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Great Find: How to Back Up Your Blog

November 14, 2005 by Liz 37 Comments

It’s data. Best practices say, back it up regularly.

If you’re new to blogging you might not have heard the stories. I read another this week . . . about someone who accidently deleted a whole blog. Indie told one two weeks ago about fans who rescued a blog–piece by piece–when the author deleted it. Things happen to all of us. One night it happened to me. Blogger redid their blogging software, and that work messed up my formatting. ASCI characters popped everywhere that once was an apostrophe or a quotation mark. I had to change each character back by hand.

When I was reading this weekend, I found a great Lifehacker tip you might have missed, Ask Lifehacker: How do I back up my blog? The tip includes download links for two blogger back-up programs–one for OSX and one for PC.

Each of the programs puts a mirror image of the blog on your computer. It’s your safety net should anything ever happen for any reason. That means that not only your content, but any little template tweaks you make over time will remain true and faithful–never needing to be made again.

If you don’t have one or something like it, stop and go get one. Don’t find yourself thinking, “Oh man, I wish I would have done that when I had the chance.” Don’t work in the “high-risk” zone.

How much time could it take? How much time could it save you? 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc

Comments

  1. HART (1-800-HART) says

    November 14, 2005 at 4:09 PM

    Backups are good. I do mine every Friday Evening. This tip is for the blogger hosted blogs though, not for those of us on wordpress. It would be nice if you could talk about these too 🙂 I’ve been using two plugins – Laughing Lizard, which backups PER BLOG seems to be almost 100 mb’s. Then, there’s skippy plug in that will backup ALL MY BLOGS in under 8 mb space. I think I trust Laughing Lizard plugin, but how can – I if it takes 100 mb? But lately, skippy always freezes on my search statistics table in my database .. It’s huge… I’ve had to not include those tables – so how can I trust that backup either? Is there a better way to backup my wordpress and database? I’d be interested in knowing.

    Back to the blogger backups – what I also used to do before moving to their own domains was to use a text file on my desktop and copy/paste the entire template into this text file – especially before I were to make changes.I also took the time to mark in a scribble the settings and configurations so it would be easy to replicate on future blogs, or if I ever had to recreate it once again manually, I can just go through the motions and Y/N/Y/Y/N/ etc instead of trying to think of the consequences of the preference setup.

    Reply
  2. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 4:32 PM

    Hi Hart!
    I was writing notes furiously while I read your comment. Don’t know how I missed that, except that maybe I’m so enamored of Word Press that I can’t imagine anything it doesn’t to for itself. 🙂 I’ll start a search for something to help you.

    I went one better than you on the blogger template. I just kept a second private blog with the same template and a printed copy of that. Anytime I screwed up a bit of code I could check what the original was and cut and paste back into my new template.

    The problem I’m having these days is with the addition of Adsense. Google bots keep squatting in my template in my style sheet in places that change the whole formatting without me knowing it’s going to happen. Grrrr.
    Liz

    Reply
  3. indeterminacy says

    November 14, 2005 at 4:34 PM

    That is useful! I was wondering how people did that – without saving each archive page by hand.

    Reply
  4. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 4:59 PM

    Hi Indie,
    Good to make yor day.
    You just made mine. 🙂
    Liz

    Reply
  5. Steven Ametjan says

    November 14, 2005 at 6:09 PM

    I rarely backup my database that holds my blog, but as I’m in the process of switching from one host to another I’ve been making backups on a regular basis. The easiest way that I’ve found to backup my WP blog is to just jump into MySQL or phpMyAdmin and use its export to produce a SQL file that I then save onto my HD, my web host, and my iPod should anything happen.

    The one caveat about the way I backup is that when you go to import the file, phpMyAdmin has a file limit of 10MB I believe so if you’ve been blogging for awhile, have a ton of comments, and your backup is unwieldy you need to actually use the command prompt to interface with the mysql server.

