Save $100 in 5 Minutes Backing Up Your Web Site?

Written by Robert Plank


Here's an easy way to backup your web site's files and database (worth thousands of dollars, no doubt) that costs $0 to learn and perform. It only takes seven easy steps.

You don't need to know a lot about how to use Unix or how to use databases like mySQL. The only real tool you need is a telnet client. Also, you need to know a few commands which I'll show you now. (You could even writerepparttar commands I'm about to give you on a cheatsheet.)

STEP 1: CONNECT & GET IN THE RIGHT FOLDER

The web host you're trying to back up needs to allow shell access (most do these days).

If you have a Windows computer, download a program called "PuTTY" which you can use to login in your web host's shell. Search for "putty ssh" on Google or get it here: http:/ he.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe

Open up PuTTY and atrepparttar 118685 top type in your hostname (your web site address withoutrepparttar 118686 http or www, just "yourname.com"). Your web host either uses SSH or telnet, first try logging in using SSH and if it won't connect try it using Telnet. Clickrepparttar 118687 "Open" button atrepparttar 118688 bottom to connect.

When it connects you will be asked for your account's username, and after you enter that, it will ask for your password. If these both take, you'll see a command prompt of sorts. What you have to do is browse torepparttar 118689 document root, depending on your host it's usually a folder like "public_html" or "wwwroot".

Ifrepparttar 118690 wwwroot or public_html folder has more folders inside of it, inrepparttar 118691 form of yourdomain.com, don't browse into them yet, just stay inrepparttar 118692 folder you're in.

Browsing inrepparttar 118693 Unix command prompt is just like DOS, to view a folder type "dir" or "ls", and to go into a certain folder type "cd foldername". If you messed up you can type "cd .." to move up one level.

STEP 2: BACK-UP THE DATABASE

The first step if you're backing up a site is to dump your mySQL database. To do this obviously you needrepparttar 118694 mySQL username and password you want to back up. If your mySQL username is "myuser" andrepparttar 118695 mySQL password is "mypassword", you'd type:

mysqldump -umyuser -pmypassword -A > dump.sql

mysqldump isrepparttar 118696 program we run to dumprepparttar 118697 database into a file, then we type "-u" followed byrepparttar 118698 username (no spaces) and "-p" followed byrepparttar 118699 password (also no spaces). The uppercase "-A" tellsrepparttar 118700 program we want to dump every database this user has access to. It MUST be an uppercase A.

The ">" afterwards says we want to put this program's output into a file (otherwise it would show up onrepparttar 118701 screen) and "dump.sql" isrepparttar 118702 name ofrepparttar 118703 file we're going to dump to.

This may take a while depending onrepparttar 118704 size of your database. Be patient. Once you have a command prompt again, it's done.

If you don't have root on your server, it may show databases you don't have access to. What you'll have to do here is "force" mysqldump to keep doingrepparttar 118705 backups even if it gets error messages. The flag for "force" is "-f".

mysqldump -umyuser -pmypassword -Af > dump.sql

STEP 3: BACK-UP YOUR FILES

Now you can put everything into one big file, which you can easily move over torepparttar 118706 new host in one go, instead of one at a time. Unix doesn't let you create Zip files, but you can create a TAR (Tape Archive) which just rolls a bunch of files together without any sort of compression.

To create your TAR archive, type:

tar -cvf dump.tar *

The "-c" tellsrepparttar 118707 program to create a new TAR archive,repparttar 118708 "v" following right after says to be verbose, in other words, give usrepparttar 118709 name of every file that's being added to repparttar 118710 archive. "f: means we're saving this to a file, as opposed to showing it onrepparttar 118711 screen (you'd just see junk).

Pop-ups And Pop-up Blockers

Written by Jeff Colburn


Pop-ups, you all know what these little annoying things are. You go to a website and a window, or two or three, pop-up on your screen. Before you can do anything onrepparttar site you have to close them down. But like Tribbles in Star Trek, you get rid of one and three take its place. People hate Pop-ups, and I mean REALLY hate them.

So do you think it's a good idea to have something on your site that people hate? I can guarantee that they not only haterepparttar 118684 pop-ups, but almost instantly hate your site, hate you, and probably aren't crazy about your car, house and dog.

The whole idea behind pop-ups was to put something in front of visitors that you want them to see, know about or buy. Well, if all people want to do is close every pop-up they see on your site, then your purpose for using them is moot. You not only won't sell anything you advertise in a pop-up, but you won't sell anything on your site because people will be fleeing in droves.

There's another little item that you should know aboutrepparttar 118685 pop-ups on your site. Visitors probably aren't even seeing them. The peasants have revolted, and pop-up blockers are more prevalent onrepparttar 118686 net than political mailings at election time. I haven't seen a pop-up in over two years.

Pop-up blockers come in many forms. More and more browsers have built in blockers. I've been using Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org) as a browser, andrepparttar 118687 built in pop-up blocker works great. And Mozilla is free. Another free blocker comes from Google (http:/ oolbar.google.com). This is a little toolbar that will be added to whatever browser you have. It blocks pop-ups, contains no spyware and lets you do Google searches from wherever you are onrepparttar 118688 net.

So as you see, pop-ups will make your visitors angry with you, unless they've taken matters into their own hands with one ofrepparttar 118689 many blockers, in which case they will never see them. So should you abandonrepparttar 118690 use of pop-ups? Not really.

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