Tonight I tackled a task that has intimidated me for many months now: upgrading the engine that runs this blog, Movable Type, from version 3.31 to version 4.23. Not really having much of a foundation in manipulating databases that exist on remote servers, I was very nervous that I'd crash the blog and lose all the data I've been adding for nearly five years now. But armed with some good advice from the web, a few good technological tools (principally Dreamweaver as my FTP program and some useful virtual applications from my web hosting company), as well as a helping of of misplaced confidence, I sallied forth and was able to complete the upgrade without much trouble. I discovered a fairly serious glitch on the back end when I first finished the process, but with a bit of patience and some digging, I figured out what was wrong and was able to correct it.
So what does all of this mean for you, my (few) loyal readers? Well I hope to have a new look to this site later this week, as there are some new templates I will be able to try out. Most of the benefits of the upgrade will be invisible to you but really important to me, however. It is going to be a lot easier for me to add content to this blog from multiple computing platforms, including my iPhone. And there will be new features I can more easily implement now. So stay tuned . . .