    Reply
  6. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 6:25 PM

    Hi Steve,
    Thanks for sharing your way of doing that. I have to admit it sounds a littls scary to me, but then I don’t do Ferris wheels either. 🙂
    Liz

    Reply
  7. Martin (HomeOfficeVoice) says

    November 14, 2005 at 6:34 PM

    I’ve had my own fun with backing up (actually, NOT backing up) over recent weeks – but that’s more to do with a complete computer failure 🙁

    Yeah, I’m also with WordPress …haven’t gone near blogger for long time – what a blog snob am I 🙂 and I know there are a few plugins going around for backing up WP blogs just that I’m a real lazy person with things like this – guess I better be proactive rather than reactive and just get into a backup routine.

    Thanks Liz for the wake-up call 🙂

    Reply
  8. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 6:42 PM

    Hi Martin,
    Oh I love old war stories. 😛
    I’m sorry you had a complex computer failure in your past. Did you want to talk about it? There’s a couch over there by the sidebar. I only charge . . . let’s see $90/hr. 😛

    Glad to hear you’re going to figure out a way to back up your blog. I’d hate to hear you lost it.
    Liz

    Reply
  9. Richard Dunlop-Walters says

    November 14, 2005 at 6:52 PM

    I back up weekly now, I’ve had my whole database wiped twice in the past.

    This is good advice to spread.

    Reply
  10. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 7:04 PM

    Hi Richard,
    Advice is always better spread when it comes from you rather than from me. Thanks for saying so. Lots of voices saying the same thing in this case might be enought to convince someone who’s not quite sure.
    Liz

    Reply
  11. Richard Dunlop-Walters says

    November 14, 2005 at 7:48 PM

    “Advice is always better spread when it comes from you rather than from me.”

    I don’t understand what you mean by that. You’re the 9ruler, not me 😉

    But yes, the more people who get this message, the better.

    Reply
  12. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 8:00 PM

    Ahh, but I am only one. And you are many. 😛
    Liz

    Reply
  13. Martin (HomeOfficeVoice) says

    November 14, 2005 at 8:00 PM

    Thanks for the offer Liz – I’ll only go to the couch at your sidebar if there’s a bar full of hard liquor there 😉

    Who needs to pay to talk about it when my blog is my couch these days – I blogged about it (mainly how much of a schmuck I was in neglecting to backup) – needless to say, I’ve had my fair share of recent posts (and there’s more to come) on backing.

    Reply
  14. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 8:03 PM

    Hi Martin,
    The virtual bar is now open! You do know I’m a saloonkeper’s daughter, right?

    I’ll have to come over and take a look-see. Maybe there’s some wisdom you should be sharing over here. 😛
    Liz

    Reply
  15. Martin (HomeOfficeVoice) says

    November 14, 2005 at 9:06 PM

    Ah, okay make mine a Jack D, double on the rock and keep ’em coming 🙂

    Wisdom! Yup, the wisom is don’t do what I did and not back up.

    Okay I’ll share: BACK UP! – learn it, do it, don’t put it off for another day – I know it’s not the most exciting thing to do, but you’ll be glad you did when/if (touch wood) IT happens.

    Reply
  16. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 9:22 PM

    There you go, Martin.

    Well said, well put, and well delivered.

    The drink’s on me.
    Liz

    Reply
  17. Shirley George Frazier says

    November 14, 2005 at 9:38 PM

    Your back-up post is very timely. On Friday, my blog’s right column disappeared due to my own haste.

    My lack of HTML made the situation very frustrating, but I was able to download a new WordPress right column, pasting the raw HTML into the blog, which fixed everything.

    I’ll be sure to back up my blog. Thanks for the info.

    Reply
  18. Mike says

    November 14, 2005 at 9:42 PM

    Hey Gang,

    At Freaks, we use WordPress Database Backup 1.6, by Scott Merrill. It’s at skippy.net and if you need any specifics, holler at Cary over at Freaks, he’s da dude who does da stuff. I think he gets it emailed to him automatically each night.

    Reply
  19. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:19 PM

    Hi Shirley,
    Oh ouch, it hurts to have that happen right before your eyes, especially on a Friday afternoon. I’m delighted you were cool and able to fix it. Some of us might have lots out minds and made it worse. Good on you, Shirley.
    Liz

    Reply
  20. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:21 PM

    Hi Mike.
    How are you tonight?
    Aren’t you on a roll–that’s two nights in a row.
    Liz

    Reply
  21. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:22 PM

    Thanks Solo Business Marketing, but the credit goes to Lifehacker. 🙂

    Reply
  22. Mike says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:28 PM

    Glad to throw in my nickel when I can.

