Although I’m still learning how to use WordPress and I need to make adjustments to the theme I’ve chosen for the site’s appearance, the new ChrisTalbot.com is up and running (and I didn’t even have to resort to using a page forward to Blogspot).

The old site is still live at ajaxwriter-chris.blogspot.com, but visitors will find it won’t be updated any more. After more than six years with Blogger, I have finally made the move to my own backend system.

For anyone thinking about installing and using WordPress, take it from me that the installation process is simple, easy and fast. While WordPress comes with a basic blogging theme attached, finding a new (and free) theme and uploading it for use can be done with ease and no frustration.

I’m still toying around with the look of the new layout, but what you see here now is basically what you’ll see from now on.

There’s going to be a hiccup in my online presence at the beginning of May as Blogger makes a shift from supporting FTP file transfers to not doing so. As one of the half a percentage point of Blogger users who do use its FTP capabilities to run my website, this is going to cause some difficulties, which will necessitate a two-fold plan.

The first part of the plan is to do a very simple page forward to a blogspot.com account as of May 1st. Pointing your browser at www.christalbot.com will still work, but for a short while, my domain will exist only to forward everyone to a temporary location.

I say “temporary” because as I make plans for the end of FTP support on Blogger, I’m learning how to use WordPress to build a brand new site (one that will hopefully look much more attractive than this Blogger-based site). That leads me into the second part of my plan — to build a new WordPress site that I hope will launch in May.

Wish me luck.