Thursday, January 31, 2008

Backup your blog!

The BibleWorks Blog with all its great user downloads recently somehow disappeared into the ether. Unfortunately, the blog host didn't even have any backups. They are slowly getting it rebuilt, and it should be back in service soon, but it is a good reminder for you to backup your blogs.
If you are running a WordPress blog, it is actually fairly easy. WordPress assures users that everything is being redundantly backed up, but if you want to save your own copy, you can. You go to Manage your blog, and then Export, and it produces a single XML file.
It is possible to create a backup with Blogger, but it is a rather involved process. So, instead of that or of saving copies of every post (or even of every archived month), there is one other very easy and powerful way to backup your whole blog. Download the free HTTrack Website Copier. You will want to look at the options the first time and not have it copy external links, but this is otherwise pretty much a one-click deal. Depending on the size of your blog, it may take a while, but won't you feel better knowing you have everything backed up!

4 comments:

  1. Amen & Amen! Export your blog and burn it to a CD as often as reasonable. The big problem with the BibleWorks blog was not so much the posts... They were reconstructible. The big issue was the directory that contained all of the user-created files. Yahoo - my host - supposedly had flash backups that go back a few months. Those flash backups did not work! So, don't rely on any host's flash backups. Beware! Beware!

    That being said, I am very thankful to all of the BibleWorks users that have submitted missing files. A dedicated user community seems to provide a relatively decent "backup" in a pinch!

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  2. Excellent ... I've been looking for a blog backup tool, and this gives a much better result than any of the commercial ones!

    Wnjoying keeping up with all the Bible tech on your blog!

    Thanks
    Richard

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  3. Thanks for the tips.
    I can't get WinHTTrack to connect to my blogspot.com blog. I've tried many times, and it makes 4 attempts and then says that it can't connect. Have you had any similar problems?

    Thanks
    Dunk

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  4. Hmmm.... Works fine for me. I used it yesterday to back up this blogspot.com blog. In the add URL space, be sure you have http://yoursite.blogspot.com

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