Over the weekend I killed my Typepad account.
[This post was written on Sept. 17, 2018.]
In October 2008 I started my blog on Typepad. For 8 years it worked well as a platform to share my work with friends and students. But the design was static and the features offered on Typepad didn’t match the needs I had growing forward. I decided to move my blog to WordPress.
Typepad’s structure makes it pretty impossible to migrate a blog to any other platform if you have over 5000 images as I did. (I had over 2100 posts at the time of the migration!)
It has to do with the way Typepad stores the images you import. They rename them (odd numbers that don’t mean anything to the blogger). When the material is transferred there is no automatic way to reconnect the images with the post so that the large resolution files (the “click on to see enlargement files”) transfer in place.
I know there is no way because I hired a web designer who used software designed to do it, but that got us only so far. And then there was no were to go, except manual insertion of each of those images.
I spent thousands of dollars trying to get help on this issue, getting the runaround, and assurances from a variety of people.
In the meantime things didn’t go well with the set up of my WordPress blog in other respects.
I spent more thousands of dollars.
It was something that wasn’t sustainable.
I started looking at “letting go” of things.
The first thing that went was the unresponsive web designer who assured me way at the beginning that the transfer would work even though everything I’d read about the software he was going to use said it wouldn’t work.
You hire someone, pay them money, and expect them to be experts. It doesn’t always work out that way.
Sometimes you just cut your losses.
In the meantime, because my WordPress version of RozWoundUp.com had been moved by the same designer to a very slow host I had difficulty posting. I wrote one post in the time it took me to write three posts previously. The host lagged and timed out continuously.
Readers had difficulty actually accessing my site while it was on that poor host. I lost thousands of readers. So many readers in fact that I could no longer justify the money I was spending on trying to fix everything. (Those readers were the base from which students came for my classes.)
Learn from my experience on this. If you have a Typepad blog don’t try to move it. Leave it where it is and then start a new blog elsewhere! Refer back to the old blog as an archive. If you have a paid account it will only cost you about $140 a year and if you downgrade to a free account (perhaps loosing some of your design features) you’ll have an archive with all your links intact. Either is preferable. Either means you probably won’t lose your readership.
It is difficult to watch something you took eight years to build be destroyed in less that three months.
But the past 6 years have been about loss and deterioration of one sort or another, so this was just a business-related lesson to add to the mix.
With the damage done I found a new web designer who listened to my concerns. He has worked to make the new blog stable and easier for me to use.
There are still some issues to work out and little by little we have been working on them.
But the main thing I had to work out was my ability to let things go. That happened just before I hired the new guy. Things had been going wrong for 2 years and in that time the stress and frustration was such that I finally got to the point of acceptance. I wanted to stop looking back at the archive of work I had built—posts which I thought articulated a series of clear instructions for creative expression—and move forward into whatever life held for me.
I am hoping that all of you reading this post today are also looking to move forward with me into whatever life holds.
But What About Your Typepad Blog?
All of the posts from Typepad are included in this blog! [Update December 16, 2022—currently all blog posts from October 9, 2008 to December 31, 2020 are in a non-public archive.]
You can go to the Archive (in the navigation menu under “BLOG”) and you can find every post that was on the Typepad platform.
When you go to any post you will see all of the text and images that you originally saw over at Typepad.
What you won’t be able to do is click on the images to view an enlargement. Any blog post published before February 2017 is like this.
There are some exceptions because there are some posts I refer to so frequently that it was important I go into those posts and reimport the images so that the images they contained could be enlarged. These are posts that were important to me as teaching examples for the most part.
But even with the smaller static images you can understand what’s being discussed in a post.
If you click on an image in one of these old Typepad posts a new window will open, but it will contain the same post, not an enlargement of the image—an artifact of the way Typepad relabels and arranges things.
I’m sorry that this may frustrate you. Image how it makes me feel after spending so much money to try to fix this!
So I suggest we both laugh about it and move on. That’s what I’m doing.
What About All My Bookmarks and the Links to Your Typepad Posts?
I closed my Typepad account on Saturday, September 15, 2018.
