Back up your blog!

Do it today, do it now, if you can. If your web host's server goes down and their backups aren't perfect or your database corupts, you lose all that journaling. It happens. It's been on my mind for a while now, but I just read this sad story on Peoria Pundit (don't ask) of a blog that went down. Here's an excerpt:

The problem is that my hosting company had a server crash. And when they restored from a back up, the most recent post they had stored was on Oct. 10.So,all those posts are gone.Like they never existed. Needless to say. I am frosted.Normally, I would go to my own backups, but my last backup preceded theirs apparently. My bad, and I blame no one by myself for my lack of dilligence.

Every blog application has a recipie to do this but basically, you take your blog page and your archives and use the File/Save As: Web Page Complete (on IE; use the corresponding menu commands on your browser) on the top page and each archive page. If you have individual archive pages, change your template temporarily to create one page with all posts, or monthly archives and save these to your hard disk.