A Writer’s Nightmare: Back Up Those Files

error-102075_640 pixabayThe morning began rather well. I had plans for the evening so I baked some cookies to take with me. I’d had my coffee and a bite to eat and the cookies were baking in the oven. Time to get to work – my writing work, that is.

The evening before I had turned my computer off, thinking it could use a fresh reboot in the morning. So I pressed the start button and waited. Disaster. I got a message that told me there had been an error in the shut down. The screen that is supposed to explain the specific problem blinked for less than a second before going to the screen that gave me some options: start in safe mode, start in safe mode with networking, start in safe mode with command prompt, and restart Windows normally.

Hey, I thought, no problem. I’ve been here before. All I have to do is “restart Windows normally”. Er, no. It just kept happening over again. After four tries it dawned on me that maybe this wasn’t going so well. Continue reading “A Writer’s Nightmare: Back Up Those Files”

When did you last back up your blog?

button-2076_640 pixabayThe answer may not be ‘never’ of course, although I’m as guilty as everyone for panicing when it’s too late. But if you have a WordPress site you may have used their handy little ‘export’ function assiduously, under the impression that your site would be instantly restorable if necessary. Unfortunately the download this creates, sitting smugly in the Cloud somewhere, will have a few details missing.

If you are a whizz with databases and FTP clients, the most comprehensive way to back up a WordPress site is with the free plug-in WordPress Duplicator but if your dashboard is as far as you want to go into the engine room, here’s a quick, easy way to cheat. We’re going to use screenprints to capture all the bits your exported file will have missed. Continue reading “When did you last back up your blog?”