Time Flies

My motto for the past week.



Wow, time really flies sometimes. I've been posting daily for over three months (many times more than daily) and all of the sudden, I look at my blog and I haven't posted anything in three days!
I should've planned that better but the problem is...I didn't plan at all! Starting last Friday, I stayed busy with several projects around the house:

• added more shelves in Wifey's craft room.
• added more shelving in my garage (more tools have a home now).
• did some church service Sunday after church (amazing how good that feels).
• made the trek to Ikea again (looking for more home improvement ideas).
• and the usual mundane stuff: haircut, gasin' up the cars, yardwork, etc

So, time to start firing up some blog posts. I have at least three days worth of blog reading to do from all the blogs I have subscribed. 

Don't forget there's a few days left in our contest so if you haven't clicked "Follow" or "Like" yet, don't miss out! There's some terrific prizes up for grabs.

How To Back Up Your Blog

As discussed previously, redundancy is your friend. If you only have one copy of ANYTHING, rest assured something will happen to it. Do you have ONE set of car keys? Probably not. How about your house keys? I doubt it. Why? Because we've all "misplaced" them at one point or another. I told a story about a person who "lost" her keys at a gas station, somewhere between Phoenix and San Diego...with three toddlers in tow. Frantic!



Redundancy is all about having a backup. Sometimes even a backup to your backup. I wrote about the lesson I learned Three is Two, Two is One, One is None. There is supreme serenity in knowing you have a backup plan. As I was sifting through my blog posts and comments tonight, it hit me:

What would I do if Blogger crashed and all my posts and comments were lost?

Me: "*&^^%^&%^%@%@&$%*^%(*^(* !!!!!!!!!"

Don't tell me its not a possibility to lose everything, even if it IS owned by the mighty Google. I've written enough term papers to know computers can and WILL crash just when you are editing your final draft. Always have a backup of your work. So, I thought I would do a post about backing up a blog.  Fortunately, there are some easy options.

1. Email it to yourself. After completing your latest, greatest post...cut and paste it into an email to yourself. I've had the same email address for several years and being able to use a "search" function for a specific email has done wonders for my memory. This is only good for keeping a copy of the actual written post, not the comments, images, ads, etc.
   
2. Make a full copy. Windows users can use the free HTTrack, "the web site copier."  This program will create a fully working, interlinked local copy of your blog for browsing offline. Use this if you ever want to hand out copies of your blog, like SurvivalBlog does for $19.95 as a sort of archive reference. If you have a family blog, full of family pictures and stories, you can burn your copy to dvd and hand it out as Christmas presents. Mac users can use the free app WebGrabber and do the same thing. Note: these options download EVERYTHING on your blog, all your ads, images, links, etc.
3. Save it via XML. Use Blogger's built-in Export Blog feature by clicking the Settings tab once you are in your blogger Dashboard. This feature downloads your blog in XML format (aka Blogger Atom format) which allows you to upload your blog to other blog platforms (moving to WordPress or your own hosted site.) I've downloaded the file but I've never tried to upload it to another blog platform. My guess is that it will only transfer your blog posts and (maybe) images. Not your sidebar ads, layout, css, etc

You've put a lot of hours into writing down your memoirs. It would sure be a BIG disappointment to lose all that hard work now. Do yourself a favor and make it a habit to perform regular backups. Set a reminder in your smart phone alarm or write it down in your daytimer. Make it at least a monthly routine and you'll have one less thing to worry about.

Do YOU have another way of backing up your stuff? Post it in the comment section below.

I GOTS NO KLOUT!

CAN I GETS A BAILOUT? I GOTS NO KLOUT!

Sorry for the poor grammar in the title, I just couldn't help myself. I picked up a really cool linkback gadget from Bacon and Eggs.  The linkback gadget automatically posts linkbacks to everyone who visits my blog. Likewise, it lets me see who has been here.

Yesterday, while checking out the linkbacks, I noticed a URL that I didn't recognize. So I did what any other person would do that doesn't worry about downloading viruses, I clicked on it :-).

Turns out, Claire Wolfe over at Backwoods Home gave me a flattering shout out in a recent blog about Situational Awareness. Thanks Claire! This one blog post has sent over 60 people to my blog and it is really exciting to think that someone else is enjoying my writings. If you read my work you'll see that I'm still developing a writing style but I'm having a great time in the process. I'd also like to think that all those English classes in college might turn out to be useful after all (my fav was ENG 301 Writing For The Professions.)

Anywho, while soaring on cloud 9 thanks to Claire, I happily clicked on another unfamiliar blog analytic URL. This one, turns out, was a reader brought to my blog by Google. This reader went to Google and typed in the search terms "dad blogs." Another Hooray! I was #6 on the Google results for Dad Blogs. This is all silly, of course. I'm somehow justifying in my mind that the popularity of my blog would indicate that my writings are worthy of reading. I can dream, right?

Sure enough, I poked around long enough to find out how NOT popular I am. In the same "Dad Blogs" search mentioned above, and in a result higher than my #6 placement, was a blog post titled The Top 50 Dad Blogs. Was I listed? Of course not. I haven't been blogging for years and years like most successful bloggers so I chalked that loss up to being new in the field. But wait, as I read the Top 50 blog post, the capitalized word "Klout" keeps getting mentioned. Klout?

Turns out the Top 50 Dad Blogs were picked solely on their Klout scores. What's a Klout score? That's what I said...so I had to Google it. Appearantly there's some sort of ranking system based on your activity on Facebook and Twitter. I don't know about anybody else but I was sick of Facebook a year after it came out. I thought for sure people would be sick of it by now. Guess not. I don't even have a Twitter account and haven't planned on getting one.

So, just when I thought I was all that and a bag of chips, turns out...I ain't gots no Klout at all.