Back up your blog

It’s a good idea to back up your blog. If you use Moveable Type or another server-based blogging platform you can easily backup the files yourself. For all those with hosted blogs such as Blogger or Typepad, that’s not so easy. Typepad recently deleted several blogs beginning with the letter ‘S’, so disaster can strike. You don’t want that to happen to you, your company or your client. We offer both windows dedicated server and linux dedicated servers with a variety of operating systems to choose from. We offer CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and Windows operating systems. For those looking for Windows Dedicated Hosting, we have both standard and data center licenses available. You can also install your own OS using the included IPMI console or we can install a custom OS for you. A dedicated server is itself, the physical piece of hardware that your hosting provider rents to you. It has its own processor, hard drives(s), Random Access Memory (RAM) and bandwidth capability. Your website and its associated software will be hosted exclusively on this dedicated server’s hard drives. Knownhost Dedicated Hosting servers allow you to install and run almost any program. They additionally allow other users, whom you have given access, the ability to connect to your dedicated hosting server and use those same programs at the same time you do. This has made dedicated servers very popular amongst internet gamers. Dedicated gaming servers offer all the same features of regular dedicated hosting servers but they are intended for less serious pursuits. No one else has access to your server but you. You are responsible for all its contents so there is no possibility of viruses or other malicious software unless you put them there. Additionally, most dedicated server plans come with the option of an external firewall so you can better enforce your specified access rights.

I use a blog posting application called ecto, which means I have a local copy of all my posts. But if my blog was deleted, I’d still lose all the graphics, formating, style sheets, comments and trackbacks.

LifeHacker recently had a great post which suggests creating a local mirror of your blog on a regular basis. Mac OSX users can use WebGrabber and PC users HTTrack, both of which are free:

Download WebGrabber and start it up. Give it your site’s address, tell it where to download it, set any other options and watch it save your web site to your computer. (Be sure to check the “Stay on specified site” box so you don’t go downloading every page you link to from your blog, too.) The nice thing about WebGrabber is once you do an initial backup, every time you back up after that you can choose “Sync up with previous download” to update your backup (versus mirroring the whole site again.)

Windows users in the same boat: to you I recommend the free HTTrack, “the web site copier,” which has similar functionality.

Each of these applications will create a fully working, interlinked local copy of your blog for browsing offline.

I’ve just given WebGrabber a whirl and it seems to work well. It sucks down your blog and stores it on your desktop. I have to confess that in the event of disaster at Typepad, I’m not sure how I would upload all the files into the correct places, but at least I’d be able to recreate the site and have easy access to the images, posts and photos. It’s not an automated backup system – but it’s a good place to start. There could be many more pros & cons but I’ve pointed out some of the major ones. Managing a web server starts as a full time job, you must constantly monitor its performance and security or even better hire pro web design companies. This can sometimes be an exhausting task, especially if you currently have other responsibilities. Though, the control you will have over your website and its performance is rewarding enough. You no longer have to wait for technical support or approval to install a script onto the server. You can have as many websites and databases you want, as long as your hardware can handle it. You no longer have to go into the discussion forums and search for the best web host or rant about how much you hate your current host. You can even begin hosting family & friends personal websites.

Technorati Tags: , ,