The Blog is Back!

Sometimes, I really hate technology.  Never mind what I do for a living – there are just times when everything seems to be working against you.  Normally, this follows me around with web technologies – even the simple, mindless stuff like setting up a freakin’ blog.  You’d seriously think I was developing the antidote for death with how hard I have to work to do the most simple web-based administration and maintenance.

I began having significant trouble with my previous hosting provider, which I made the mistake of choosing via an ad I saw on the back of one of the many industry publications that come across my desk at the office.  When the credit card I used to set up hosting expired, I was never contacted and my service was never suspended.  I tried to do some routine maintenance with the domain, and was told I’d been turned over to collections.  I argued and pushed back – no luck.  So I decided to move myself to a new provider and move the domain to GoDaddy for management.  However, as I had forgotten, order of operations in these cases is important.

Since the domain had already been transferred and I was unaware of the export feature available from within Wordpress, I had nothing but a SQL backup I had taken previously to go on to try to get my blog restored.  I begged for assistance on Twitter, after several restore attempts yielded a perfect index page, with no content behind any of the links.  I got two responses:  one from @bonkoif, an old and dear friend who is twice the techie I’ll ever be; and one from a complete stranger, @HowdyBlog, a fellow blogger and infinitely more capable web-head.  Bonky helped me sift through the work I’d already done and found some very helpful articles on the Wordpress site that helped me get my old content (still available from my previous host through the dummy URL I was assigned), and Howdy went as far as to record a video that went through the basic steps of redirecting the old blog, doing the export, and reimporting the content.  Not long after viewing the video and Bonk’s links, my blog was back and all was right with the world.

Both folks are worth a follow on Twitter if you’re so inclined.  Very helpful and tech savvy.  I’d be stuck with no content without help from both of ‘em!

Current Mood:  grateful

Tags: tech