The other day I was setting up a WordPress sandbox to do some theme testing and I ran into a small snag. I wanted to populate the blog with data from smmguru.com and the WordPress export feature is a bit flawed. For many reasons (mainly security) I did not want the sandbox blog running off the same database so a backup/import was the way to go. Unless you can upload a 6mb export to your site (highly unlikely) then you cant import any data.

The first route I took was manually trying to split the file but I quickly realized it would take forever with that many lines of code. I took my problem to Google and found a nice little gem called “Shoes.” Its a WXR file splitter written in ruby by  mvManila. The program is very easy to use and it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and there’s also a command line version for the nerds. You can get the latest version here (just pick the latest version number for whichever platform you are running.) The program will then install itself and your ready to roll.

Select the local copy of your WXR file, then pick how small you would like each chunk to be. You can even append a name that will automatically be ordered in number. For example entering “backup-part-” will create WXR files labeled “backup-part-1″, “backup-part-2″, etc. Then all you have to do is import all the files through WordPress and your good to go.

There’s no denying that WordPress has needed to overhaul the comment system for some time now. With Automattic’s recent acquisition of IntenseDebate, WordPress 2.7 will be seeing some welcomed new features for the comment system. The update will see an integrated version of the threaded commenting system right out of the box and there is a plugin being developed to allow for more usage of ID’s features.

Although they went back into an invite only mode, the site is expected to be back into full swing not to far down the road. Automattic will bring a lot of attention to the service with it’s massive user base on WordPress.com, and private install base from WordPress.org. My guess is Automattic is getting everything humming on their servers to handle the load and do some testing before they really push it out there. Should be good, I have been waiting for integrated threaded comments for a while, the plugins just don’t do it for me.