Wow! Had a terrible day with WordPress yesterday all because I made a mistake while duplicating the iMarketOnMac site for testing purposes. In my FTP program, Fetch, you can open multiple remote windows and drag and drop files in between them. If you hold down the Option key while you do so it copies the files rather than moves them, just like you can do in the Finder.
So, without stopping to think about what I was doing I started to drag the site files for iMarketOnMac into a new folder in /public_html called imarketonmac_test. BUT, I forgot to hold down the Option key, thereby moving, not copying the files. Well, that would have broken the site for sure. Then without thinking again, I deleted the files I had just copied without moving them back into their original folder. Many of them had special tweaks to make improvements that my mentor, Lynn Terry of Self-Starters Weekly Tips, had suggested, so I am in the process of going back in and redoing them. I did have backups of my databases, but I had not backed up the site files. I’m spending today and tomorrow redoing them.
Now, for a guy who is marketing himself as a knowledgeable, well trained technical sort, why am I telling you this? Because I am also a teacher, this is a teachable moment, and I want you to learn from my mistake. Lesson to be learned? Before you do anything that might jeopardize your work, whether it is on your local computer or on a remote one, Backup! Backup! Backup!
On WordPress it is easy to backup your database with the WP DB Backup plug-in. I usually have it installed, but in trying to get iMarketOnMac up and running and make the changes Lynn suggested I didn’t follow my own advice, and make a backup of my site files. Lynn is always telling us on the SSWT Elite brainstorming sessions that we should automate everything we can. WP DB Backup does a backup and then emails it to me every day when I go for my afternoon tea. HostGator, the hosting service I use for all my domains and websites, has a backup wizard that allows you to download a zipped copy of your entire site or parts of it onto your computer.
It creates a full or partial backup of
- Home Directory
- MySQL Databases
- Email forwarders configuration
- Email filters configuration
The files are backed up and included in a zip file for your convenience which you can then download. Since the backup takes place on the host, the only un-automated part is when you download it.
I’ll be back to where I started soon. We’re going to take a look at the Macintosh Finder. I think you may learn some things you didn’t know you could do with it
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
A perfectly normal “Duh” moment. We’ve all been there!
Yep! I wish i didn’t have them as often as I do. I need to follow my own advice and THINK before I do stuff.
I actually completed creating the testing blog using the method I described. Just needed to hold down the Option key and it worked beautifully. It’s grat to be able to do things on the remote server using your regularly used Macintosh skills
Jerry Nielsen – iMarketOnMac
Good dispatch and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you as your information.
Thats some quality fundamentals there, already know some of that, but you can always learn more. I doubt a “kid” could put together such information as dolphin278 suggested. Maybe he’s just trying to be “controversial? lol