Migrating WordPress Blog

This post is also posted at http://travel4work.wordpress.com/

Migrating WordPress from <yoursite>.wordpress.com – which is a free service – to another site that you are paying for such as <yourdomain>.com/<yourNewWordPressHome> is very easy and it is all done through WordPress.

In this situation, my new website has Fantastico and it allow WordPress to be installed on my domain very easily – few clicks of buttons. Now assume both <yoursite>.wordpress.com and <yourdomain>.com/<yourNewWordPressHome> are running, here are the instructions.

1. Go to <yoursite>.wordpress.com and login there.
2. Go to the classic Dashboard.
3. On the left panel, go to Tools – Export.
4. Choose to export “All Content” and when asked, save the XML file to your PC.
This XML file presumably contains all the data for the two WordPress to communicate.
There are lots of pictures in my original WordPress site, but the XML file is only over 100kB, so obviously the Contents are not being saved, ie not needed.

1. Now go to the new <yourdomain>.com/<yourNewWordPressHome> site and login.
2. 2. Go to the classic Dashboard.
3. On the left panel, go to Tools – Import.
4. At the Import page, choose the WordPress option, and you will be asked to install the plugin called WordPress Installer. Go through with this.
5. Then click on Activate Plugin and Run Importer.
6. Click the button to choose the XML file to import from.
7. In the Import WordPress page, choose Import Author and “Download and import file attachments”.

8. You can now go back to the original site and just manually check the old settings, and apply the same settings to the new website. Some example of this to consider are:
a) Appearance – Themes – search for the same previous theme using the search bar and install
b) Appearance – Widgets – Text – Add your text, including Google Adsense code.

How to Convert or Rip Audio CD into AAC format

This is a simple process if you know how and have got the right tools.

Objective: To convert CD Audio into the AAC format.

Requirements:
These are needed for extracting and converting into AAC audio format.

1. Audio CD extracting software

2. AAC encoding codec

Why AAC?
The real practical reason for my case in choosing AAC was simply because my Nokia phone accepts AAC format. I understand AAC is also used by iPhone and other Apple products. In addition, although MP3 is widely used, there is always a cloud of uncertainty over the licence of MP3 encoding algorithms. This is one reason it is difficult to get free MP3 encoders. Also AAC is newer and is supposed to be a bit better in quality than MP3 formats. Like MP3, AAC is also a lossy format.

Specific Tools Download:
The above requirement are satisfied with the tools listed here. (Please note that this guide shows you the quick and simple way to save your Audio CD into AAC format. They are not the best tool, they are not the only tool, they are simply the tools I found and they work)

1. CD Ex
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download
This is a simple yet powerful CD extracting software. It can support extraction into various format such as MP3, OGG, VQF, AAC and others. A few of the format such as AAC require you to obtain the codecs by yourself - see next step.

2. PsyTEL MPEG-4 AAC Encoder
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_video/convert_audio/psytel_aac_enc.cfm
Alternative site:
http://cid-3157d7aac580c23e.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/aacenc%5E_v215.zip

There is only a few AAC encoders available and this (PsyTEL) seems to work OK. The other AAC encoder is from Nero.
Note that this encoder allow the audio extracting software such as CDEx to encode the audio into the AAC format. If you want to play it back, then your software player (eg WinAMP) may need to add a plugin AAC decoder (Not covered in this article)


Usage:
1. Install the CDEx.
2. Unzip the AAC encoder and put somewhere in your local drive.
3. Run the CDEx program.
4. Go to Options -> Settings.
5. Go to the Encoder tab.
6. Select the "Psytel AAC Encoder" from the dropdown list called Encoder.
7. In the same dialog box, in the Encoder Path text field, choose the correct path where the AAC encoder was unpacked to in Step 2. Click OK.
8. Wait for the audio files to appear on CDEx.
9. Go to the Convert menu.
10. Select "Extract CD track(s) to a Compressed Audio File"