This is the AWV archive. Aurora Walking Vacation was originally an AOL journal, and was ported over to the Blogger.com service when AOL ended their support for journals/blogs in November of 2008. This archive contains every entry and every comment made between June, 2004, and October 2008.
Because this blog contains many graphics files that were stored on AOL's ftp servers, and was part of a community of blogs on the AOL service, when AOL discontinued support of those products, this archive became a collection of broken links and little red Xs. All of the text entries remain, but many of the links will no longer work, and virtually none of the graphics will display after November 1, 2008. I may attempt to repair some of these entries as time allows, but it will not be a high priority.
From time to time, I may choose an old entry from this archive, and reproduce it on the new Aurora Walking Vacation. This blog, however, will not be active at all. If you find something interesting, and would like to comment, please do not do so here. Please direct all comments and questions to the new Aurora Walking Vacation.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Another one makes the move...
My Cowboy Poetry blog now happily resides on the Blogger network. This time I did the transfer from the Firefox browser instead of from the AOL client, and it went much more smoothly. The AOL browser has many 'modifications' that makes it behave differently from other Internet browsers, and I suspect it just doesn't mesh up with the transfer process software properly. If you are having difficulty with the transfer of your journal, try doing it from outside the AOL client.
However, I had the same result with the pictures on this journal as I did on my previous one. Blogger says that the graphics in your journals will be ported over to Google's Picasa service, but that did not happen. More when I figure it out.
More information about going to Blogger
Karen, of Outpost Mavarin, has posted a more detailed entry about transferring over to blogger. Read it here: Tips For The Great AOL-J Migration. Thanks Karen.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Hello Blogger!
The tool to transfer your AOL blog to Blogger.com is now available. Read the post on Magic Smoke for more details. Those of us attached to AOL USA, Canada, or Mexico received an email updating us about the change, and directing us to the Blogger page where the import process begins. Those who are members of any other AOL service (e.g. AOL UK, or Europe) will not have gotten an email. Never fear, the import process will work for your journals as well (so I have been told). You'll just have to spread the word throughout your communities yourselves.
I experimented with the import tool by transferring my poetry blog, (not cowboy poetry), to Blogger this evening. This was my experience.
I went to the AolToBlogger page, and began following the directions there. I signed into my Google account. I entered the journal address of my blog in the box provided, and clicked on the "sign into your AOL account" button. That took me to an AOL sign in page, where I entered my screen name and password.
If you are concerned about the security of your password, don't worry. You are signing into AOL's secureID service, so all Blogger gets is a message back from AOL saying you are who you say you are. They never actually see your login information.
After that, I was taken back to a page where I was invited to click to begin the transfer process. I clicked, and was taken to a page that said my journal was being transferred, and that it might take a few minutes. I waited for almost fifteen. I never got an error message, nor did I ever get a message telling me the transfer had been successful. I got nothing.
I gather that the next step should have been my blogger dashboard page, where I could complete the publication process of my new blogspot blog, but that never happened. I closed the page, and manually logged into blogger, where I found that my new blog was there in my dashboard, with a message that said, "click here to complete the import process." So I clicked there. And it completed the process. And now (not cowboy poetry) lives on blogger.
The reason I chose to use that blog for the first test was that there were not very many entries in it, so it would be easy to tell how successful the transfer was. As far as I can see, every post, and all of the comments were successfully transferred over. One note of importance. All of the pictures and graphics are still hosted on AOL Hometown, so when that closes at the end of the month, they will all turn into little red Xs. The pictures will have to be moved to a new home, and all the posts will need to be manually edited to redirect the urls to the pictures' new home. That'll be tedious.
So, I was successful, but with a couple of tiny snags. The process was certainly not completely seamless, and I can see that many who are computer neophytes may have problems. My suggestion is not to wait. Start now. If you have difficulty, you'll have a couple of weeks to get it worked out before the axe falls.
I'll try to transfer another one of my journals tomorrow, using a slightly different path, and report on how that went. Stay tuned.
I experimented with the import tool by transferring my poetry blog, (not cowboy poetry), to Blogger this evening. This was my experience.
I went to the AolToBlogger page, and began following the directions there. I signed into my Google account. I entered the journal address of my blog in the box provided, and clicked on the "sign into your AOL account" button. That took me to an AOL sign in page, where I entered my screen name and password.
If you are concerned about the security of your password, don't worry. You are signing into AOL's secureID service, so all Blogger gets is a message back from AOL saying you are who you say you are. They never actually see your login information.
After that, I was taken back to a page where I was invited to click to begin the transfer process. I clicked, and was taken to a page that said my journal was being transferred, and that it might take a few minutes. I waited for almost fifteen. I never got an error message, nor did I ever get a message telling me the transfer had been successful. I got nothing.
I gather that the next step should have been my blogger dashboard page, where I could complete the publication process of my new blogspot blog, but that never happened. I closed the page, and manually logged into blogger, where I found that my new blog was there in my dashboard, with a message that said, "click here to complete the import process." So I clicked there. And it completed the process. And now (not cowboy poetry) lives on blogger.
The reason I chose to use that blog for the first test was that there were not very many entries in it, so it would be easy to tell how successful the transfer was. As far as I can see, every post, and all of the comments were successfully transferred over. One note of importance. All of the pictures and graphics are still hosted on AOL Hometown, so when that closes at the end of the month, they will all turn into little red Xs. The pictures will have to be moved to a new home, and all the posts will need to be manually edited to redirect the urls to the pictures' new home. That'll be tedious.
So, I was successful, but with a couple of tiny snags. The process was certainly not completely seamless, and I can see that many who are computer neophytes may have problems. My suggestion is not to wait. Start now. If you have difficulty, you'll have a couple of weeks to get it worked out before the axe falls.
I'll try to transfer another one of my journals tomorrow, using a slightly different path, and report on how that went. Stay tuned.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Not enough time
Just archived the month of November, 2004. At this rate, I'll be done saving all my old entries by sometime early December. I'm not going to make it, am I?
Best. Quote. Evar.
On the demise of AOL journals...
"I shall miss this blog, but it's just a vessel."
--Dornbrau, of Dust Bunny Club of North America (new address pending)
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