Posted By Quentin Carnicelli on May 24th, 2004

About a month ago we moved rogueamoeba.com to a new web host, and in the process our install of Movable Type got hosed. No matter what I did, it refused to read it’s database files with our years worth of posts and comments stored in them. I ran ‘db_upgrade’, tried to ‘db_dump/db_load’ trick, tried compiling a new DB_File module for perl, and the finally decided that enough was enough, and went back to work on Audio Hijack Pro 2.

Through my efforts, I did notice however that Python’s bsddb module could read the db files, although the output looked a bit weird (lots of binary data instead of plain text that I expected). So after awhile of ignoring the problem some more, I set about solving it with python.

Two days later, I had finished this beast of a script. It’ll take some Movable Type Berkeley DB files, pry as much data out of them as it can (posts, categories, authors, comments), and blast it all out to simple text files that you can use with PyBlosxom. And that, now, is what is running this weblog.

PyBlosxom isn’t for the faint of heart though. Like the original Blosxom, all it’s functionality is implemented in Plugins. It took me a good two hours of tinkering to get it up to, say, 1/3rd the functionality of Movable Type. But the upside is that all your posts are stored in good ol’ fashion, fail-safe, plain text files.

Now then, where did I put those screenshots of Audio Hijack Pro 2 I’ve been meaning to post…