37 comments

    1. Welcome, Harebeat! Thank you.

      I hope the carpet ride wasn’t too bumpy 😀

      There is so much work involved, every single thing (even though I didn’t start from scratch because I installed WordPress), but still. I spent all day yesterday searching for plugins.

      But I feel it’s worth it 🙂

  1. I see. People, this blog is sponsored by Masood. 😀

    Congratulations on your new homepage. The wrapper background color of this theme totally matches with most of your pictures. You know, kind of color-of-the-desert-sand style. 😀

    I wasn’t subscribed to your earlier blog from Reader as WordPress.com covered it. This blog is now on my Google Reader. Should I completely remove that from my subscription or anything unofficial can still be published there? 😀

    An off-topic question. From what I know, WordPress.com completely removes media files if they are accessed by third site (hotlinking) and the bandwidth coming from other site is more than from the relevant wordpress.com site. Contact support for more. I think you should take some time to upload the images to your own server or flickr. I just checked that your photos are hotlinked to wordpress.com.

    Just making sure that the sky doesn’t fall. 😀

    1. Hello, Sajib! Thank you.

      I don’t think I’ll be publishing anything on the wordpress.com blog. But I haven’t decided what to do with it either. If I bring it down, can the readers be automatically directed here if they click a link that once led to The Purple Journal?

      Oh, and I haven’t thought about the pictures and hotlinking! I have plans to transfer my pictures on my own server, but I wasn’t supposed to do it anytime soon. I guess I’ll have to make that a priority. In the meantime, maybe I could un-link all the pictures.

      Thanks for the tip, Sajib! Keep ’em coming.

      And yes, this blog is powered by Masood 😀

      1. You can try to connect these two.. there must be something like automatically exporting the content from this site to your wordpress blog.. as an option 🙂

        1. Harebeat, that’s possible actually. But I’d like people to start visiting me here. It’s going to be difficult for me to part ways with The Purple Journal 🙂

      2. You can definitely buy Site Redirect upgrade from WordPress.com for $12 per year that will automatically redirect visitors to your old blog to here. I don’t think you’ll need this forever. Just for a year or two. Keep an image in the sidebar widget asking visitors to subscribe to this feed (just in case they don’t notice the redirected URL). Within a year all your old visitors should be coming to this blog direct. You can then discontinue Site Redirect upgrade.

        More information about Site Upgrade is here.

        Your top priority must be uploading photos to your own server and therefore update all your posts. I have seen some cases where people like you lost their media for hotlinking and eating up WordPress.com bandwidth from their self-hosted servers.

        1. WordPress people sure know how to make money 😀

          Thanks for that valuable tip, Sajib. I think I’ll spend money on getting myself a premium theme instead of a site redirect. Masood won’t be too happy if I keep telling him to spend 😀

          You are right about uploading pictures on my own server being a priority. I’ll do that tomorrow (it’s a holiday here, yay!), except that I don’t know how to do it yet 🙁

  2. Congratulations on your own domain Nadia!!
    The colours look very in harmony with your beautiful header picture. Did you take that shot?
    Don’t worry too much about the design Nadia, its your wonderful stories that kept us interested all along! *wink*
    Anyway, perhaps you might want to incorporate some purple-based blog skin or something.
    Well, its “The Purple Journal” afterall right…..? (LOL…)
    Congratulations again!! 🙂

    1. Thank you, Tien! You are so sweet 🙂

      Yes, I took that picture in Abu Dhabi last November.

      You know, this blog still doesn’t have a name actually. I don’t think I should go for ‘The Purple Journal’ again. How about Desert Diaries? Or something like that.

  3. Wow! love the layout! I hope i know what to do to change the subscription and all.I’m slow like that 🙂

    And the house looks great! You have a front porch and a yard too! Looks like a lot of work cut out for you.Don’t tire yourself and I’ll take my time looking at the bits of the house one at a time 😀

    1. Seriously, Lat? You think this is a nice layout? I think it’s too bland, lol

      Subscription is easy; just click on that email link on the top right part of this page, and enter a valid email addy. That’s all 😀

      Yeah, I need to plant some flowers on the front yard for some color 😉

  4. Assalaam Alaikum Nadia,

    Oh my gosh, your very own domain name! MashaAllah. Congratulations! You totally deserve it. I’m sure you must be eager and excited to begin this new chapter with your blog, and I’m really glad I can follow you on the journey. =)

    Insha’Allah, I’ll be sure to update my subscription.

    1. Walaikum Assalam Sara!

      Thank you so much. Yes, I am excited (and overwhelmed at the same time)!!! There’s so much to learn and organize. I think my folders are a mess 😀

  5. Hi Nadia!

    SO NICE TO BE SPONSORED!!!! =D

    But I was rather confused whether you also meant a new literal Home too. haha BTW, can i see pictures of the house interior too, pleaseeeeeeeeeeee

    Jus

    1. Welcome, Jus!

      Thank you so much.

      No, I didn’t mean a literal home, lol. We can’t afford one in the UAE (plus it’s not worth it since we can’t own it forever anyway).

      The picture of the house posted above is from the resort we went to in Abu Dhabi, the Qasr al Sarab. I’ve posted room pics in my previous posts. They’re not exactly from this home, but they all look the same from the inside anyway.

    1. Thanks, Niyaz! Almost three years at WordPress.com and I still enjoy blogging, so I guess that qualifies one to move to own domain 🙂

      Yeah, I’m using one of the default themes. I will keep this on until I find a theme that I really like.

      When are you updating your blog?

      1. Great !! I’m wondering how u managed to migrate with all your old blog’s content here ? when i was doing it for mine, i failed ..

        No sis planning to scrap my domain ,,

        1. Niyaz, first I exported everything from the WordPress.com blog; there’s an export button there in the admin dashboard. I saved it into three different files on my desktop, since I have a lot of pictures and all. Then I simply imported them over to my own domain.

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