I dragged my Blogging awards into Photoshop to make them smaller, and somehow managed to lose my entire blog. All of it. So I dumped it into a new template and in so doing, lost all my changes -- like links to your blogs.
Sigh.
I am going to have to rebuild all of it. I stupidly did not make a list of the many blogs I read and enjoy. It will be a long and hard process.
I.Am.Not.Happy.
The word of the day: BACK IT UP.
Saturday. I changed it over from "template" to "layout" and things got even worse. Please send a guru or the deity of your choice.
44 comments:
Oh, major suckage! So sorry. :(
Oh, geez! You know.. I wonder if you would be able to get your blogroll out of a cache from google. Worth a try anyway. :)
oh. my. gawd.
That blows.
I hate slogging.
Ai ya!
Just reading about your blog woes gave me that all-too-familiar-sinking-horrible-yucky-OMG feeling of
Did I really lose it - ALL?!?
Be strong and reconstruct.
You can do it - and you will do it with style...
Did the same thing with mine a couple of months ago, Really blows and involves a lot of extra work. But, it's worth it.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here's mine:
http://ian-lidster.blogspot.com/
Couldn't imagine a day without a shot of you.
Meno,
I couldn't be sorrier. I know how the salmon feels, swimming uphill.
Chani,
I am presently on my 4th new template, I think. I keep screwing them up.
I was obviously extremely lucky that I figured out how to personalize the template last time, but they've changed it since then.
Rachel,
Yeah, it's supposed to be Blogging, not slogging.
I feel so stupid.
Baffle,
I did. I lost it - ALL. Thank you for the words of encouragement, and for your visit.
Ian,
You're already on my reconstructed blog roll. I put in the ones I could remember, but I know I forgot some people who are important to me. Hopefully, they'll comment at some point and I can follow their links back.
I can't believe I changed templates without making a list of my links.
I'm really struggling. Since I don't really know html, I am immensely frustrated.
Boy - that sucks. It's happened to me more than once. D. looks at me, shakes his head, and says, "jesus saves" - the punch line to a stupid joke where Jesus wins the programming contest because... well you get the point.
Claudia,
Could you send Jesus over here? I really need his help.
I went to bed at about 2:30 last night, hoping that today I'd be smarter.
Oh, I know the feeling. I once lost the coding for an entire layout and had to start from scratch. Having to get everything back really sucks.
Wng,
Glad I could help. Akkkkkkk.
Thinker,
But you are far more savvy than I in these matters.
I just painstakingly typed my link list (the ones I could remember) and they came out as urls. I think the new "layout" is a crock. Blogger is getting even with me for things I haven't even done.
Hearts, I did the same thing. It's really a lot of work traipsing around trying to find everyone again.
Well, here I am, and here you are.
:-)
Josie,
Big sigh.
Flip just went for a bike ride. I want to go out and play, too.
I told him that when he gets back, I will have fixed this and I'll be so happy he won't know it's me.
I haven't backed up my blog in six months. I better get right on it.
Jr,
Yeah, you might consider it.
The new "layout" is so user-unfriendly, as it turns out, that it makes me nostalgic for html.
ohhhhhh nooooooooooooooo......
Peace
Odat,
My new motto is
Back it up before you f*** it up.
That could have a lot of real-life applications, actually.
Oh man, that is just a pain for that to happen. The reconstruction seems to be coming along nicely though.
I am loving your new motto though. I'm trying to figure out how to add a second sidebar to my blog so I need to repeat that motto to myself over and over again!
Liz,
I wouldn't have switched if I'd known it would limit me more, not less.
I just weeded an entire garden with my bare hands and I'm still hyperventilating. But now I'm doing it with scratched hands and dirty fingernails.
Good luck with your second sidebar! I'd be happy to have the first one the way I want it.
Great news - I've found a cached copy and have your old links list in html, I'll send it by email. I'll send the html for everything I see in your sidebars, just to make it easy to paste the html into blogger.
When you go to reinstall it, from your dashboard simply click on layout, then add page element, then click on "add to blog" underneath HTML/javascript NOT under add links list.
This means you can just paste in the html text I send you, and your links list (and any of the other sections) will be back as they were on the 17th - which is the cached date google has.
In future, if you want to add a link add it in html and keep a backup copy as a text file. I use editpad lite which is free and enables you to have more than one text file open at once, but notepad will do it as well.
As far as blogger layout - my advice to anyone on blogger is to regularly save what is in your widgets. I have a file especially for that in my text files.
NEVER!! save your links as blogger links - use the html, and save that list offline. I'll shoot you an email with your links html as you have it in the sidebar now in a few minutes.
Html is really easy, it's just a language to learn. I wrote a post on this a couple of weeks back, as did Sephy.
Basic HTML for Bloggers.
Some HTML Tips & Tricks
I sent an email to Liz with a bunch of great links for blogger templates. One of them was this one -
50 Beautiful Blogger Templates
There's so many great templates there. ;) You might want to pick a new one before you paste all the html I'm sending you in, no?
Cheers,
Snoskred
Ah, one spot of bad news - and this is probably why it happened. Your blogging awards were all saved in Blogger. You weren't dragging the images across, you were dragging URL's to blogger into your photoshop.
Try this and see if your awards are still there. A secret people don't know about blogger - you have a picasa.com account where all your pictures are stored. They may still be there even though you have deleted them in blogger. You might have other images there too.
Go here - Picasa Web Albums and login with the same login you use for google. Are your images all there? Fantastic. If not, you probably have copies of them on your computer, no?
You can see your cached copy here but it might be a different date to mine - cached copy - if your images are all gone, you can try taking a screenshot and putting that into photoshop, and then making new images. I can try that for you if you need, just let me know.