When I closed that account the Rozwoundup.Typepad.com blog ceased to exist. (It was not possible to put a redirect on Typepad.)
That means that everyone who ever linked to my blog post in one of his posts now has a link that goes to nowhere. That’s another thing I can’t control. People really interested in finding the information and reaching me will do a simple search and find the new RozWoundUp. My readers are pretty smart!
I also lost my ranking in Google for all those posts that hundreds of bloggers were linking.
Well that’s something else I can’t control. And it was damaged the moment I was hacked at RozWorks.com in 2016. (It was the effort of fixing that hack that began the string of events that led to the expenditures of time and money better spent as suggested at the beginning of this post—by just starting over with a new blog and the Typepad blog as an archive.)
If you bookmarked one of my posts way back in 2008 or 2009 let’s say, or any time up through January 2017, and you click on your bookmark it won’t get you anywhere. (I don’t know what type of message will come up but it will be something on the “not-found” range or simply blank. I can’t control that either.)
How Can I Find A Typepad Link On RozWoundUp.com?
If you want to find that blog post from my Typepad blog on the WordPress version of of RozWoundUp.com (the blog you are reading right now) all you have to do is look at the Typepad URL you saved.
Let’s say you wanted to read about my “Saying Goodbye to the Bell Museum” project in this post with the Typepad URL below. You want to do one of the following:
Approach 1:
Look at the portion of the Typepad url that falls after the date (I’ve highlighted this in red below). Then type that, without the hyphens into the search engine on Rozwoundup.com
http://typepad.rozwoundup.com/roz_wound_up/2017/01/saying-good-bye-to-the-bell-museummy-last-day-there-and-some-musing-on-painting.html
You should only need to type the first three to five words and then click “search.” The blog post with that title should come up for you.
Approach 2:
Look at the portion of the Typepad url that is the date (I’ve highlighted this in green below). This means that this post was written in the year 2017 in the first month, i.e. January.
http://typepad.rozwoundup.com/roz_wound_up/2017/01/saying-good-bye-to-the-bell-museummy-last-day-there-and-some-musing-on-painting.html
Now go to Rozwoundup.com
On any page of RozWoundUp.com look for “BLOG” at the top right in the navigation menu.
Click on “BLOG” for a drop down menu.
Choose “ARCHIVES” from that menu.
Up will pop a list of the archives by month. Scroll down and click on the month and year you need (in this instance “January 2017”). A list of posts for that month will pop up and you can find the post with the title found in the URL (i.e., the title which was in red in the first example listed above).
Note: When the post list pops up you may encounter another artifact of Typepad that didn’t transfer well—you might see a post’s image appear twice. Click on the post’s title, not one of the images, and you’ll be taken to the related post. (What is happening with the photos is too complicated to explain.)
It’s Not Ideal, But It Works
Look, I realize I’m asking you to work harder to access material you already had bookmarked. but I believe two things:
- I believe my writing and the information on my blog is worth the extra effort. And my loyal readers do as well. I believe there is so much of interest, from reviews of commercially bound journals to ideas for improving your creative practice, that it’s worth spending a couple more seconds to find those posts of interest.
- I already ask you to put real time, intention, and effort into your creative practice, so this should be easy-peasy for you.
By letting go of Typepad and the need to fix the migrated posts in this new version of RozWoundUp I can do what I most love doing—continue writing to you with a free and clear mind.
I’m already feeling so much happier and less stressed!
Why Are You Telling Us All This?
I took time today to post this (and make a reference page with this information) because I hope for two things.
First I hope that none of you will ever do what I tried to do—move a Typepad blog that is image heavy to another platform. I want to save you the money and aggravation.
Second I wanted to explain it so that I had a page to refer concerned readers to.
People write to me daily saying “an image won’t expand.” Well if the image is from January 2017 or BEFORE chances are it won’t—unless it’s one of those special teaching posts I’ve fixed manually.
By letting you all know what’s happened I am able to simply refer you to this page so you can read and understand what’s going on. (And at the same time I can get back to what I really love doing which is writing blog posts and painting.)
But at the same time if you send me a note about something not working on the blog I can see immediately if it is this type of issue or something that I can actually fix. And if it’s the latter, I’ll fix it.
