Emergency Preparedness (Saving My Blog’s Life)
April 22nd, 2009
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Photo by Annie Mole
In Boy Scouts, one of the most important things you do is work on earning your merit badges. And one of the most coveted merit badges, one required for becoming an Eagle Scout, is Emergency Preparedness.
To earn this merit badge, you need to demonstrate that you’re prepared for emergencies such as fires, explosions, car accidents, being trapped in the desert or a blizzard, food poisoning, flash floods, mountain accidents, boating accidents, gas leaks, tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, touching live electrical wires, carbon monoxide poisoning, and nuclear power plant emergencies (all of these are actually on the list).
I never earned this merit badge, but like everyone else, I’m still responsible for being prepared in the event of an emergency. And I experienced an emergency a couple of days ago, when my blog crashed.
To call this an emergency might sound like an exaggeration to some of you, but anyone who has a blog can imagine how it feels to first lose the ability to comment, and then lose the ability to log in. While I welcome technical challenges at work, it’s different when they strike where you live. I guess it’s like how a surgeon can operate on strangers with no problem, but not on their own kids.
And if something seems like an emergency to you, that’s how you’re going to treat it. Here’s a simple guide to dealing with emergencies (that aren’t really emergencies).
1. Freak out.
It’s not exactly constructive, but if you’re going to do it anyway, you might as well claim that you’re checking the first step off the list. Maybe the world really is coming to an end, and you need to react accordingly. Just get it out of your system, and then move on.
2. Realize that the problem is smaller than you.
You might overlook this truth, but your inner voice knows it. My inner voice told me that fixing my blog was not even remotely the biggest problem I’ve ever had to deal with. I said, “But I don’t know how to fix it.” My inner voice said, “But you know how to find out.”
3. Brainstorm solutions.
After you’ve calmed down a little, it’s time to actually do something. Determine specifically what the problem is, and come up with ideas of how to solve it.
4. Take action.
Pick the solution that seems most promising, and run with it. Repeat as needed.
5. Prepare for next time.
Once it’s over, decide what you’ll do to be better prepared next time. @bripblap said I inspired him to back up his blog that evening. We all know that regular backups are critical, but many of us don’t do enough of them.
John Hoff at WpBlogHost pointed me to the WordPress Exploit Scanner, a plugin that checks your blog for signs that it’s been hacked. I don’t know if I was hacked or not, but if it happens, I’ll sure want to know.
Are you prepared for emergencies?
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 am
What I do with every blog I set up is to install the excellent and free plugin WordPress Database Backup and set it up to make a an automatic backup every week and to mail it to my Gmail account.
On Gmail I’ve set up a filter for that mail (containing in attachment my WP DB backup) so that it get automatically marked as read and archived. Gmail has plenty enough diskspace to save all my DB backups and is reliable enough to not lose my emails. Once a year you can also plan to delete the old backups.
It works all automagically without your thoughts or action !
Alexander Reif´s last blog post..Aquile e orsi
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:36 am
I think perspective is very important to, try and keep the event in perspective. Most events when compared to life in general are very small. A poor perspective will certainly magnify an emergency out of proportion and make it much harder to deal with.
Cody Dream-Life-Coaching´s last blog post..3 Steps To Achieving Anything
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
Alex is right on. I have the same plugin and have it email me my backup nightly.
So what was the problem anyway? Corrupted file or plugin?
Jim Gaudet´s last blog post..The Future of Web Design (POLL)
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
What if your blog is a WordPress blog pointing to a separate web page? I think I’m ok, yes?
Hayden Tompkins´s last blog post..The War on Work
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
@ Peeps:
Does this wordpress plugin you speak of also backup pictures and comments (as well as drafts) or just the text of the actual published posts themselves and nothing more?
Bamboo Forest´s last blog post..7 More Bizarrely Named U.S. Towns
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 am
@Bamboo Forest;
No, WP Backup does not backup files, this should be done using an FTP program like FileZilla.
Your wp-uploads directory.
Jim Gaudet´s last blog post..The Future of Web Design (POLL)
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Thanks for the mention. I spend a lot of time in the WordPress forums and I can’t tell you how many times people post over there with problems with their blog and the end result was their blog was hacked.
It seems most people either don’t think their site is worth hacking or simply are unaware this is an issue. An intruder attempted to hack our site about a month ago with 7 different common exploits, but was thwarted because we were prepared. I logged his IP address immediately and banned him (or her) from accessing our website any longer.
The exploit scanner is good to use every so often and/or if you think perhaps your site has been cracked. Suspicious code will have words like “decode” and “base_64″ in it.
Another great plugin to install is the Login Lockdown plugin for WordPress. It will help prevent people from trying to crack your password. You’re very wise to be prepared for next time.
And by the way, I love #1 – Freak Out! LOL.
