That was a rough 10 hours…well, it was actually 9 hours ‘n 51 minutes from the time I opened a DreamHost Web Hosting ‘Account’ – then closed it – then started typing this. Oh, that doesn’t include the few hours (plus or minus or so) spent researching after reading this article: How to Disable Gutenberg and Keep the Classic Editor in WordPress.

Actually, it all started even a few hours earlier than that, i.e. I was checking out Renard Moreau’s Renard’s World latest weekly post – 7 Things That Send Bloggers Into A Frenzy – and spotted a comment that caught my eye.

Commenter “John” of Las Vegas Photoblog had mentioned – “I still use the Classic editor only because I have that overpriced Business plan and use a plugin.”

I sure miss the WP Classic Editor, so ran a search on “wp classic editor plugin” which led to links that referred humble me to other links that also referred to even more links…WHOA!!! It was close to 5:15 PM EST ‘n I was about to start watching Better Call Saul DVD on season 2’s episodes 4,5, & 6 so chasing “wp classic editor plugin” links was going to be placed on hold for now!

Back from watching TV ‘n had a bunch of saved links to check out…with even more links headed my way that I didn’t know about yet. Looked like my WordPress.com didn’t allow plugins and I would need to “Upgrade to the Business plan to install plugins.”

Ditto on that previous WHOA!!! “WordPress.com Business Plan Subscription: US$300 per year” – WHOOOAAA!!!

Like the WordPress.com Free plan, the yearly $48 Personal plan ‘n the yearly $96 Premium plan don’t include “custom plugins” like the Classic Editor plugin!?! Er…OK!?!

By now my list of bookmarked links had grown so long that I added a “New Folder” (WP Newbie) in my bookmarks to store them. There must be a cheaper way to get the Classic Editor plugin than that $300 Business Plan, and so the newly created bookmark folder started overflowing with more links as I continued searching.

Had I fallen into Alice’s ‘rabbit-hole’?! Was this possibly one “of the things that actually send bloggers into a frenzy” mentioned by Renard Moreau? I can cover a lot of area when researching a topic on the web, but this search was definitely producing more links than normal; however, this was neither a ‘rabbit-hole’ nor a “Frenzy” state of mind I was in or experiencing.

Next up:

How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting in 2021 (Compared). 😉

OK…that got me into actually checking out Web Hosting sites ‘n sorta-a-definition of what they do. Enter – DreamHost:

By this point I was starting to understand why it might be easier to just pay WordPress.com $300 a year for their Business Plan Subscription.

Research continued:

Ran a new Google search – “cheapest wordpress web hosting sites” and settled on Best Cheap WordPress Hosting: 10 Options for Under $0.99/Month.

DreamHost was showing up in all my research ‘n a few things were attracting my attention: 1) DreamHost Automated Migration plugin (yeah, I know – another plugin); 2) “CONS: Hosting control panel is a bit outdated.” That’s from ‘Da evah changing WordPress ‘n something “outdated” like the WP Classic Editor was exactly what I was looking for; 3) Something with an upfront ‘Money-Back Guarantee’.

DreamHost also offered free daily backups & Free Domain Privacy that others were charging extra for. I had paid with my PayPal account – paid $93.24, and after closing the DreamHost account I went to PayPal and a refund of $88.25 was already recorded there…fast! I forget what the $4.99 was for, but some extra stuff doesn’t get refunded.

Trying to Manually Import blog:

Moving a blog to another host wasn’t always so difficult, i.e. I moved another blog from Blogger in May of 2004 to WordPress and it wasn’t difficult at all. Maybe I was smarter back then? Maybe it was more work than I actually remember…it was 17 years ago. Also, my “DreamHost Payment Receipt” came at 9:15 PM EST last night (April 3rd), then I went to bed between 11:00 PM until 4:00 AM, so that 9 hours ‘n 51 minutes mentioned earlier involved only about 4 hours ‘n 51 minutes of trying to manually import this blog to the DreamHost new site.

Anyway, I quickly found out that the DreamHost Automated Migration wouldn’t work with my WordPress.com blog…unless I paid $300 for the WordPress.com Business Plan Subscription first.

Did a lot of testing manually moving this blog to that new blog site…with a little practice I got all the posts and pages moved. Don’t believe all the Media Library made it, and I didn’t know what to do with the Media TAR File from this blog in order to get it into DreamHost; however, it appeared most pics moved over with the posts, and on into that Media Library. Could’ve manually transferred missing pics if needed, if I had a better count of the missing ones.

  • I couldn’t get the same looking Site Identity ‘header’ (??) look, i.e. it kept a list of my pages up there even tho I had them also in the Sidebar.
  • Didn’t see a Content Options setting either. Basically, it was probably going to take more work plus some DreamHost support help before I could get close to the same look I have here. There is apparently a paid blog migrating service available, but it stated it couldn’t guarantee the “exact” same look.
  • DreamHost had the Classic Editor plugin that was easily installed ‘n worked great.

Returning to the WP Classic Editor isn’t THAT important to me, especially after discovering LibreOffice Writer isn’t even 50% as good as Microsoft Office Word is…not even 33 1⁄3% as good. Maybe there are some settings that can be changed to make it easier, but even then I doubt it. The only things better about Writer is that it is free and doesn’t require activating and/or re-activating.

For example, to add a Hyperlink in Writer I have to go up to the Top of Page and select the Insert Tab…in MS Office Word I can go up to that Tab OR just right-click (left-click in my case) the mouse ‘n insert hyperlink that way. Copy ‘n paste is pathetic…slow ‘n you never know if the copy will paste or not!?!

To be truthful, Writer isn’t getting easier, and the more I use it the more problems I discover. No wonder Open Source Office Suites have never made it into the Big Business World!!! Anyway, I’m trying to run a blog with two problematic word processors right now.

Conclusion:

  • Being free is great, but getting everything you want or need for free isn’t necessarily a better option, especially when you give up that personal freedom to become nothing more than a prisoner or chattel.

I am not done with the idea of migrating Linux Newbie – since 1996 to a paid web hosting service like DreamHost, and will do some more research on it. May speak to someone at DreamHost sales or support and see if I have more options.

Heck, with the way the American Gov’t keeps doling out food stamps and stimulus checks I might just go ahead and upgrade to the WordPress.com’s $300 Business Plan Subscription. When the Gov’t stops handing out money I’ll just add the DreamHost Automated Migration plugin ‘n move over there for less than $100 a year. 😉

LINUX IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES – you never know what you’re gonna get! (Note: took two copy attempts to get that to paste!?)

 

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