I’m already doing too much ‘freebie’ work (do too much of this, and it eats into my paid consulting! ?? ) to take on the entire task… But thought I’d throw together some musings:
– If you search around here, you’ll find a list somewhere of good/cheap wordpress hosting. Make sure it’s somewhere decently reviewed by people here…
– WordPress-specific hosts should get you pre-installed with WP1.5 to start with. I’d think then that there are instructions around the forums here somewhere of how to import/move over from Typepad.
– Graphical overhaul should be stage FIVE or something. Get your site migrated and running first… ?? Or, it should be BEFORE you migrate, so you’ve already worked out the ‘look’.
– I’d be happy to point the way to recreating your current template — should be pretty easy since it is fixed-width side columns, fluid center. I’m sure there are WP1.5 themes you could base off of already out there. If not, I could whip up a clone quickly. (I originally did CHAITGEAR (www.chait.net) fixed/fluid/fixed before I decided I wanted ‘control’ over the look and moved to a fixed/fixed/fixed template.)
– All of your Amazon links could be migrated to use my CG-Amazon plugin pretty easily, and give you more control down the line. Lemme know if you want to know more…
– there should be a decent Recent Comments plugin around (one that caches, so it doesn’t look-up every pageload).
– I could probably make a ‘clone’ of CG-Amazon that does cdbaby links — if I knew how to ‘look up’ things from their site. Otherwise you can at the least copy&paste from the current HTML…
– I didn’t see what else you have that might be overly ‘custom’, or using typepad features/extensions, etc. If you point them out, people around here might suggest WP equivalents.
The rest of the work is just getting hosted someplace with WP installation, and the data-migration side of things (which I have no experience with, having been with WP since day one!). ??
As you get further along, post here, or ping me at cgcode at chait dot net.
-d
