Recently I was opening my Blogger blog when I was directed to a message from Google saying that people in two parts of the world (Austria and Sweden) were trying to access the blog. Google gave the IP address of the devices concerned They had refused permission to these unknown people but wanted to know if I wanted to give them access – good old Google! They advised me to change my password in case it was someone trying to compromise my account…which of course I did. So I knew it was time for me to back up my blog!
Other reasons for backing up a blog
I remember Richard Byrne on this blog Free technology 4 teachers urging his readers one time, as a weekend project, to back up our blogs; so I crossed over to his post for guidance. He gives some good reasons for backing up a blog, 'The fact of the matter is, if we rely on a free web-based service we should be aware of the possibility that it could shut-down or move to a fee model at some point. To that end, we should be in the habit of periodically creating offline back-ups of our data.’
How to back up a blog?
It is a relief to know that nothing happens to the original blog when you backup! I have put the steps I took into a Slideshare. It was rather nerve-wracking at first as I imagined how it would be if something went wrong and I lost the whole blog! To allay that fear I practised on a not-too-important previous blog and all went well. So here is what I did...
What else can be done with the exported file?
If you decide to change blogging platforms you can import the xml backup files to the new blog. Amazing! The other thing you can do with the xml file is convert it to a PDF and make it into a book using BlogBooker – a free service! It takes about 5 minutes. Imagine how nice it would be to do this for your students’ blogs at the end of a year! BlogBooker points to some public examples on the web to look at.
You can also get this done professionally on the web into a hard cover book using blog2print. I have seen one of these at a friend's house and they are lovely.
If you are the proud owner of a Blogger or Edublogs/Wordpress blog please think about backing up your blog. It would be a terrible plight to lose all those hard-earned hours of work just like that!
Further reading
1) 7 tips for turning your blog into a book
2) How to back up your blog and why you should
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