And finally I’m writing about this because it may be a shock to many of you the next time you click one of your book marks and find Rozwoundup.Typepad.com is gone. And this post will allow you to all understand what is going on.
My Goals
I also wanted to write and thank you for reading, whether you’ve been reading for almost 10 years (the 10 year anniversary is coming up in October!), or you have just found RozWoundUp.
I appreciate you taking time to read my posts and think about the topics I’m suggesting to you as worthwhile to think about.
My goal in starting RozWoundUp in 2008 was so that I could regularly communicate with my friends, students, and collectors of my artwork.
I also wanted a way to write to and form connections with past students while attracting new students to my in-person classes. (I was not doing online classes until 2010).
Readers of the blog know that this year has been about more change than the last several eventful years combined. I’ve been looking at what I want to do with the blog going forward as we approach the 10-year-anniversary.
My plans are not yet finalized.
Right now I plan to keep blogging through 2018 and decide what direction I want to take in 2019. That direction could be continued art-related blogging on this blog, but I think there will also be more about my other “many enthusiasms.”
When I started the blog it was meant to be all about my “many enthusiasms. Because I was doing so much teaching that sort of took over the blog.
But in the 10 years I’ve been blogging I started the MCBA Visual Journal Collective (which I ran for many years before passing it off into other capable hands), started and ran the Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out (which is now run by illustrator Marty Harris), worked to bring sketch night to the Bell Museum, and helped grow Urban Sketchers Twin Cities with Ken and Roberta Avidor.
I’m excited about the role I played in the last 10 years to transform the sketching landscape of my city.
Before 2008 I would do what I’d always done: go off somewhere and sketch. I was accustomed to being the only sketcher at a venue.
Now, 10 years later there are several large and thriving sketching groups in the Twin Cities. It seems that at all my favorite sketching spots it’s not uncommon for me to find someone else sketching; someone who usually comes up and introduces him- or herself to me because they’ve read my blog and I’m easy to spot with the never changing hairstyle.
I love that the blog has been a part of getting so many people to open a sketchbook and start observing all the events in their lives from the excitement of a road trip to the seemingly mundane details of daily life.
The other day I said to my friend Tom, “I don’t know, I might even stop blogging?”
I’ve known Tom since 1989 (or longer?).
He looked at me and said, “I’ve never known you to not be publishing; publishing something.”
And I thought about that for a minute while we both laughed. It’s so true. Before the blog it was magazine articles about search dog training, rubber-stamping, movie and book reviews, and color pencil art. I also always had one or two zines going. (Back when you actually had to mail physical printed pieces out to people!)
I have always loved the printed page. And after a bit of adjustment I came to love the digital page because it meant I didn’t have to run over to the printer for a press check, or lug boxes of zines over to the post office.
As a graphic designer the blog was like one long busman’s holiday.
I’ve been really grateful for going on that holiday with you.
I’m looking forward to seeing what it morphs into.
Thank You For Reading
Note: Everything you found on RozWorks.com is still there. RozWorks.com was my first website. It is still intact but I haven’t posted to it since 2008. Links from my blog RozWoundUp still go to it. (I often refer in posts to series and other work posted on RozWorks.com that I want to discuss with students.)
Any bookmarks you made to RozWorks.com still work.
The Daily Dots section is still up on that site.
Also at RozWorks.com you’ll find under “Fun” a Journaling section. This includes selections of pages from my journals going back to 1998.
When the site was set up we had to set up a cut off date for how far back we would go—I simply wasn’t interested in spending my time scanning past work. My focus is always about creating new work.
Setting 1998 as a cut off worked because of how I started organizing scans of my work from that year forward. It also coincided with my adoption of a digital index of my journal pages.
Upon occasion I may post pre-1998 work in a blog post because it is a special series or makes a teaching point—but then I have to go into a photo archive to retrieve that material, and that archive is cumbersome and not complete. Journals from before 1998 are also archived in boxes so that makes retrieval more difficult.
Roz…. I have only been with you since finding you through Sketchbook skool, just wanted to say hi and that I love reading your blog, sorry that you have had sooo much trouble, but I look forward to your cointinued ‘new’ journey.
