| Today we are getting hammered with about half a | | | | peeps. I could still see the individual contacts, but none |
| foot of snow, so it is a good time to curl up in my | | | | of the group membership structure. |
| office with some concentrated time to do my | | | | I realized then (and now) that there is no easy way to |
| backups. | | | | replicate this group structure, even if I do an export to |
| Earlier in the week, when it was still above freezing, I | | | | a CSV of my entire contact list: all I get from doing that |
| was working with some friends who have a small | | | | is just the contacts without any group memberships. |
| development shop here in town. I was helping them | | | | After the disappearing group lists, I spent a few hours |
| figure out their own backup strategy. They are smart | | | | taking screenshots of each group list, realizing that I |
| folks, doing some cool things with computers, and have | | | | probably would never do that again and it was far too |
| plenty of technical expertise when it comes to writing | | | | painful to be useful, but I did feel that I did something to |
| code and understanding how PCs work. What was | | | | prevent it from happening again. I was right: those |
| surprising was how long our conversation took to | | | | screenshots were a one-time deal. I still don't have a |
| understand their requirements, figure out what | | | | solution. Google, please get this fixed soon. |
| products they wanted to continue to use, and chart a | | | | But the Wordpress blog is more troubling, because |
| course that would cover their data assets with enough | | | | there are lots of links and lots of content that I have |
| redundancy but still be something that they would | | | | created over the years and if that goes away, I don't |
| actually use on a regular basis. | | | | have much recourse and don't even want to think |
| When you think about it, backups are still far too hard. | | | | about re-creating that stuff. So what to do? |
| You need basic anti-virus/anti-spyware/personal | | | | One thought I had was to cross-post all my blog |
| firewall protection on each machine. You have to | | | | entries on another free blogging service, such as on |
| create bootable images, in case your drive goes south | | | | Blogger or LiveJournal. It would be nice if one of them |
| or gets corrupted with something that that collection of | | | | would be able to import an XML file or RSS feed and |
| products doesn't catch. You want a shared network | | | | replicate the entire Strominator blog automatically, but |
| data repository and backups offside of this information, | | | | alas that isn't possible. None of the services will import |
| in case a meteor hits your office (or a tornado, more | | | | the comments on my Wordpress site - which could be |
| likely around these parts). You want a spare laptop in | | | | a benefit for those of you that want to start with a |
| case someone's tanks or gets stolen. When you add | | | | clean slate. None of them will import the static pages |
| up all these elements, backups could be a full-time job. | | | | of content that I have created, which are essentially |
| I have a rather complex backup routine that I use for | | | | links to my published archive. I guess I could cut and |
| my own data protection, and there isn't anyone else in | | | | paste the HTML and save it as a local file on my |
| my office (most of the time) and most of my data | | | | desktop, but that seems so 1990s. |
| resides on one computer. So I fully anticipated that it | | | | does have the ability to import blog entries from a |
| would be a lot more complex for my friends who | | | | bunch of different blogging services (including Blogger |
| have multiple computers. The hard part is to make it | | | | and LiveJournal), but not Wordpress. Too bad. |
| easy enough so that they could be motivated to follow | | | | Sigh. So I will have to go back and copy and paste my |
| through on a regular basis. | | | | posts, which is a tedious process considering that I |
| I will admit that my own backups are a chore that I | | | | have several hundred posts on the darn thing. I did |
| don't enjoy doing and only motivate myself to do it | | | | replicate last year's just to see what it took, and I |
| because I recall the consequences of an office fire | | | | guess from now going forward I will cross-post for |
| many years (in my building, luckily both I and my office | | | | backup's sake. But which service should I use? |
| were untouched) or a stolen laptop from the trunk of | | | | One thought I had was to cross-post my old content |
| my car in a Seattle shopping center. And as I was | | | | on sites that have some social-networking patina so I |
| describing my own processes to my friends, I realized | | | | can get some leverage and readership out of the |
| that there is still one place that I don't have adequate | | | | effort. is one such site, but they are more geared |
| backups. Actually, two places, and both because I use | | | | towards uploading documents rather than straight |
| Web resources for creating some of my corporate | | | | HTML - I not only lose the comments but the |
| mission-critical content: my Wordpress blog and my | | | | embedded links with this service. Google's Blogger is |
| Gmail address book. In the very unlikely situation that | | | | probably not going away, but do I want to trust Yet |
| either of these companies go out of business or | | | | Another Googlicious Service for my content? Not sure |
| remove my data accidentally, I am totally toast. | | | | about that. And LiveJournal has an extra step to get |
| Actually, part of my Gmail contacts did disappear for a | | | | posts to be dated properly. |
| little while last summer while the Google Guys were | | | | So nothing is perfect. I welcome your thoughts as |
| working on some update or something. For a day or | | | | always. At least my words are preserved on a few |
| so, I lost the use of the contact groups to organize my | | | | places around the Internet. |