Wake-Up Call - Back Up Your External Data

The advice to back up your data is something that is probably said at least once every 5 seconds by some random person on the internet.

Every person who says this is 100% correct. You should back up your data often.

However what isn’t ordinarily covered is how to back up your data that you have out there on the internet, i.e. external or cloud data. Examples of this are blogs, photos, e-mail and anything else you specifically store online-only.

Here are two glaring examples of the worst possible scenario:

1. Eviction, or the Coming Datapocalypse
2. Hard Lessons in the Importance of Backups: JournalSpace Wiped Out

In the first example, AOL decided for business reasons to completely shut down the AOL Hometown service. While some would be quick to say “AOL? Who cares? They suck!”, bear in mind that lots of journals and personal web sites were there and blammo, gone. Buh-bye.

In the second example, JournalSpace was literally written (or should I say overwritten) out of existence due to improper database backups on the server admin level.

In both examples, all the data you had on either service was simply destroyed completely with absolutely no chance of ever getting it back.

A very sobering thought.

With that said, here are a few examples of how you can backup your external stuff.

Photos

Any photo you send out to another host such as Flickr or Picasa should have a local copy. Some people make the mistake of deleting the local file after they’ve uploaded it. Instead, just back it up instead. Put it to CD or DVD or USB stick or whatever you have.

If you don’t have local copies, login to your respective service and start saving local, then push to the backup medium of your choice.

In the Picasa application it’s stupidly easy. Just click Tools then Backup Pictures and follow the instructions.

In Flickr you have to download and use a client app like flickredit.

Blogs

A blog can be a huge pain in the butt to backup because many of the services have absolutely no way of getting to the actual database that houses your blog entries.

The one that does have an easy-to-use backup with simplified database access is WordPress, whether self-hosted or hosted at www.wordpress.com. You can just login, go to the admin panel, click Tools then Export to backup the WP database.

The “ultra” method of backing up a WP database is direct access by phpMyAdmin. To note: This is for self-hosters only and you should not have to download it - it should be already provided by your web host provider. If you need assistance using it, leave a comment with a request and I’ll post a how-to article on how to use phpMyAdmin for backup purposes.

If you have a blog on Windows Live Spaces, it’s far more difficult because there isn’t any way to backup anything (none that I could find anyway).

If you have a blog that has no backup option, the easiest way I’ve found to save it all is to go thru each post one by one, then “print” to a PDF using PDF Creator. PDF files saved can be imported direct into Google Docs easily where you can edit/copy/paste/modify/whatever.

You can also simply copy/paste blogs posts into your word processing app (Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer, Abiword, etc.) of choice.

Yes, it will take a long time, especially if you have a lot of posts written. However at least it’s saved just in case anything ever happens.

E-Mail

With Hotmail accounts, you use the Windows Live Mail client. All mail is downloaded locally and can be backed up.

With Gmail, you download it all via POP using the e-mail client of your choice (Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.) and can be backed up.

With Yahoo! Mail, you upgrade to Yahoo Mail Plus to get POP access, then use your preferred e-mail client to download all your mail, then backup.

If your e-mail is provided by your ISP, you’re most likely downloading it with an e-mail client already. If not, find out how and store it local for backup purposes.

When you get the mail downloaded local, use KLS Mail Backup (free for personal use). It supports all the major e-mail clients and it’s super-easy to use. I use it myself.

Best part about KLS: It not only backs up but restores too.

Remember…

If there is anything on the internet that you created that you genuinely care about - back it up. Find a way.

If you need a reminder of why, read the two articles linked at the top again.