data

The blog is quiet on the surface, but don’t be fooled. Here is what’s up.

My second novel, Blood and Rain, is as good as complete. A few minor tweaks, then a bit of photography, cover design, trailer and a Twitter storm.

The site went offline in September 2015, as my hosting account was shut down. This was detailed in an earlier post. A quick summary, FatCow proved to have a horrible support department. They led me on for weeks before deleting my database. They kept saying it would be solved, or at least didn’t say it wouldn’t. Whatever, if you’re looking for a hosting solution, don’t look at FatCow.

Old posts I salvaged via WayBackMachine are being recreated and put up again. All comments are gone. I couldn’t get those. But most of the posts will be up in the coming days. All but the very last one from late summer 2015. They are gone forever. It’s a tedious affair, but I want my blog back.

So, see you very soon. I am looking forward to leaving the past behind and looking towards the future. A reader of my new novel described it as “beautiful”, so I’m itching to get it out there.

Twitter followers will be well aware that I’ve had some issues with FatCow hosting. They wouldn’t restore my data, they stalled at every opportunity until “the system” deleted the files.

But there was hope. Archive.org’s WayBackMachine did have my site on file and I managed to copy my scribblings into a word processor. It’ll be quite a bit of work to get it all back onto the site in correct order, but it’s a challenge that I have no choice but to accept.

I did have much of my posts in the WordPress iPhone app. I realised that today. I jumped for joy! I could probably use the app to restore much of my posts. I signed into the app with my new login and password… and promptly watched as all my posts disappeared. They were all gone, except for the two posts already on the restored site. Other pages, such as the one with information on my novel disappeared too. It was all gone.

Now, I understand that it may make sense that the website has priority over the app. The app replicates the site. Sure. But would it not be an idea to have the app prompt you if deleting posts is actually what you want to do? If the app had asked if I wanted all the posts gone, I could have pressed the button saying NO. And then looked for a way to get the posts onto the site.

As it is, the website dominated and all my posts, bar the two, were deleted. It was like watching a hacker delete everything from a server in a movie. It was horrible.

So, WordPress team, a suggestion for a future update. Let the app prompt you if you want posts stored in the app – but not on the site – deleted. Let the app give some options. Delete, keep unchanged, move to drafts, publish. Something like that.

Because, after all, our data is what it’s all about and a company that does everything to preserve that data is king.

State of Things

What Have You Done, WordPress?