Jennie
Thank you Jennie for writing. I’m so glad that you found the blog and that you enjoy it. I would like to encourage you to take a look at some of the earliest posts (from 2008 and 2009) when you have a free moment, and on days when I don’t post new items, because there is a lot of fun stuff in the blog including suggestions for projects.
Whew! Glad to know that all your terrific previous posts are still available. I had started reading this message with a sinking heart. I think I refer a few people each month to your blog, Roz. Best wishes on your journey.
Thanks Ann for being a faithful reader, recommending me to other readers. I appreciate it. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to the level of readership I had before all this “change” happened and messed things up, but I’m grateful for the loyal base of people interested in creativity.
Are the Daily Dots still accessible? I love going back periodically to look at them!
Yes, Daily Dots were on my first website RozWorks.com and are still there and still available.
I’m so glad you asked this because I went back into the post to write a note about RozWorks and the Daily Dots as I’m sure other people will have the same question and not realize that DD is on RozWorks.
Thanks for writing. And I’m so glad you enjoy that series.
Daily Dots is a favorite of mine. That’s when I first found your website. I loved those sketches and they got me sketching my lab, Gusar. He’s 16 1/2 and has back leg issues. But every day he’s here is a blessing.
I also like your state fair sketches. I grew up on a farm so I love animal, especially pigs, cows and chickens, sketches.
I’m in northern Michigan so we’re pretty close except for a big lake. Thanks for sharing all your sketches and artistic work.
Glad Daily Dots is still available to us!
Debbra so glad you enjoy the Daily Dots. And I’m so glad that you are sketching your lab Gusar. I am putting my Fair sketches today digitally and hope to post the 2018 set soon! Thanks for reading the blog.
Roz, glad to hear this longstanding issue has finally been put to bed. Good to know your archived posts will still be accessible. I have mined your current and historical blog posts for the past 5 years and they have been a most valuable and reliable source of inspiration and product reviews. I know I can rely on your sage advice and recommendations. I wish you all the best going forward and selfishly hope you keep blogging or somehow keep lines of communication open🤔.
Thanks so much Paul, your comments are very much appreciated. Tom is right though, I don’t know what life would be like without always publishing something…
Whew! What a palaver! And what a relief to finally let it go. I’m glad that you’ll be able to put more energy into your current life and less into trying to fix what isn’t fixable. I refer to your blog often, and I’m glad to know that all those Typepad entries are still accessible. Thank you for sharing your expertise and enthusiasm so generously, Roz. You’re inspiring and reliable and lots of fun!
Thank you Beverlee for been a reader and commenter and for joining in the fun! You make it more fun for me!
Roz, I’ll follow you anywhere! I am currently taking your “By Design” class and am blown away by the content, style, enthusiasm, class, depth of information, etc., etc., etc. I hope you’ll consider offering more online courses in 2019 — you have a guaranteed sign-up in me. You’ve set an example that has pushed me to expand my sketching and journaling practice and I will be forever grateful.
Karen, that’s very sweet of you to say and it cheers me to hear it, especially as there is a little sadness I’m still sloughing off after Saturday’s “click to delete” activity. I’m most glad to hear that you are sketching. It’s what I’d always hoped, to get more people to sketch and journal. And I’m so glad you are enjoying “By Design.” Thanks for writing.
I am very glad to hear you will still be publishing your thoughts and many enthusiasms! I have a few blogs that I have continued to read over the years and yours is one of them! I love how thorough and well thought out they are. Plus, your writing about life and changes and losses, and drawing your way through them, has been inspiring to me. Thank you for what you do!
Cathy, thank you for being a long term reader. I said it above to another reader, but it really is fun for me when I see your name in the comments. It makes the blog feel more like a discussion. I hope I can continue to post things that interest you!
I’ve always enjoyed your blog, Roz, since I first ‘found you’ in Sketchbook Skool back in 2015. So much of you has been put into your sharing, teaching, writing. I am grateful that you were able to move the posts over then move forward. We all have the references – ones definitely worth the bit of any extra effort to find them. I’m looking forward to seeing what new posts going forward.
