You probably won't remember - why should you? but I had to move my websites about 18 months ago. I posted about it here
It was all due to BT changing their web management system and leaving me high and dry. I moved to a Microsoft system which I thought would be a safe move. How wrong could I be - at the end of last year they announced that they too were going to change their system and if I wanted to remain with them it would mean manually moving all my website.
Well twice bitten I decided that if I had to manually reconstruct the 285 pages of My Our Plot at Green Lane website and the 64 pages of The School Vegetable Patch website, I was going to move to a system over which I had greater control.
Over winter seemed a good time for the move rather than to see what happened when Microsoft changed their system in April.
Now copies of my websites sit on my computer, rather than floating in the ether of the www monster, so if I have to move again at least it won't be a rewriting/redesigning job! In the end I'm pleased that I have moved everything (well almost) as the web management system did have limitations and the move has meant I have been able to also make some improvements.
My Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments site has moved to here
and The School Vegetable Patch site is now here
I still have some tweaking to do and I also have to release my domain from Microsoft to use for the allotments site (fortunately the link above will still work when I do) and the mega task of updating links from my blogs to the new location.
Oh and contacting those I know who have links from their sites to let them know of the change! If you have a link I'd be really grateful if you could change the appropriate bits. I know I am frustrated by dead links especially for somewhere that I have regularly visited in the past.
If you get chance to pay one of my sites a visit and you find a mistake or a dead link please let me know - you can be my unofficial proof readers!
I'm hoping it's third time lucky and I won't have to do all this yet again at some later date!
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Sue, I hope you have a good backup arrangement and a "Disaster Recovery Plan", because although you now have more independence you also have more responsibilities, and if something goes wrong with your computer you could be in trouble. (I'm probably preaching to the converted here). Sounds like quite a major undertaking!
ReplyDeleteI'm not any worse off Mark. The website once it is uploaded is housed on a couple of independent servers belonging to a hosting service not on our own server. We just pay for the server space etc.
DeleteThe difference is that we have a copy of the website on our computer and backed up on a portable hard disk too. The last times we worked directly on the Internet so we didn't have a copy independent of that.
The systems used couldn't transfer pages from one place to another as they had their own file types. Now we have constructed our websites using a piece of software and work on our systems. Once the pages are created they are then uploaded.
If we want to change our hosting - should our hosts fold up or something similar we can upload the website as it stands from our computers rather than having to redo it all again. If needs be we could also download it from the host say if for some reason we lost our two copies.
Good luck this time! Glad you've made a backup!
ReplyDeleteMartin
Motto always have at least one backup Martin but even though my last site was stored on twi MS servers it didn't help. Hopefully this time it will!
DeleteOh b*#@er - this is what's in store!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's only three years but I'm not sure I can face the retraining.
Retraining, Mal? For what?
DeleteA friend of ours has just been through the same process and not exactly enjoyed the experience. He had major backups of everything but his site runs to a few thousand images and hundreds of pages . . .
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you are now sorted.
I took it as a chance to improve things BW. I had masses of images too but many were in Picasa albums so it was a case of transferring the code - although there may be a bit of an issue there as my pop-ups hide behind the albums - will have to see if sending to back works"
DeleteGood idea to have a back up as you never know what the future has in store!
ReplyDeleteIt is Damo - at least with this system I have a backup that will move locations should the need arise
DeleteWhat a pain, and so soon after you changed it all over last time too. Hope it's all sorted now.
ReplyDeleteSo do I Jo so do I!
DeleteSo is this the last posting here then?? I will change the link on my blog so people won't end up lost in cyber space and I will also add your new url to my blog roll. Are you transferring the posts for here to there or will they stay here?? I'm not great at understanding all this so please forgive me if you have said in the post and I just haven't got it.
ReplyDeleteTanya, It isn't the blog that I have had to move it's my websites - the blog is staying put just where it is so no need for you to change anything
DeleteIt's just that some people visit the website too
Sounds like alot of work. IT is great when its all working smoothly! The schools website is really good. I know some community gardening projects that are fairly new and trying to get more young people involved who may find your website useful, if you don't mind me passing the info on.
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot of work Kelli but it feels good now it's almost completed.
DeleteFell free to pass the link on to whoever you like as it is there to give help to anyone that needs it.
Hi Marko - thanks for visiting - I'll certainly take a look at your blog
ReplyDeleteAlways good to have a backup.
ReplyDeleteIt is Diana even when gardening!
DeleteNice plan to have a back up. I never done it. Good idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit neurotic about backing up, Malar - pity you can't back up the blog too - maybe you can and I've not found the way yet!
DeleteSue, you can backup the blog and as your neurotic twin, I do this at least every month. Assuming you're using the "new" (yuk) interface, go to:
DeleteOverview >
Settings >
Other >
Blog Tools > Export Blog
you can then save an HTML file with all your posts. It does not save your pictures. Many people rely on Picasa for their picture storage, I keep a copy of everything on my hard drive and have four different external backup drives (told you I was neurotic).
I'm just about to try www.blog2print.com. You can pay for a PDF of your blog which does include images. A friend has used this and said it was very good but I've not purchased from them yet.
Hope this helps.
We really are twins as I don't like the new interface either and hvce stuck with the old one but I'll toggle between to see what you mean.
DeleteAll my pictures are on my computer as well as Picasa as I upload a smaller size to Picasa anyway.
I suppose we have four backups too in a way. On both our computers with both of us backing up!
I'll be interested to see what your PDF blog is like.
Incidentally I have some PDF files attached to my website - printer friendly recipes etc. I have just found them copied on a site called http://ebookbrowse.com/ so I've deleted the original files and sent up ones with copyright glallotments.co.uk It won't stop them using the files but at least they will have an acknowledgement on them now if they find the new files!
It's amazing where you find your content if you google search your web address
Dear twin, one thing I absolutely don't want is zillions of blog hits so I have mine set not to be indexed by search engines. It doesn't stop the crawler bots who don't respect the setting but it does keep it out of the main search engines.
DeleteThe theft is from my websites BW not the blog and this has links from all over the place. So it is fairly well visible.
Delete