Cheers,
Snoskred
www.snoskred.org
Snoskred,
Wow! I'm not sure I understand all you've told me, but thank you so much for your help!
I still have the award jpegs on file, and was in the process of inserting the html for each of them into the sidebar of my other blog, "The World Around Me," which is still in the old format.
I don't "know" html, but after awhile, you get to recognize certain patterns.
Blogger has been telling me for a couple of hours that there is a problem, and I can't get to my image folder.
I would love to see some exciting new templates or layouts or whatever they're calling themselves, thank you.
How did you happen to find a cached copy of my blog? There is so much I don't know about how it all works.
It will be interesting to see how many of my links I remembered since I didn't have a list. Of course I saved the list of blogs and their urls that I mounted on the "new" blog, but I'm sure I missed some.
Snoskred,
Is there any way to add a page element that will place my archives in a different one from the most recent 10 posts? The new layout seems to insist that they be together.
Also, I wanted to get rid of the numbers which tells how many posts per month I have, but was unable to edit them out.
Is there a way to do these things?
Thanx.
I hope it all works itself out soon. Damn this mercury retrograde. Damn. Damn. Damn!
Angela,
Exactly! I was thinking the same thing. Three days ago, I cut my fingertip on broken glass which still won't stop bleeding, and today my blog bit the dust.
If Mercury gets any more retrograde, I'll be dead on the floor like a bird with my feet in the air.
The thing is: cyberspace is a godless world. I'm not sure who we could pray to.
So I must simply send you my condolences and a few choice swear words. I'm pretty sure you've already used f*** and sh**. In fact, you've probably used them all. Maybe just call the thing a "wanking douchenozzle" and knuckle down, eh?
Major buggar Hearts.
I have no idea what's happened, cyberspace illiterate heaven...and I, the Queen of Fools.
I just realised I have something for you. Will fwd
And a much belated happy birthday to Flip!
Pam
Well, you look like you're all here to me?
Never trust technology, dear. Oh, and English autos.
Jocelyn,
I've been calling everyone and everything a wanking douchenozzle all day. Thank you for the Jocelyn Lessons.
I just love to expand my vocabulary.
Pam,
Oh, goody. I'll check it out.
Flip thanks you for his birthday wishes!
Franki,
It's coming back together. I guess I just needed a major psychic break as it had been awhile.
Irrelephant,
Any particular English autos I should distrust?
that's fine, now you can eliminate all the riff raff...hey wait a second... i'm not in the ... i'm riff raff
Furious,
Well, maybe I like riff-raff. (And diatribes.) Did you ever think of that, huh? Did you?
Oh no! I hope your finger is infinitely better. The idea of you upside-down, little bird feet in the air is just not acceptable. If you need bandaging, let me know. I'll be right over. :)
Scary. But I keep telling myself to write a will and I don't. Why is that? Maybe purgative editing is cleaning? Ah, this blogging is ephemeral indeed.
An amazing comments section. The only thing I can add is that it is true that God lives between hex 0000 and hex FFFF in low memory, and it's best not to venture there.
Nice recovery!
Angela,
Could you please bring some cookies, too?
Pawlie,
I don't have a Will, either, because then I might die.
Monty,
I always wondered where She resided. Thank you for clearing that up.
but thankfully you didn't lose all of your archived posts. Phew. Now THAT would be a tragedy.
Rebecca,
How true. I just read a bunch of old posts I had completely forgotten about, and I'm glad they're still with me.
How utterly horrible! I'm so sorry!
Eastcoaster,
It was, but it's more-or-less fixed now.
It looks like it worked its way out. I'm glad!
Crankster,
It's amazing what a little blood, sweat and tears will do.
Ohmygosh!
I've wondered where and how this blogging stuph gets stored and what would happen in case of a system failure. I'm so sorry this happened to you ... and am glad you've bounced back so quickly. It gives me hope should disaster strike as I'm learning the ropes. I was surprised to read that you "know so little about how all this works" because you've been around so much longer than me and seem so experienced!
A couple of questions from this newbie concerning what you've learned :)
--just how often does this kind of disaster happen and are there things I should know to avoid having it happen to me?
--when you say "back up" -- is there a way to do so within Blogger and if so ... where do I find info about how to do this?
--if not in Blogger, then how might I "back up" my sites?
I'm so glad you're back up and running (and that you didn't lose your earlier posts). It's going to take me a while to "catch up" but I fully intend to do so.
Hugs and blessings,
Storyteller,
First of all, this was not a system failure. It won't happen for no reason.
I messed up the html so badly that I was unable to retrieve my blog but Blogger provides a simple way in "Help" to drop it into a new template. (I chose the same one I'd had.)
They also forced me to change to a newer layout which eliminates html unless you choose to add it. It's far more pushbuttom, much easier, although I had just started to understand html a bit. The awards in my sidebar were added in html language which translates into the images you see.
I still have not backed up my blog but assume it can be done in Blogger OR on a CD like anything else. I'm glad you reminded me because once my site was running again, I just moved on eagerly and did not follow my own advice. :(
I don't think that most bloggers know a lot about website building, although some do. My blog was started in June 2006, and I am not a web expert, but I've learned how to navigate by experience.
I am always happy to answer questions if I can, so don't hesitate to ask.
H in SF
Thanks ... I did look around Blogger help after leaving my questions here earlier and don't see any way to back up anything other than the template, but perhaps that backs up everything? Methinks I'm not going to worry about it for the time being anyway because I've got enough to learn right now. Seems like "snoskred" is quite knowledgeable about such things and I'm relieved you were able to get your site back up fairly fast.
Thanks for taking time to visit my site again. I appreciate your kind feedback and will be posting more visual pieces once I figure out how the scanner works.
Hugs and blessings,
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