Am thoroughly enjoying 2019 April Drawing Practice right now. Have highly recommended your classes to others. I plan on taking it for the 3rd time when it is available again later this year.
Praying those eyes of yours heal up correctly so you can do what you love – creating. – Molly
So happy to hear that your horrendous blog nightmare is over, and you are simply moving forward. Thank you for not giving up!I look forward to whatever your blogs morphs into, and I appreciate the invaluable resource that your blog will continue to be.
Thanks Tina, I appreciate you!
Roz!! I first discovered you through “An Illustrated Life” and was thrilled!! I eagerly took your Klass in Sketchbook Skool and have since then dipped in and out of your blog, and now of course I am signed up — but through all of this, I have always longed for a B O O K !!! 🙂 Nothing migrates, or moves… and you are always reviewing other people’s books… You have so much to share already, mix up wanderings, instruction, obsessions, anything! PLEASE just start on Volume 1 – Chroncles of Roz!!! <3
Sheryl, I’m so glad you got here through “An Illustrated Life.” It was a fun project to be included in by Danny Gregory.
Ah, a book, well I have over 2 million words on the blog so for now that will have to do. There is a story there I will have to share on the blog. We’ll see, but I’m glad I can count on you to pick up a copy if it happens. Thanks for reading! Keep sketching.
I found you through Sketchbook Skool and have learned a lot about paper, paints, and all things art. Thanks for everything you’ve shared. I’m sorry your change in platform has been so difficult!
Corinne, thank you for writing your support and for reading. I feel I can go forward now. Things aren’t the way my organized and detailed mind likes them, but then that’s just another learning piece for me.
Oh Roz. Such a pain for you. I will bookmark this with the several other of your bookmarks I have in my Sketching category.
I have not followed you for the full time you have been blogging but I did start soon enough so that it was possible for me to go back and read your blog from the beginning. What a resource!!
I am glad you have let us know how to access the old stuff. And I hope your plans for the future will will keep you in touch with us. If not do not worry about it. I will simply start over and read your entire blog again!
Thanks for reading Diane. Going back and reading from the beginning is something that I think about doing myself from time to time. So many posts. Even when there were only 1,000 I could pretty much remember them all. Now it’s more difficult. Thank goodness for tags and categories! I hope I can continue to produce posts that interest you.
I started a sketchbook in 2008, and shortly thereafter found you on Flickr, and followed your blogs, and online classes. I’m glad you put your Typepad nightmare to bed… and glad the posts are available here. I look forward to reading your blog posts, and your artwork on Instagram (that I finally joined this year). Letting go is hard, but sometimes worth it in peace of mind.
Elaine, you are one of my most loyal readers and I always smile when I see your name in the comments. Thank you for being there so I’m not just writing into a void!
HaHa! You can’t hide from us, well find your blogs wherever they are 🙂 There is great wisdom and ultimately joy in letting go of the undoable! I’m go grateful for all the years of your blogs and there was a time when work/life was utterly sucking the life force out of me. I’d come home and read you blogs to feel alive and creative . After several YEARS of reading your blogs, I began to doodle/sketch, watercolor and was overjoyed when you offered the sketching in public class and Sketchbook Skool class, Sketchy and more. I learned to let go from your blogs and they fed and encouraged my curiosity to continue to seek and learn. Whenever anyone asks where I learned to sketch/draw (Ha!) I always direct them to your site first. I also continuously see past class participants posting their sketches and they also recommend you. SO, keep writing, publishing and being in the public. As Sheryl requested a book, you have a fan base for any book, pamphlet, ebook, etc! Write on!
Vicky, now I have a challenge. To put secret blogs everywhere so you can find them. There is actually one up already, but with only one post. It was created in case I wanted to move on completely—still deciding. It doesn’t show up on a search of my name.
Anyway, I’m so glad that my posts have helped you “feel alive and creative.” I can’t tell you how happy that makes me to hear. Thank you for spreading the word as you have.
I read your post with growing relief that your amazing resource was not going to vanish into cyberspace in a puff of smoke. So glad the nightmare is behind you.
Thank you for making sure we can still access your archives.
Thanks Carol, for being a loyal reader. I appreciate it. I’m glad you like the blog!
