I (used to) live in fear.
I live in fear. Not of hurricanes or pirates or sharks but of something equally as scary (to me) and much further from my sphere of control. That being, a computer crash resulting in the loss of this blog. While I understand websites and how to restore the html files and images associated with them, the databases that make this blog function remain a bit of a mystery to me. I was never quite sure if, when I did backup the files, I was obtaining all that I would need to put it back in order should the worst-case scenario occur.
We host this site on Webmasters.com’s servers, as I have all of the sites I have built and administered over the years, and I believe they keep redundant copies. That didn’t entirely keep me from losing sleep over the matter though. Recently I decided to do a bit of research on the backup subject and along with a couple of other options, came across blogVault, a service which claims to make the restoring of a lost blog painless. That sounded especially good to me!
Fortunately I have not yet had to put their claims to the test, and I hope that I never do, but after checking out their free trial, and noting that they had been religiously backing up the files daily as they said they would, we subscribed to their service. In my mind the small sum we pay to them each month will be peanuts compared to the severe anguish I would suffer if I was to lose several years worth of work on this blog!
Note that both of the two links in this post go to our affiliate accounts with the companies that I mentioned. I doubt much if anything will come from this but should you decide to employ their services as we have after clicking the above links, we might get a coffee or something out of it. 🙂
I am soooo happy you guys post everyday with your blog and maintain the best boating blog out there……..One reason folks go cruising is to be free of the landlocked prison constraints……I dealt with the frustrations of internet for 10 days while cruising the BVI’s and it made me get to thinking “this is what I am trying to get away from”……..Do you ever say that with lack of internet, storage issues, etc……..
Yes and no. Intermittent internet drives me CRAZY. I would much rather have no internet than bad internet.
To clarify though, unlike many people, I wouldn’t say that we are trying to “get away from” anything. We are “moving towards” rather than running away.
It is instructive, when you replace your computer, to try to set it up by doing a restore from your backup system. I have known it work – once.
Apart from running parallel systems and auto-backup, with complex firewalls, cost, and complication. And still no guarantee of success. I don’t know any other realistic way other than what you are already doing.
Mike
Hopefully we never find out!
Hi Mike and Rebecca,
This is Maureen and Wade of S/V Just Drifting and we are working our way southeast towards you. We are in Samana, D.R., right now and should be in Puerto Rico in a couple days. Look forward to seeing you in a month or so, wherever that might be. Maybe still Martinique?
We have been trying to keep up on our blog too. Please get the cheese and wine scoped out in Martinique for when we arrive.
Wade and Maureen
Hi guys
We bought a supply of cheap wine, cheap beer and a 1KG block of Brie yesterday (in Le Marin). We won’t likely be here when you arrive though, unless you substitute a jet airplane for Just Drifting. We will see you south of here though. Keep your eyes open for our friends Kirk and Donna on a Lagoon 440 called Ainulindalë.
http://lifeontherode.blogspot.com/
Blogger has a pretty easy backup utility but I’ve never actually had to restore so I don’t know how well it works. One thing I will mention – there is an awesome site that prints hardcopy books from your blog. We have been giving our daughter a book for each year of her blog for Christmas, birthdays, etc and the books have been incredible quality and even more incredibly easy to make. I highly recommend them. The site is blog2print.com
Deb
S/V Kintala
http://www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
That looks cool. Thanks for the link, Deb. I wonder what it would cost to have our entire blog, comments included, printed. I bet it would be a lot!
Just did a “test restore” of the blog on BlogVault’s servers and it worked flawlessly. So far I am very happy. Hope I never need to do an actual restore though.