Moving to Word Press?

I'm thinking about moving this blog, and another that I run, to WordPress. My hosting company, Dreamhost, offers WordPress 1.5, and I've been playing around with it using a play blog.

WordPress includes instructions to export Blogger posts to XML files and an import script to bring them in. I had to monkey with the PHP file to get the import to start (drop me a line if you need details).

Just this morning, I added a comment spam avoidance script called Bot Check. I had a couple of issues to tackle before I could make it work. First, it requires GDlib and MCRYPT to operate, and I had no idea how to tell if they were available. A little poking around showed me that I need to get the PHP configuration info to find out. Here's how it's done:

• Create a file called phpinfo.php
• Enter this text: <?php phpinfo(); ?>
• Save the file and copy to your web server
• Access via your browser

The configure command will show all of the options compiled into your PHP implementation. (I know, this is the first 'program' that any good PHP book starts with.)

The second issue was kind of stupid. The installation instructions include changes to a file called comments.php, which is found in each themes subdirectory. I mistakenly changed the file in the wrong theme. After a couple of tries, I got it figured out.

So does this mean that I have to re-enter the change whenever I change themes? Seems kind of off to me. I'll have to get more 'in to' the WordPress way of doing things.

Anyway, I still have a ways to go before I move this blog, so don't worry about changing links and feeds just yet.

Here's the source blog:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~dgentry/blog/

And the new one (with a few extra pictures):
http://www.test.gentryville.net/blogtest/