This weblog submit was positively not sponsored by Squarespace — Thomas Fitzgerald Pictures

I’ve been publishing this web site in a single kind or one other since again in 2011. That’s fourteen years in the past! Over that point, I’ve modified so much, the world has modified so much, and this web site has… effectively, modified a bit, however frankly, not sufficient. The period of time I’ve spent posting right here has constantly dropped off lately, and I realise that a minimum of a part of the reason being that I form of hate this web site now. I do know that’s fairly a powerful response, but it surely’s true. Well, largely.

Originally, I hosted my website on a internet hosting service and ran it on WordPress. But over time, I felt that I had outgrown that, and the service stored having drawback after drawback. So ultimately, I switched to Squarespace in 2014. So I’ve principally been on this platform for 12 years now, and to be trustworthy, currently I’m not completely pleased with it. I’ve blogged about this a couple of instances, and I’ve frequently talked about that I needed to maneuver on, probably again to WordPress. But the issue is, I can’t. There is a lot content material on this website now that exporting it to WordPress is borderline unattainable. After all, there’s 15 years’ price of content material.

I’m presently utilizing the earlier model of Squarespace’s web site software program. The motive for that is that the newer model loses many options, a few of which I truly use right here. For instance, I exploit the sidebar on my website, however on the brand new model, you may’t. So in a approach, I really feel trapped now. Part of me simply desires to begin over, however then once more, as I mentioned, there are 15 years’ price of weblog posts on right here. While I can technically export my weblog posts, it can lose a variety of the formatting and embedded content material, equivalent to photos. It’s a precarious state to be in. I’ve exported it many instances as a backup, however extracting the data from it will be difficult.

Ant therein lies the hazard in counting on a hosted service like Squarespace. You’re completely at their whim. Should they determine to cease supporting weblog posts within the morning (which may technically occur), I may lose years of labor. But other than that, I need to transfer ahead, and in the intervening time, each time I take a look at this, I’m reminded of the scenario, and it places me off running a blog.

So for now, I’m in all probability going to chew the bullet and improve to Squarespace 7.1 (the newest model). This will imply a redesign and the lack of some options, however, in equity, it’s typically extra versatile. I’ve already accomplished this on my portfolio website, and whereas it has been a ache in some respects (there’s one damaged characteristic there that they’re conscious of however don’t appear to need to repair, which is holding me again). Still, I really feel that I don’t have a alternative as a result of this has gotten stale and previous, and the viewership is down, and my enthusiasm for it’s down.