Wednesday, 19 December 2007 - 3:19 PM EST

Blogs can't be backed up. You would need to go to all your entries and comment editting screens, copy each page of comments and entries to a text editor or word processing program and then reassemble them elsewhere in blog format, hoping to get the right comments attached to the correct entry.

Any images would also need to be backed up. That is more easily done using an FTP program just as you might to backup web site files..

Wednesday, 19 December 2007 - 3:34 PM EST

re- renaming your blog- yes, you can do that without losing your work. From the "change settings" panel of the blog manager just fill in a new name in the text field you'll see.

Friday, 21 December 2007 - 8:28 PM EST

Actually, you can use an ftp client like filezilla (frontpage is no longer available for download, and unsupported by microsoft) and download your blog directory (folder) to your computer, but you would have to either do this every time you, or someone else posts an entry or comment, or just download the correct comments file (not sure which it is) to the correct location inside the folder on your computer.

If for some reason your blog were to be wiped out on the server, you could just upload the entire folder to the correct folder (directory) on your Angelfire account.

Friday, 21 December 2007 - 11:05 PM EST

I may be wrong and am always game for a new trick. But as far as I know, neither comments or entries are kept in your blog "folder". They are dynamic includes kept for you on the tripod server ...unless I missed something :). Have you actually tried to back up your blog this way? 

Friday, 21 December 2007 - 11:07 PM EST

make that "kept for you on the AF server" :)

Saturday, 22 December 2007 - 7:38 PM EST

I did some diging around one time, and noticed there is a file there that is updated with the comments in it. I can't remember why I was digging around in there, but I think it was because I was trying to modify my blogs layout (which didn't work that way), and noticed the file  with the posts in it. I have to assume that by saving a copy you could upload it again at a later time, though if there were posts, and comments made after that your saved copy would be outdated. That's why I mentioned having to download that one file every time the blog was updated. I'm curious now, so I'm going to go dig up that file name, and post it ;)

Saturday, 22 December 2007 - 8:00 PM EST

I know what it was now. Just the rss.xml file, but it will only keep however many posts you've allowed on the main blog page. Sorry :( This raises a good point though! If Angelfire crashes (and they have in the past) What will we do? I have a copy of my entire site on my computer, and I can just upload it to AF if anything ever happens, but it looks like the blog might suffer. On the other hand it would make sense that if the blog files are stored on the AF server, that those files as well as their own important documents are already backed up. I think in the event of a server wide meltdown, we would probably be ok, but if someone were to goof up and delete their blog directory, or something to that effect, there may be no way to reverse it. We'll just have to be really careful :) 

Sunday, 23 December 2007 - 12:01 PM EST

Actually, entries and comments from deleted blogs can usually be recovered because they are kept in some dark hidden space on the AF and Tripod servers lol. Found this out last year helping someone at the tripod club recover a large blog that was mistakenly deleted. It's not easy but can be done- at least to allow copying of old entries and comments so they can be reconstructed in a new blog.

Here's a tip that may help if you ever lose a blog. Take a few minutes and find the unique ID number given to your current blog. You can find it by going into blog manager and looking at the URL when you choose to delete comments or edit entries. It will be at the end. For instance, the link to the comments in a test blog I have here looks like this:

https://blog.angelfire.lycos.com/service/blog/control.comment?a=edit_pub&blog_id=1194485 

Those two screens in the blog manager (edit entries, delete comments) allow you access to all the comments and entries in your blog. You should be able to bookmark their URLs so that when you're logged into your account you can access those screens from your bookmarks. Or, if you save your ID number in a safe place, those URLs can be reconstructed using your blog's unique ID number and again, when logged in should reach those comments and entries even if the blog itself is actually deleted. I don't know how long they're kept in cyberspace but if caught early, you can still get to your blog text content even if disaster happens.