As an author and creator, I know all about backups. Save your file after you stop writing, even if you’ve only added a single sentence. Save your file to your hard drive, the external hard drive, and possibly a flash drive. Email your file to yourself so someone else’s servers has a copy and save it to a Cloud Service too.
All of this is very familiar to someone who creates something out of nothing and wants to have it right where they left it despite trials and tribulations of electronics and physical disasters.
So what happens when your website disappears?
Panic. And tears. And more panic.
I changed my website host and my site disappeared. 10 years of work, images, posts, links etc., gone when I made the change – which wasn’t as easy as 1, 2, 3. To say I was angry, scared, and sick to my stomach would be an understatement.
For those of you who understand networking, website hosting, etc, this might seem easy. And the new hosts were that way – oh it’s easy. Just do this, this, and this. If you’re helping someone who doesn’t do this on a regular basis, you need to remember what it’s like TO NOT KNOW HOW.
For those of us who don’t do this for a living, or are even remotely interested in understanding it, or hell, can update and maintain a website on the GUI side, those things aren’t easy or clear or fun. I spent the last 6 hours replacing because the new host deleted my credentials and didn’t transfer the site with their new hosting capabilities. It was a mess. There was probably a miscommunication somewhere because they do this all the time, and I knew what I wanted but not how to ask for it. They deleted the site and said I hadn’t done enough.
Thank god for backups. Do them, on your websites – yes, seriously, because you’ll want it should anything go wrong like it did here. No one wants to build stuff from scratch. I now have four different backups should things go really wrong (2 from the old host, two from the new one). You should be able to do it through your host – if you don’t know how, find out how. Once you know, it IS easy.
Thank goodness for my friend Nara Malone and my husband, who talked me off the ledge and took over the work needed to reinstall the site. It would’ve been really ugly if I had to do it alone.
So, long story short, backup your website so you don’t have to go through this. I did it for you. Learn from my mistakes and trials.
In much better news, I have a book coming on Monday, book 2 in the Elemental Hearts series. And book 1 is on sale for FREE. Click on the images to get the links, and have a great weekend.
Good grief. I’d be in a padded cell with crates of single-malt scotch. Or wine. Or both. So glad you have computer savvy friends and hubby who could ride to the rescue. And yes, tech people need to understand that there are far more technologically-challeged folks out here than the geeks. Just sayin’! Glad it all worked out. Take a day away to clear the bad chi from your head and smile. Spring starts next week. If we’re lucky. ?
Have a great weekend! And glad you are back!!! ?
I was close for sure, Silver. Mr. SM had to tell me to go watch TV or read or do Happy Color so I didn’t lose it completely while he talked to the tech folks. Thank goodness. I’m just writing my min word count so I don’t get too far behind and baking, lol.
Oh no, at least it’s back and you know how to backup.
And here I thought losing an entire finished manuscript twice was bad.
Janice~
Losing an entire manuscript twice is no laughing matter or something easily recovered from – I feel you, Janice. Losing a website is comparable for sure. I don’t recommend either.