Author web sites - backups

Author web sites - one, two or none?

Er - didn't you used to have a web site?

OK. Let's do a quick survey. Hands up everybody, especially authors, with a web site. A blog, a forum-type-commenty-type thing, a store, a photo album - all those and more.

You can put them down now :-).

Recently I heard from a friend of mine. She's a writer too. She has a web-site. With a blog and, er, blog-y stuff.

Actually, she doesn't. It's more that she, um, used to. Have one, I mean.

You see, she was adding something to the site. A plugin. I'm sure you all know what that is, but for any who don't just think of it as an extra feature offered by the place she had her site. Thing is, before she added the plugin thingy, she had a site. After? After, not so much. Something went wrong. It doesn't really matter what. But all of a sudden, there it wasn't. Her site. Her registered users. Her articles, user comments - with one bound, it vanished. In a puff of smoke. Without the smoke, even.

So here's the thing. The point thing, I mean. Yes, there really is one :-).

There are lots of ways of putting up blogs, web-sites, forums - all that stuff. And I'm not saying any one of them is better or worse than any other. But for yours, for the one you use, for however long you've been using it, for whatever content and 'stuff' you have there, if you had the same 'puff of smoke' experience, for any reason at all, does whatever you use let you take backups? If it does, do you take them? And, if you take them, do you know how to put them back up to repair your web-site/ blog/ forum/ users/ articles/ comments... 'stuff'?

And if the answer to any one of those three questions is 'um, er... no', or even 'um, er... ratted if I know' - you may want to think. Think about puffs of smoke.

Or not - the choice, as they say on all the bad games shows, is yours :).

Hmmmm. Maybe I just wrote my blog for this week.... :-P

First, any small aid my feeble lackwit might offer is, of course, available to any here. Oh, lordy. I can almost feel the terror striking hearts that read those words even as I type them. And, to near quote Segorian, I might try to remember the last time I 'helped' someone lay a campfire. Fortunately it was only a _small_ forest. I'm sure no-one missed it. Probably... :-P.

Here's the bad news. Well, the bad news and the other bad news. Well, the bad news, the other bad news and...

Hmmm. Perhaps I should start again :-P.

First bad news:
Powers help me, some of the sites and technologies used to let people do the whole web-site/ blog/ forum type thing as easily as possible, um, don't have a backup process. Not all of them, but some don't. They just, um, don't. Which is why, if ever anyone is mad enough to ask my advice on how or where to do this, if they manage to catch me after I start running (because if I offer advice I know I'm going to be blamed for anything and everything that happens afterwards), I tell them to make it one of the first questions to ask or look into. 'Can I/ do you do backups?'

Now the second bad news:
Some places do backups, but you have to be able to access your site to, um, restore them. Which, for some failures is fine. For others - not so much. That's what happened to the friend I mentioned. She had a backup, but she had to get into her site to restore it. And her site was, um, gone. Which is sort of a bad place to be.

And the third bad news?
Even if you've got a backup, it might not be enough. because there's more than one type of backup.

OK. I'll apologise in advance, but here's the science bit :-P.

In general, web sites/ blogs/ Forums tend to be set up and run with a number of things. Things you probably have, but may not know you have. At the simple end, there are web pages. Good old HTML. If you know what HTML is, great. If you don't – don’t worry about it. It's what people trying to sound clever call basic web pages. So let's call them basic web pages. And we can call the people trying to sound clever lots of other things :-P.

After simple web pages, there are more complicated web pages. I could join the 'trying to sound like a smart a$$' brigade, and mutter about XML, CSS, or PHP, or lots of other simple looking but cryptic acronyms. I'm good with 'more complicated web pages'.

Underneath (or over, or sideways, or upside-down with a side of topsy-turvy), there's probably a database somewhere. If _you_ want to join the 'sounding clever' brigade, you can nod wisely and mutter things about mySQL. Or some other strange magery. Me? I'll say there's probably a database there. And there's other stuff. Depending on your site, it might be pictures, sounds, music, videe... vido.... vida.... moving pictures - whatever you have.

So backing that up can be, er, complicated. Restoring it even more so.

The best answer I can offer without extra data is - it depends. Now (takes life in hands), if people are interested in finding out more I can offer my small wit, as I'm sure others here can. To look at specific sites/ hosts/ places. For instance, here's an old page (I don't know how current it is) about backing up a Blogger site:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-backup-blogger-blog.html

You know what? I've read it. It's complicated. To say the least. Actually, I'd say it was a total dogs-breakfast, but that would be unkind to the dog. and I don't even have a dog :-). This one's more up to date, but still may be out of date:

http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/backup-your-blogger-blog/5984/

And that's just Blogger :-(.

Here's one consistent and golden (to my poor wit at least) piece of advice. Don't have a web site. Or a blog. Or a forum.

Er.. what did her say? But.. but...

Yup. That's what I said. But I'm a writer, so words are important to me. I said don't have _a_. Don't have 'a' (yes, or 'an" :-P) anything.

Have two :-).

Why two? Because if you have two, both set up with the same structure, one of them can be your test site. You can try adding that new doo-hickey or ooja-ma-flip thingie to your test site, and if things go all crash-bang-wallop, no big deal. Your live site is safe. And you can try deliberately breaking your test site (that's another fun game :-P), and testing how to restore your backup. Without damaging your live site :-).

I'm probably going on too long here. Is anybody still awake? I could go on a lot longer, but I'll pause to let you work out what to beat me over the head with. Just remember, please - no custard. I love it, but there's that whole diabetes thing :-(.

I can carry on talking here, I can talk to people individually if they prefer, I can shut up. Most people prefer door number three, so don't worry if that's the general preference. I'm used to it :-).

In short (he blushes, looking up at all the words above that 'in short'), the answer to 'how' depends on each blog/ site/ forum solution. But the answer to whether it's a good idea is, I regret, thought about most often just after it becoming kind of important. Just after it all goes, um, gone.