And the latest . . .
The inhospitable host has neatly decided to put visibledarkness.com back sans content. I’m arguing with them to see if they have a backup, but I suspect not. I decided today that I might as well as reconcile myself to the lost of a ton of posts.
Of course, tonight my poor little pointing rodent died too causing a last minute trip to the store after teaching a night class . . .
And then I got a break. I really must applaud the foresight of Ben and Mena Trott. Following instructions (a rarity for me) I had exported my entries when I upgraded to Movable Type 2.6. Tonight, I went ahead and did the import of those files to find that it actually contained more than my full site download from 1/2/2003. I successfully imported all the entries from the 2.0 blog dating up to 1/29/2003. This means my actual loss is only around six weeks. Of course, there were some fat posts in there, but it’s not nearly as bad as I feared.
Best of all, the import preserved all of the comments, all of the links, and all of the catagories I had established previously. It will take almost no editing to get the old blog back. The only real problem is the loss of the templates—its been so long now I can’t hardly remember what the other site looked like. But the entries fit the new template I designed fairly well, so I’ll probably only have to make minor changes to get it completely up to speed.
This means that full scale posting here will return by the weekend. Hopefully I can get off the “woe is me” kick and back to business. If the rest of the site magically reappears, I can export the missing entries and add them back in, though the permalinks won’t match once I post again here. I’ll give it twenty-four hours, and then call it a loss.
By next week I’ll probably go ahead and arrange to point visibledarkness over here. I preserved the directory structure, so then maybe I’ll get some of my previous readership back once the “not found” becomes found. There’s nothing that puts your traffic in the toilet quicker than an unplanned move.
But things could be worse. I could be in Baghdad.
Glad to hear that the loss will not be as monumental as you thought. I’ll be happy to promote your new home on my site. Not that my readership is anything to write home about, but I’m glad to spread the word.
This template looks good, not very different from the old one. The only thing is it’s too wide for my screen. Not bad though. I only have to use the horizontal scroll if I want to see the sidebar. I can read the posts just fine.
The Wayback Machine might have a significant chunk of your old content, Jeff. Worth a look, at least.
Hey that’s great news! – sorry about you losing the 6 weeks worth but heck that’s better than the whole thing.
Oy, I thought I had problems with my host, but your old one is a nasty one. I am amazed that they don’t do nightly backups.
Sorry you’ve lost the work, Jeff. Reminds me to make an export tonight.