We chose WordPress as our new site template because both Phil and are are familiar with WordPress and with all of the free plug-ins available we knew we could get the site looking/working exactly the way we wanted it to. The problem was how to transfer all of our posts (29, I belive) from Tumblr to WordPress without hours of re-posting, etc. Enter coder Hao Chen who has written up a little program that takes all of your Tumblr content (including photos and links) and creates an XML file which WordPress can read.

On a long Friday evening using Skype to chat, Phil and I re-worked the blog. We used Hao Chen’s tool and held our breath as we plugged the XML file into our new wordpress Machinima-Expo site: Voila! Everything came through perfectly. Dates, photos, links exactly as they were in the Tumblr site. Thank you, Mr. Chen, for saving us hours of work. Sent you a paypal payment to sweeten our thanks.

Then it was just a matter of re-jiggering the site address (thanks for your help, Ingrid) and over a couple of days we have the new WordPress Machinima-Expo site! After mulling over half a dozen WordPress templates we chose the free3COL-RDMBAN RR Theme (based on the TAKTEEK01 theme) by Eric Crooks since it fit the dark look we wanted, but had a nice 3 column layout which allowed us to feature the info for the Expo and submissions prominently. Phil took photos (thank you, Digital Phil) and chose them so that they’d look nice across the 4 box spread.

There is a column for info on submissions and a column on what/when/where of the Expo in November. The link to the UCS island in Second Life isn’t active now (they don’t want folks just popping in while they are doing school-related business), but we’ll have it active the week before the Expo. We will be adding a chat box for folks who want to comment. We do have a contact page set up (click the Contact tab) where you can easily send us an email. Eventually, we’ll have a page devoted to all of the films we’ll be screening and all of the jury films; with links and small screen cap from each film.

Hope you like the new look. My thanks to Phil for staying up late to get this done and to Mr. Chen for some great code.