I am just the embodiment of “PEBCAK errors” this week. I’d blame it on Indonesian, Russian, and British hackers, but that would be a half-truth, at best; in a fit of security-mindedness reminiscent of the time I locked myself and my PC out of my PC (a neat trick, but you’ll end up on an IT poster peppered with dart holes if you try it) I deleted It’s All a Matter of Perspective. The idea was to keep hackers from exploiting old, unused, unmonitored WordPress installations. I just forgot that I’d manually cross-linked multiple blogs to one database. Whoops. Unfortunately, the databases in question were larger than what’s covered by Hostgator’s backup policy, so… no backup on the server side. Seventy-two hours later, I concluded that this is not entirely a bad thing.
Over the last year, I’ve watched my friend James David Audlin struggle with visions of losing his life’s work due to computer failures, and I have watched him discover the importance of triple-redundant backups. The lessons have not been lost on me, either. I have backups. Unfortunately, even backups sometimes fail. It was disconcerting to realize that I had no posts from 2012 – just a couple of xml files from WordPress exports containing error messages. And then it hit me: I was smart to syndicate the full text of each post and to subscribe to my own feed by email. Sometimes, a sloppy inbox is a blessing in disguise.
Then again, reading over the last year’s worth of posts, I wonder if any of them are worth re-publishing. They’re not all easily restored, but that just makes me think more carefully about whether they’re still relevant and worth restoring. That’s not some negative, self-denigrating bit of “woe is me.” Editing is work, and laziness is one of the reasons I started A Fresh Perspective in the first place. I was tired of looking at all the garbled characters peppering the pre-2009 posts – caused by a database change last time I broke my blog. There’s something refreshing and invigorating about starting with a clean slate, provided it doesn’t stay clean for long.
Speaking for me, I’m glad that stuff is no longer avaialable. I’ve been trying to live up to a reputation that I never had.
You have it. With me. You wouldn’t stop being your wonderful self, surely? I mean, I COULD edit and republish – most of that stuff is NOT truly “lost and gone forever.”
Woops, tell me about it! I once lost 2 months worth of articles I had been writing to eventually post on a new blog!! I was sooooo annoyed!
Great Blog! Keep it up!
Thanks, Charles! It can be so discouraging – and yet… if you can step back and gain a little perspective, it can be liberating and refreshing, too. All the important thoughts and ideas are still there – the ones you found memorable when you wrote them. It’s just a bit more time and effort, but it’s like editing without all the distractions of the old words. 😉
Nah, it’s still annoying, but that’s life. It’s how we deal with setbacks and move forward that prove whether we’re up to living it.
Nothing like a fresh start!
Very true.
In the time BBBTC (Before Blog Book Tour Cafe), I had a blog. Then Dani and the crew intimated that I needed a more professional web presence; I needed a web presence that was more focused.
So I abandoned the old WEBLAHG and began my current blog, all clean and fresh and focused. And now it’s pretty much just like the old one, only without the fanfiction section.
Hard to begin anew when you’re still yourself, eh?
Loved your old posts, and I’m certain I’ll love all the new ones.
p.s. We all know you’re trying to run from your threat to Godzillatize a certain major city.
My daughter used to tease me that I was the only person she knew of who went into Second Life and tried to make it like real life.
I’m having a bit of a challenge writing regularly, but I suppose that just means I’m happily distracted by work, life, and other projects. 🙂 I’m still here, still me. And thank you.
P.S. Shhhhhh!! I thought everyone had forgotten about that!
Well, tell your daughter you’re not alone with Second Life. I lost interest when I found out I couldn’t make my avatar look just like me. I was like, “I spent years making peace with who I am, and now I should pretend I’m somebody else? If I want to do that, I’ll log off and WRITE.”
So I did.
Yes! You understand perfectly! 🙂