BlogBackupr – Good Idea, But…
Most of us have backup plans for the data we store at home, but how about the data we store online? If you publish a blog, for example, are you prepared for your blog host to crash and destroy years of work? Thinking about that question is what makes BlogBackupr seem attractive. It’s a free service that runs daily backups of your blog over the internet, and in case of disaster, makes the backed-up data available to you from its own servers.
Here’s the catch, though: in most cases BlogBackupr uses RSS to scrape your blog, but if you use the popular WordPress platform, it actually logs on to grab things that may not be available in RSS. This is an area where I would recommend caution, as signing up a WordPress blog requires putting your WordPress username and password into the system. That’s a security issue that may stop some folks from using BlogBackupr in favor of another solution.
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Hi Mike. Thanks for writing about BlogBackupr. I understan your concern, would you trust a WordPress plugin? I will add an option when you register that says something like “No thanks, just use the public feed”
Perhaps you can use a special user that can only read (cannot edit posts).
I’ve read this somewhere else before: http://occamsrazr.com/2008/03/03/backup-and-think/ a few hours earlier than this post. Odd.
I’ve got a script that backs up my blog db daily, and another to copy my templates/images every other day.
I also do an rsync to my desktop every week or two as an extra DB.
I wouldn’t trust someone else to handle data like that. Just seems risky.
My system catches everything and is much more secure.
Better to get a reliable web host who does daily back-ups. It’s saved me on more than one occasion.
If you are using WordPress why wouldn’t you just use WordPress Database Backup which emails your entire WordPress Database to an email address of your choice as often as you’d like, I have it set up to email my database once a day to a gmail address I’ve set up.
Ok, there is now an option to use the public (no password required) feed instead.
Can you please update the post? Thanks.