My first blog was on TypePad, and this kind of stuff is why I tell new bloggers to stay away from TypePad. (TP always get mad at me when I say that publicly. Oh, well.)
So sorry you had all of these headaches. It sounds like you’ve come to a good resolution and can move forward now. And selfishly I’m very glad that we continue to have access to all of the amazing posts you’ve created over the years!
Sonia, what can I say, you GET IT! EEEE. If only I had known when I signed up with them. (I did that because I could pay for an account and get quick help, which I wanted since it was all so new to me 10 years ago.)
It’s a little bittersweet here still after the weekend, but the decision was made over the past 8 months and something I’ve been facing for almost 2 years, so I think I’ll be back to my usual happy, skipping form soon! BUT you know!!!
Aaah, so that’s what happened. I was in a deep dive in Roz World this weekend. Papers and backgrounds. I bumped into several ‘page not found’ messages when clicking on article links referring to earlier posts. Don’t worry, Roz. We’ve got your back. You give reflection and valuable advice like no one else. We will follow you no matter where technology goes (‘cuz you know this will not be the last time!!).
You must have hit things when the change happened.
If you are going through Rozwoundup.com and one of its posts has a link that doesn’t work, please send me a link to that post, because THAT represents an error in the transition that can be fixed and which I would want to fix because I am the queen of the cross reference!
You are an amazing teacher and writer! I, too, discovered you through sketchbook skool. I’ve taken a few of your on line classes and have always learned so much from your detail oriented style. I must say I still enjoy a printed page so much more than a digital one.
I’ll be watching for your next venture.
Thanks Dot, I appreciate your kind comments. Thanks for reading.
Gosh! And I thought tragedy had struck when the makers of my favorite sketchbook changed the paper it uses!
Thanks for the laugh Bill. And thanks for reading over the years.
I just deleted my Roz Wound Up Typepad link….kind of sad. But you told us…one of the things artists do is adjust! Something I carryover in to all facets of my life – use your creativity to adjust, find another, probably even better, way to go.
I am looking forward (and will bookmark this post if I need help looking back) to whatever is to come AND would welcome a peak at your Other Enthusiasms AND The New Bell Museum.
Charlin, thanks for being a long-time reader and rolling with the punches. Yep, we have to use our creativity to adjust. So now I’m trying to model that!
I cut my Typepad blog loose a couple of years ago and have not looked back. Of course, I didn’t have the amazing content you had there. Sometimes you just have to work out a compromise.
Please don’t stop posting in some way, shape or form — your blog is so inspirational. I have yet to find one so filled with detailed information, fantastic sketches, life lessons and good humor. Thank you!
Thanks so much Toni for letting me know how much you enjoy the blog!
Thank you for the update. Ive been following you for about five years. I love all of your blogs. Please don’t stop. We still need you to provide any new things, or old things, you are doing.
Thanks for the kind note Cynthia. I appreciate your readership over the years.
Thank you so much for the detailed prediction of what I will go through in 10 years had I chosen Typepad. I found your post while researching for a good blog/web platform. I’m about to start blogging but haven’t found a platform that I’m comfortable.
I’ve never read your blog but have found many affinities with you through this post. I also sketch, paint, journal and graphic design. I also have been going through a challenging few years which is why I want to start blogging. I came to realize that the loss, pain and suffering will not be in vain if someone else learn from it and was averted from the same loss, pain and suffering. Know that I am that someone who has learnt from your loss. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
With love from Australia
Coco, I’m glad you found my post about Typepad and the impossibility of transfer of images and are looking for somewhere else to put your blog. I know a lot of people are talking about Square Space. I went with WordPress. I needed a web designer to help me because I wanted to focus on my other work, but I have friends who have set things up on their own with WordPress. Good luck finding something that suit you and your needs.
Thank you for your kind comment about my posts on eldercare and loss. I think that as my generation ages it’s important to share the stories of eldercare because so many of my friends are going through the experience isolated, frustrated, confused, and of course deeply saddened. I think when we share these events it’s possible that someone else might see a little light to a new direction or approach. I hope you’ve built a great support group. Thanks for your comment.