@Alexander, Jim, & Bamboo
Make sure you don’t keep any running backups of your database on your server. That plugin once had a security leak where people could Google and find your backups (i.e. they were left exposed). Your database contains all your login information and well, just about everything else. Keep the backup on your computer only. I think the latest version of that plugin has fixed that.
About backing up your blog
There’s an awesome program out there which works great along side the database backup plugin. It’s called SyncBackSE and what you can do with that is automatically download (i.e. backup) all your blog’s files contained on your hosting account with one click. You can even schedule it to run at specific times. Great program.
John Hoff – WpBlogHost´s last blog post..How To Not Track Your Own Visits In Google Analytics – Setting Up A Filter
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Well, I have the same back up plugin Alex mentioned, but in my case, I don’t know how to use the file in the case I need to. Yes, it emails the back up file every night — but how can I make up for my technical ignorance?
So what was the problem? Your password didn’t work? I have a blogger friend who was using blogspot and got hacked and was kicked out of her own blog. She had to resume from scratch. (She had about 3000 subscribers at the time) Gosh. But you have your own domain — again, what happened?
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post..Creating The New World, Part 2 Light
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
To restore a WP backup file go to phpadmin and import like this: http://codex.wordpress.org/Restoring_Your_Database_From_Backup
Alexander Reif´s last blog post..Gratitudine
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 pm
@ Alexander, I use that too – it’s a terrific plugin. I also make database backups through my hosting account, just in case.
@ Cody, absolutely. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
@ Jim, some of my php files had been corrupted, but I don’t know why. I hadn’t installed any new plugins recently.
@ You mean you’re hosted on WordPress.com, and you have your own domain pointing to it? I don’t know anything about blogs hosted by WordPress.com, but maybe they make regular backups for you.
@ Bamboo Forest, what Jim said. But comments and drafts are in your database, so the plugin would back them up.
@ Akemi, just making backups is a great start, even if you don’t know what to do with them. You can find out when the time comes, or find someone to help. My problem was that the login page didn’t even come up. That’s awful about your friend – couldn’t Blogspot let her back in?
@ Alexander and Jim, thanks for coming back to answer these questions.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
@ John, you had somehow ended up in my spam queue, but I’m sure glad I found your great comment! Thanks for all that information.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
No sweat. Glad to see you were able to get your blog all squared away.
@Akemi
If it’s ok with Hunter, here’s a video we have on our site showing you how to restore your database; however, should you ever need to upload a backed up database, just send me an email – I’ll do it for you for free.
John Hoff – WpBlogHost´s last blog post..How To Not Track Your Own Visits In Google Analytics – Setting Up A Filter
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 pm
John,
Thank you for your kind offer. I hope I won’t have to bother you, but I will remember just in case.
Hunter,
She says Google just never let her in (apparently because she couldn’t give them the “right” password). Google has that kind of big bro attitude… I don’t know about login problem (whew!), but there was a time a blogspot blogger stole my content. Because there was no contact info to the author, I checked blogspot (google)’s procedure to report plagiarism. It was bad — it sounded they are happier to punish the victim than to help common sense communication.
For this reason, she warns everyone who uses any google service, including gmail, to do backup.
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post..Review: The Biology Of Belief By Bruce Lipton
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
@John Hoff – Thanks for the info. I run the wp-security-scan plugin, but I should pay more attention to the security of my blog. A good wake up call, I have been lazy. I like the idea of SyncBaseSE, but I hate to pay for software, so I think I will write a script to this for me, that was a great idea. Now I owe you 2 times, damn..Well, I start by subscribing to your blog..
@Hunter – Con mucho gusto (my pleasure). I try to follow the comments the best I can. Sometimes there can be a lot (I have to stop commenting on Chris Brogan’s blog) so I miss them, but I try..
Jim Gaudet´s last blog post..The Future of Web Design (POLL)
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
it’s petty I know but please folk, the word is “preparation” not preparedness
April 24th, 2009 at 9:44 am
@Jim
Hey that’s pretty cool you can write your own script. And thanks for headed over to my blog.
@Jay
Yeah . . . you said it properly, especially if your blog is out of date – then you’ve probably already been hacked at some point, you just don’t know it.
John Hoff – WpBlogHost´s last blog post..How To Not Track Your Own Visits In Google Analytics – Setting Up A Filter
April 24th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I like your inner voice’s positive outlook and perfect come back.
J.D. Meier´s last blog post..Finding Your Process
April 24th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Hunter, I’m very sorry that happened to you, but wow, there is a lot of great information in these comments regarding backups as well as security, so you may have saved lots of people from disaster, either accidental or malicious. Thanks!
LunchHourBytes´s last blog post..Why is it OK to call someone a nerd?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
@ Jay, um, “preparedness” is correct here.
@ J.D., our inner voice can be very helpful, if we just listen now and then.
@ LunchHourBytes, I was really pleased with the comments too. In fact, I sent out a Tweet specifically to direct people to the comments!