Well, we are back.
Did you lose any pre-scheduled posts, or drafts? Best I can determine, I did lose 2 drafts, sadly one rather long one. Looks like everything else has survived. I had to repost several posts, click the publish button and away it went. Had to re-approve a few comments, click, good to go.
SOOOOO, what did you do during the crash? Panic?? Swear?? Curse?? Sweat?? Take a nap?? Contemplate your method of backups??
Will the crash change how you use Blogger?? Will you draft in a word processor now?? Will you use other methods to protect your writing??
What ideas might you share with others on this issue?? What tricks do you have up your sleeve(s)??
I am giving my blogging process a serious review, I can tell you that!
Please share your thoughts, I think we can all learn from this little crash Blogger had.
*Graphic courtesy of classroomclipart.com
15 comments:
Fortunately, I have been absent in action on blogger since the beginning of the month. There was a time that I was copying each blog to my hard drive, but that has been ages ago. Maybe I need to revisit that.
Dear Carol,
I'm sorry to hear that you have lost some drafts of your work. Very Frustrating. I hope you are able to recover them.
For me the discovery of the Blogger crash played out like this:
Frustration, Tears, Thinking
then...
Stepping away from computer, deep breathing, meditation, reading.
Return to computer: Cursing Blogger with a quick perusal of the WordPress website.
When I first started my blogs last year I usually wrote drafts in a Pages document (Mac) and then posted them. In time I moved away from the practice, so this Blogger crash has made me realize that I might save myself a lot of headaches (and heart aches) by once again composing drafts in Pages.
As sick as it may sound I kind of like the occasional crash because it offers an opportunity to reassess what we're doing and how we're doing it.
(sorry about the uber long comment)
Cheers,
Jennifer
Carol, ignorance is almost bliss... I didn't know of the crash until a few minutes ago. I have been absent on the web since yesterday morning.
Blog posts I scheduled at that time for the next few days are missing in action. Not a big deal for me since I write all blog posts in a word processor AND keep them on my hard drive after publishing. After a post is published I get the url and add it to the document for future reference. That way I have the url "with me" if I want to reference it in a future post.
So now, all I have to do is go into blogger and copy paste the blog post and upload the photos again for those posts that got "lost" in the crash.
I also periodically do a download of the entire blog as well as the template. Don't know if that would really be of help in this case but it gives me that "feel good" feeling.
Honestly Carol, it didn't even occur to me that I might have lost stuff in my Blogger account until I read your post! A quick check indicates I probably did not. Fortunately, I didn't have any drafts in the works.
I'm so busy right now, I just closed down Google Reader when I saw I couldn't comment on any posts and went on to the next task of the day :)
What you may think is lost or missing may not be -not everything is back up in Blogger. According to Blogger's blog, "We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring." So, I'm going to wait a bit before worrying about missing posts and drafts in the seven Blogger blogs I manage or participate in.
I did export my family history blog to a flash drive as a backup. I don't like drafting in a word processor (at least not Word) as it imports all sorts of extraneous formatting stuff into the posts.
Jennifer, I could not agree more, sometimes a mini disaster is a very good thing, makes us look at issues with fresh and wary eyes.
Amanda, I read that, and secretly hoped that the MIA's would return, I was a bit shy about saying so, but, TA DA, the 2 MIA's have returned, none the worse for wear.
I am going to try writing in Word Perfect and do the copy/paste stuff into Blogger, but, I will copy/paste it into the Edit HTML screen, not the Compose screen, I have had good results pasting into that screen, then flipping back over to Compose to add photos and format spacing and such. I don't see any formatting issues that way (SO FAR!)
Linda, Becky and Michelle, thanks for your comments.
I did notice that no person I follow had a post. I could not figure why you were all taking the day off...
ha ha
My drafts are always written in Word or Pages (including URLs, when necessary) then copied into HTML, then edited in Compose, then reviewed in Preview and edited again in Compose. Blogger's timing certainly stank, especially since some NGS conference attendees had to suffer some Twitter withdrawal as well due to connectivity problems.
I missed my early morning blog reading time but when I realized it was going to be down a while I got caught up on some of that *stuff* (you know) that I put off every year and then am so sorry and bummed that I did. I am patting myself on the back now.
But...I will rethink how I do certain posts. Short, easy stuff like Tombstone Tuesdays, I am sure I'll still post directly to Blogger. But those longer, story telling posts....those I will work on elsewhere. Someone mentioned Evernote and I'm going to give that a try just to see how it copies over to Blogger. Never thought to copy from Word to HTML first. Must give that a try too.
I did not feel the need to pull my hair out because I knew my last post was a day before the Blogger Blackout and my saved drafts were not scheduled.
It made me realize that I need to make sure my blog is backed up.
I also reflected on how fortunate I am to have this medium to share my research with others - remember the old days when it was all US mail.
This of course, came only after much weeping and gnashing of teeth....
Lisa, I do understand, my fur kids do to, as grooming resulted, they were NOT happy! LOL
Travis, yes, we heard the gnashing! LOL
I am reading a lot of other bloggers have the same issues, so, it is sorta comforting to know we all fall into the "it is easier" method of posting, Lisa, I am leaning exactly in the direction you suggest, longer posts, must be done in a word processor.
In the meantime, I am actively backing up my blog posts in the time honored, copy, paste, into Word, saving each. Got 2009 done!
I think my best strategy will be to copy from Blogger to my word processing program rather than compose and copy into Blogger. The question is whether I'll remember!
Carol...why not just have "Backupify" (http://www.backupify.com/) do your backup? It's a snap to set up and it's free. Since it only backs up once a week it might be a good idea to copy each day's post and after you have about 10, start deleting the oldest post each time you add a new one.
Lisa, one of the main reasons I have not done a lot of "cloud" backup work is "number of bytes used per month". On the Sprint aircard we have been using at the stickbuilt, I have a limit of 5 gigs a month, and Man gets part of that 5 gigs.
Right now, we have the "Verizon-wanna-be" air card and that limit is 20 gigs, no indication that we have ever gone over.
But, maybe, since it is only once a week. Good suggestion, I will think on it, thanks!
Lisa, imagine my surprise to discover that I apparently already have an account at backupify. I had to reset my password, and then accessed the files. Only thing is, they are not saving each and every post, they are only saving the individual post from any specific day. Or, at least that is the way it looks to me. Cannot seem to find a choice for it to backup ALL posts done since the last time. Color me confused.
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