The Way Forward for Listowel Connection
The story so far
Listowel Connection posted for the first time in August 2011. For the best part of the past 10 years I have posted almost daily on weekdays.
This is the first photo I posted on Listowel Connection.Here is how I stated my aim for the blog;
"What I intend to do with this blog is to post news from Listowel along with some of my photos and every now and again to post some old stories, anecdotes and anything else I find interesting. "
Nothing much has changed in the ten years.
From the start I have written the posts using Google Blogger. This is a very simple to use free blogging tool and it has served me well for 10 years.
If you so wish, each new post is delivered to your email inbox by another free service from Google called Google FeedBurner.
Now you and I know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I expected that Google would eventually charge for hosting the blog and emailing it to subscribers. I was wrong.
Hosting on Blogger is still free but instead of charging for the FeedBurner service they have decided to discontinue it. From next month, June 2021, people who used to get the Listowel Connection email every morning from Google Feedburner will no longer do so.
This development made me rethink things. I felt it was a time to put the blog on a more secure footing, one where the rug couldn't be pulled at short notice.
THEN
I remembered a lovely young man who had approached me once during Writers' Week a good few years ago. He told me that he thought what I was doing was a valuable service. He asked me if I had backed up the material. I hadn't. He told me that if I ever wanted help archiving the material from the site or if there was any other way he could help me, he would.
Who was this knight in shining armour?
He is Alan Groarke, formerly of Moyvane and now of Denver, Colerado. Alan has his own internet company
Alan gave me his business card that day and I kept it safely for all these years.
So this is where I turned for my next move.
On Alan's invaluably detailed advice and helped by my son, Bobby,
I am (more correctly, Bobby is) effecting a big change.
The Future
I am proud to say that Bobby is a young man of infinite patience. He has transferred all the old material from Blogger to Wordpress. There were 2406 posts!
We are now leaving Google behind and going to our new home with
What is Changing?
For you, very little unless you depend on the Google Feedburner email to access the blog.
Lads, I am now in very unfamiliar territory, knee-deep in Widgets and Plugins.
Bobby has inserted a widget into our new site which lets you subscribe to an email service, similar to Feedburner.
Don't be frightened by the word subscribe, it's free.
Here is what to do ;
2. On the right hand side, if you scroll down a little bit, you will see this text
Subscribe to blog via email
3. Fill in your email address into the little box.
4. Click Subscribe.
5. You will receive a confirmation email. Follow the instructions and you will receive an email with each new post.
The Immediate Future
I will have to take a bit of time out to learn how to use Wordpress. Blogger was very easy, "Intuitive" is the word they use nowadays. Wordpress is just different.
It has lots more features, most of which I will probably never use.
We know what the old adage says about an old dog and new tricks! This old dog is needing a bit of time to acclimatise to my new surroundings
My firm resolve is to be back to you as soon as possible in our new shiny, all mine site.
Meanwhile
All 10 years of the old content is available to you
The posts will probably stay up on Blogger as well for the foreseeable future.
Thank you for all your support and encouragement over the past ten years. I really hope that you follow me over to Wordpress and Blacknight.
And a big thank you to Alan and Bobby for all your help this far. You'll probably be hearing some more pleas for help in the future.
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