    9r is lucky to get me to stop by contribute. I usually don’t visit blogs that are run by big timers 🙂

    And if I do, I usually charge an hourly rate.

    Reply
  23. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:31 PM

    Here you go, Mike.
    Will you have water with that?
    Liz

    Reply
  24. Mike says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:38 PM

    Thanks ! I prefer sprang water..like we got here in the holler.

    BTW – How are those badges of honor coming for us SOB’s ?

    Reply
  25. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:47 PM

    Hey, Mike.
    You want ’em done?
    Or You want ’em done well?
    Liz

    Reply
  26. Mike says

    November 14, 2005 at 10:57 PM

    My bad.

    Well will be fine.

    I’ll be slinkin’ over to the corner to hush now….

    PS – Throw The Dawg a biscuit every now and then…it takes a lot of calories to keep up this figure.

    Reply
  27. ME Strauss says

    November 14, 2005 at 11:08 PM

    Giggle.
    Hey, Mike. No slinking allowed here.
    Need you thinking, not slinking.
    Liz

    Reply
  28. garnet says

    November 15, 2005 at 2:26 AM

    I think I missed the party. I was watching a movie.

    One of the great things about WP is all the goodies that come with it, or are easy to add. I do regular backups and it’s a cinch.

    Reply
  29. indeterminacy says

    November 15, 2005 at 5:29 AM

    Just a word about the template. It’s important to remember the template in blogger.com is filled with placeholder variables that are filled out whenever the page is referenced. This means you should really keep an extra backup of the original template with the placeholders. Saving the blog is not enough.

    I send my current template to myself every so often as an g-mail.

    Reply
  30. ME Strauss says

    November 15, 2005 at 7:16 AM

    Hi Garnet,
    What plug in do you use to back up your Word Press blog?

    Hi Indie,
    Good Morning
    Can you explain for our readers how you email your template?
    Liz

    Reply
  31. HART (1-800-HART) says

    November 15, 2005 at 11:03 AM

    Just thought of another thing I do all the time, in each of my blogs. I use ws_ftp to upload templates, and set the default to the appropriate theme folder. In each folder before I do any modifications, I create a new folder called e.g. bu-2005-1115 right in my themes folder on my computer, and copy all the .php files in there ..

    I can go back to july and find every version of my website if I have to start from scratch. It helps if you are like me, tweak a lot of changes, add a few extra lines, modify spacing, then all of a sudden – blank page! (or in shirley’s case missing sidebar).. just copy over. I always know my last bu-folder works.

    Reply
  32. ME Strauss says

    November 15, 2005 at 11:49 AM

    HART, you are a good one.
    Have you ever written a post about that for your blog?
    If you have or you do, I’d sure like to link here.
    Liz

    Reply
  33. HART (1-800-HART) says

    November 15, 2005 at 3:51 PM

    For my own blog – I wouldn’t recognize good content ideas .. even if it slapped me in the face! But, I’m glad that I can contribute my 2 cents to your blog.. just be forewarned – I’m Canadian, so it’s really like, 1-1/2 cents worth…

    Reply
  34. ME Strauss says

    November 15, 2005 at 4:16 PM

    HI Hart,
    I know the exchange rate. I’ll kick in the other 1/2 cent. Can’t do anything with it anyway. Here’s your water.
    Liz

    Reply
  35. indeterminacy says

    November 18, 2005 at 1:44 AM

    Sorry, I didnt see your question until now. I go into the “edit template” mode in blogger, then click the area with the right mousekey. There’ll be an option “Mark all”. Mark it, then with the right mouskey you select “copy”. Then go to your e-mail and right mousekey “insert”. Your template should be in the e-mail. You can just as well copy it into an archive file, but I always lose files, so I do it in an e-mail.

    Reply
  36. ME Strauss says

    November 18, 2005 at 3:48 AM

    Hi Indie,
    Great to see you!
    No worries about missing my question. Happens all of the time. 🙂
    Thanks for coming back to answer it though. That’s good information for anyone who uses Blogger. I knew about the archive part, but hadn’t thought about the email until you brought it up. Very cool. 🙂
    Liz

    Reply

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