool, The Digital Startup Speaker Series. In short, the DSSS will give startups 10 minutes on stage to show off their product or service to a room full of decision makers. Best of all, there is no cost to the startups!

If you are part of a startup and want to register for one of the 24 available time slots, complete the online registration form here.

With an expected attendance of 500-700 people at DWE, this is going to be a great opportunity for some startups to jump-start their project. We are very excited to be a part of it and hope you will come check out the event.

Before you upgrade to version 3.2, you’ll want to make sure your server is ready. Here are a few ways you can do that:

1. Install the WordPress Requirements Check plugin by Ryan Duff.

2. Log in to your hosts control panel. If it’s using cPanel, the server information will be displayed down the left side. Look for PHP and MySQL and confirm the version numbers.

3. Contact your host directly and ask!

By now, the majority of the hosting companies out there are already meeting these minimum requirements. However, if you are hosting on your nephew’s friend’s server, you will definitely want to take a moment to double check. If you find that your hosting company is NOT up to date with these minimum requirements, we strongly suggest you look in to a host like InMotion Hosting or Page.ly

If you would like some help confirming your server’s compatibility or assistance with the upgrade process, fill out our contact form and take care of it for you.

Fast forward a couple months… I received an email from Josh Harrison letting me know he used the plugin for WordCamp Seattle‘s site, and, he had made several improvements to it. Nice! He sent the updates with a note:

I made some modifications to your plugin CPT Speakers. Go ahead and use them if you’d like. Here is what I added:

• template tags for speaker information with filters and paragraph formatting
• shortcode to include the speaker information on an agenda (like what I put on http://wordcampseattle.org/agenda)
• post thumbnails. I did not remove the old way of uploading images though.

After merging in the changes Josh made, it made perfect sense to go ahead and remove the old way we were dealing with speaker image uploads and instead use the featured image method.

WordPress Community
One of the greatest parts about working with the WordPress community is their willingness to give back. It would have been very easy for Josh to use the plugin we provided, make his changes, use it for his site and go about his merry way. But instead, when he was done he bundled up the changes and did his part to make the plugin better for the next person who comes along. That’s what it’s all about. Thanks, Josh!

You can download the latest version (1.1) from the WordPress plugin directory.

Upgrading
If you are planning to upgrade from a previous version, keep in mind that you will need to go back and add the speaker’s photo as the featured image for their post as we’ve switched the way photos are handled. Also, you will need to manually move single-speakers.php and template_speakers.php from the plugin folder to your active theme folder.

Styling
After you install the plugin you will want to add some styling to it. There is no inline styling, so you will need to some CSS to your existing style sheet. You can use the following as a base and change it up as needed:

#speakers {
font-size: 12px;
min-height: 300px;
}

#speaker_image_section {
width: 150px;
float: left;
height: 300px;
margin-right: 18px;
}

#speaker_image img {
margin-top: 5px;
border: 1px solid #333;
padding: 3px;
background: #0099cc;
}

#speaker_name {
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 10px;
}

#speaker_url {
text-align: center;
}

#speaker_twitter_url {
text-align: center;
}

#speaker_pres_title {
margin: 5px 0px 5px 0px;
font-size: 13px;
}

#speaker_pres_description {
font-size: 12px;
font-family: arial, helvetica;
line-height: 16px;
}

#speaker_session_description {
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 18px;
}

#speaker_image_section_single {
width: 150px;
float: left;
height: 600px;
margin-right: 18px;
}

#speaker_image_section_single img{
margin-top: 5px;
border: 1px solid #333;
padding: 3px;
background: #0099cc;
}

#pres_url {
text-align: center;
}

.speaker_snippet .thumbnail {
float:left;
display:inline;
margin-right:10px;
border-bottom:0;
}
#content .speaker_snippet .thumbnail a {
border-bottom:0;
}
.speaker_snippet .name {
font-weight:bold;
line-height:16px;
}
.speaker_snippet .title {
font-size:0.9em;
line-height:15px;
}

Then it dawned on me… Why not just build this as a plugin? That was, of course, followed immediately with “why didn’t I think of that first?”

Obviously, if you are running a single site you can simply FTP in and upload the file to your server. But, if you have clients who you’d like to keep away from FTP and make it simple for them to upload a new header once a day (if they so choose), then the Genesis Simple Headers plugin will do the trick.

You can Download Genesis Simple Headers here.

To install, download the plugin, unzip it and upload the entire ‘genesis-simple-headers’ folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Then activate it from the WordPress plugins menu. It requires that you have Genesis 1.5 installed and if you aren’t currently using a Genesis child theme, this plugin is totally useless.

Once it’s installed, go to the Appearance tab and click the Headers menu option. You will be given the opportunity to upload a file to replace the logo. The page will also tell the size of the image to upload (if you upload a different sized image, you’ll be asked to crop the image prior to saving).

All current Genesis Child Themes are handled in this plugin with the following two exceptions
- Prose: The functionality is built in to that child theme already.
- Family Tree: I’ll add this one when I can figure out how best to go about it.

Let me know what you think of the plugin!

Cheers!

OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole. It probably wasn’t hundreds but it was enough that while initially searching for a solution, I took it as gospel that is just wasn’t possible.

Then, when attempting to convert WP Event Ticketing to use Web Payments Standard and hitting some snags, it took me almost an hour to hit upon the correct combination of words while searching Google that led me to this post.

The relevant information is this

It appears that some of the confusion surrounds the myth that Express Checkout requires users to have a PayPal account to make payment. This is patently untrue. To allow credit card payments without creation of a PayPal account set SOLUTIONTYPE to Sole in the SetExpressCheckout api call. To change the first page of the Express Checkout flow from a PayPal login page to both a credit card form AND a paypal login form set LANDINGPAGE to Billing in the SetExpressCheckout api call.

That’s all there is to it. The relevant bit of my code went from this

$nvp = array('PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT' => $total,
        "RETURNURL" => $returnsite,
        "CANCELURL" => $returnsite,
        "PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION" => 'Sale',
        "PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE" => 'USD'

to

$nvp = array('PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT' => $total,
        "RETURNURL" => $returnsite,
        "CANCELURL" => $returnsite,
        "PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION" => 'Sale',
        "PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE" => 'USD',
        "SOLUTIONTYPE" => 'Sole',
        "LANDINGPAGE" => 'Billing'

That’s all there is to it. Customers are now faced with either using their credit cards or using their Paypal account while checking out.

Tonight we are releasing WP Event Ticketing version 1.2.2 which gives your buyers the option to purchase tickets with a credit card without requiring them to have a Paypal account.