Quick lesson for bloggers: Here’s one way to backup your data

As you probably noticed, and as I explained yesterday, there is a serious lack of old posts at this site. I lost most of my WordPress database when The Crash happened to the server where I was hosted. So here's what I've done since then: I have set up a simple backup to my WordPress blog.

I'll explain what I do. If you write on the Internet and you don't use WordPress, this won't be very helpful. But here goes:

1. Download and install a WordPress plugin called "WP-DB-Backup."
2. Create a Gmail account or Yahoo account, since they offer lots of free storage, and give it a name you can remember. You will only use it for WordPress backups.
3. Go into your WordPress dashboard and follow the steps to choose what you want backed up and how often -- hourly, daily, weekly, etc. You'll see the options.
4. In that dashboard configuration you'll be asked where you want to backup to. DON'T select the backup to your website. If you're webhost crashes, you won't have the backups. DO select the option to have backups emailed to you -- then simply enter the email address you created in Step 3.

That's sort of simplified, but chances are you can figure out the details.

It works for me. Now I've got to get back to work restoring the limited, lame remnants of blog posts I'm scrounging off my hard drive.

But you -- get busy and write something that'll make us all proud.

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