Do You Back Up Your Blog?

In a recent “Reclaiming the Mind Ministries Special News Update,” Michael noted that his blog was hacked and most of his data was lost.

You may have noticed that the Parchment and Pen blog got hacked. Ouch! Our entire backup was corrupted and we are seeking other means of restoring the database. All those posts . . . gone! Well, not all. We have thus far restored it up to September of last year. That means a full years worth of writing is lost as of today. Hopefully we will get a few more months worth recovered soon. Be advised, we are working on the blog.

Do you back up your blog? If you don’t, you might want to consider starting.

 Loading ...

Here are several backup options for those of you who use the self-hosted version of WordPress (i.e., WordPress.org, not WordPress.com):

1. Manually and regularly export your blog’s content from the WordPress admin panel under Manage > Export. This will protect your content, but doesn’t back up your entire database.
2. Use the WP-DB-Backup plugin to automatically email yourself a backup of your entire database regularly (i.e., weekly, daily, or even more frequently; I opt for weekly).
3. Use your web host’s cPanel to back up your entire site.
4. Manually backup your database file with phpMyAdmin, also a part of cPanel.

I use and recommend a combination of 2 and 3. What do you use?

RefTagger from Logos

This week Logos launched a very nice tool for making the Bible references on your website much more useful to your readers by converting them to hyperlinks to the version of your choice at BibleGateway and giving you the option of adding a small Libronix icon linked to the version of your choice in the Libronix Digital Library System (or the user’s default version). Continue reading ‘RefTagger from Logos’

WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin

If you’re a WordPress.org user and you’re responsible for upgrading your WordPress install when a new version comes out, you’ll definitely want to check out the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. If your web host includes cPanel with Fantastico De Luxe, which allows for simple upgrades, you should still consider using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. Fantastico is great, but one of my biggest frustrations is that it usually takes a couple of weeks or more to release the newest version of WordPress—not good when the new version fixes serious security problems. I’m not sure if this is an issue with cPanel, Fantastico, or my web host, Host Monster.

Continue reading ‘WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin’