Help My Post Vanished!
February 10, 2008 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Freelance Writing
~ Jennifer Chait
It’s been a strange blogging week. As Deb referred to in an earlier post this week, a client was having some major server issues. I also happen to work for said client, so I’ve had a lot of downtime lately. I could tell you all about what I did during my downtime; but how I surfed stellar architect blogs to my heart’s content is hardly interesting to anyone but me. Instead we can look at one issue that happens to folks when servers go all wacky.
Anyone who has blogged long enough will eventually have the following situation occur: “I wrote my entire post, hit the publish button, and my post vanished. My screen says there’s an error. Help!”
Troubleshooting
Sadly, there’s not much troubleshooting you can do in this situation. Posts vanish all the time. Ironically it tends to happen after you’ve taken an hour to write a really good post. I’ve had posts vanish from WordPress, Blogger, and Movable Type. It’s always frustrating.
If you want to try troubleshooting you can always hit refresh. I’ve done this and it’s worked for WordPress blogs. It’s never worked for my Blogger or Movable Type blogs though. It’s not a sure thing.
Prevention
In the case of vanishing posts, we’re going for prevention, not solving the issue after the fact. If you want to make sure you don’t lose your hard work, here are some preventative measures:
Hit save: You’d be surprised how often I’ve forgotten to hit save over the years. Currently WordPress and Blogger both save automatically. However, I’ve still lost post, or entire portions of posts – after hitting save. Once in a while I type too fast for save to kick in, and I’ve lost stuff then too. Simply because your blog platform saves your post, does not ensure its safety. Hitting save is good, but it’s not true prevention.
Forget working online: No surprise, the internet is volatile. The web, or at least the web in your neck of the woods, shuts down when it’s most inconvenient. Thus, don’t work online.
Write your posts in a word or text document first. Later, cut and paste your post in at your blog platform. I don’t love this option because computer text doesn’t always translate into nice blog text. Also, I can’t add photos and all my blogs are photo heavy. Working this way slows me down at most of my blogs. It is, however, less slow than losing whole posts.
Use an offline web log client: In keeping with the, “The internet is volatile,” issue, an offline web log client like BlogDesk or Windows Live Writer can be a useful blogging tool. Both are free. Both allow you to work offline, and manage multiple blogs at once. Also, these blog clients are feature rich. This means you can edit photos, add tables, and change items like font color much easier. I like Windows Live better. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Deb was the one who turned me onto Windows Live (we trust her, right?). Still, many reputable bloggers swear by BlogDesk. You’ll have to check them out, and decide for yourself.
With some simple planning ahead, you won’t need to worry as much about lost work, or worse, lost time. Do you use an offline editor? Which one?
Among other places, you can visit Jennifer Chait at Offbeat Homes, Slices of Green, 7 Babes A Blogging, and Tree Hugging Family.
Thanks for this interesting article. I was checking both BlogDesk and Windows Live Writer but seems like they just work for Windows OP, what about Mac? Do you have any suggestion for Mac users?
Geez, I should have mentioned Mac – I’m not a Mac girl so I forget. One of my best blog buddies is so I should have remembered. Anyway, there are fewer choices but Qumana Blog Editor is one that’s free. There’s also ecto or MarsEdit; both paid, but not too much at all – if you google “Mac offline blog editors” you may find more. I’m less savvy about Mac blogging. (sorry) But this is a start.
Oh, no need to apologize, in any case I’m really grateful for your post and thanks for the suggestions. I’m very new at blogging and also at using Mac, so I also sometimes forget about Mac options. Thanks again for your great article
Yindra, congrats on getting a Mac. I was turned on to them around 12 years ago. I’ve had to sometimes use PCs for jobs, but I’ve only had a Mac at home.
The downside to having a Mac is that many companies assume everyone has a PC. I had to search really hard for a digital recorder that would work with my Mac. Still, I don’t think Macs crash as much as PCs! And they are more simple to use, I think. Well, and I’m married to a graphic designer who hates PCs…
MarsEdit is one Mac blogging software, but I haven’t tried it. It’s not free.
Right now, I type in TextEdit (which I believe comes with Mac OS 10). Saving posts in Word and copying over didn’t work so well, but TextEdit automatically saves in Rich Text and I haven’t had a prob with it. Sometimes I just compose in WordPress, which is risky I know.
Jennifer, were you talking about me? : )
I’m a mac user that was currently turned on to using Flock browser. It has an offline blog editor that saves posts and can blog in multiple sites like blogger, typepad, livejournal (i believe) and also one hosted by your own server. I really like it. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think that it’s also got tools for easy copy and paste for images and text you find online to add to your blog. I only actually post to my own domain and hardly use any photos, but i’m pretty sure it’s capable of both.
Just been there and done that myself. Read all about it on my blog at http://tianodesign.com/blog/?p=101. I’m no Luddite. In fact, I consider myself something of a technology junkie in recovery—that is, I’d love to have every better, bigger, and faster piece of computer equipment I see. But there is definitely something of a magical nature, positive and negative, to computers.
The only thing I can offer to save aggravation is: Remember to save your work!
Just a note that if you write in Word (or another word processor program) and cut and paste your text into the CODE view box of Wordpress, Wordpress will strip the hidden formatting of the Word text. Your text appears with no quirks, just nice and clean.
One habit that saved me from lots of headaches when post going kaput happens is always using CTRL+A and then CTRL+C before hitting publish. This way I know that I still can paste it back if anything untowardly happens.
Peggy – nope, I did not know you had a Mac. I was actually talking about my friend Liberty – but I don’t think she’s a reader here.
Thanks all for the Mac suggestions.
James – that does work, but it’s still more work because of the pictures and links. That’s the main reason I don’t do that. Plus some people aren’t as savvy at switching back and fourth between code and editor (so I don’t love to mention it) and it won’t work in blogger as well. But, it does clear formatting quirks.
I meant “Thanks all for the Mac suggestions everyone.” BTW – good ones.
I downloaded Windows Live Writer because Deb mentioned it, and it looks very exciting. However, I’m not a techie and I was unable to figure out what the remote posting URL is for one of the blogs I write for. Any ideas?
James, thanks for the tip. I think I did paste the content into Visual before.
I do a lot of writing on my lunch break at the 9-5. I learned from experience to email the file to two email addresses and then all I do is copy and paste to Live Writer when I get ready to post. This leaves me with 3 forms of backup.
If I’m going to work online, I type in Google docs. I usually just use word 07, though.
I write everything for Notepad (.txt) documents. There’s no formatting in Notepad so you can just copy and paste into any blogging platform or CMS. People might think it’s a waste of time, but I think it’s invaluable. Not only do you avoid losing work due to technical difficulties, but also if the site you are writing for goes out of business or something, you still have all your work on your hard drive.
BlogDesk is a really cool program, thanks for the heads up!
I’ve been using Scribefire for a while now, but it doesn’t save to HDD. Now if I can just figure out how to connect to Joomla with it!
I like to work offline with Word because one, it gives me a back up and two, I do several posts at one time, I only have to start a new .doc instead of opening up all of the different blogs. For me, I have found it to be easier.
I have never tried any of the offline blog editors described in this post, but I am going to take some time and review them and I might find something that is better for me to use instead Word. I am all about trying new things that might help make my life a bit less complicated.
I can’t imagine typing directly onto my editor. It’s always Word first and then copy paste onto the editor. In my case, I usually have a dozen edits to do, so just typing and pressing publish won’t do for many of my posts.
I have heard wonderful things about Windows Live Writer. That will be my way in the future.
I’ve never lost a post. My autosave loves me xD