You may have noticed a few subtle changes in the appearance of On The Wards. They superficially reflect an array of server-side modifications and upgrades to the entire blog. I recently opted to move the site to another server. The past server was great; they were reliable and offered many features. Unfortunately, since it was a blog-hosting site with pre-loaded software, I did not have the flexibility to upgrade the WordPress blog engine or upload plug-ins. More importantly, I did not have access to the blog database and was unable to maintain back-ups. Besides resolving the aforementioned issues, an added benefit to the recent move is the new custom site address (http://onthewards.com). [For the computer geeks: I would prefer to avoid domain name forwarding, as I did with the previous host.]

There are drawbacks, too. I have had to invest two weeks researching web hosts, rewriting the bulk of code, manually transferring blog entries, and dealing with server issues. I am sure there are bugs yet to be discovered. Since the web address has changed, I have also had to sacrifice links from search engines and sites that recognize the previous version of On The Wards. So, please don’t forget to update your bookmarks.