Earlier this month, we took a look at 4 ways to backup your WordPress blog. That post covered steps you could take to backup your site, including the use of WordPress plugins. We’re always on the lookout for better ways to get things done, and when it comes to backing up a WordPress blog, we’ve found a gem. Updraft is a dead simple plugin that will backup the contents of your site to the cloud (such as Amazon S3) or to an FTP server. You can even have the backup emailed to you.
What makes Updraft so awesome is how simple it is. When I set it up for 40Tech, it automatically set a backup directory on the server. I only had to set the backup interval (daily, weekly, monthly, or manual), and fill in my Amazon S3 account details. When I log into my S3 account, I can see the backup files sitting there.
You can set Updraft to email you when a backup is complete, and to delete the local backup on your server (prior to uploading the backup to the cloud, Updraft generates it in a folder on your server). You can also specify how many backups to keep. Perhaps the best part of Updraft is that your backup can be restored with the click of a button.
One word of warning: if you’re using Amazon S3, don’t use any non-alphanumeric characters in your bucket name. When I first set up Updraft, the backups were sitting on the server, and not being transferred into S3. I had been using a bucket that had an underscore in the name. When I changed that to a simple name, the backups started working as intended.
Updraft is pretty awesome. Have you found anything better?
Updraft [via MakeUseOf]
The Cloud Explained — by Kids
photo by zakwitnij
It was my birthday the other day. I turned 35. Yep, 35, and I write for a blog called 40Tech. I’m mature for my age, ok? Either way, I was feeling pretty good about myself that day. 35 years old is young, right? Well, that’s what I thought until I saw this video by Accenture that has little kids explaining cloud computing.
I now feel positively ancient.
The video, called “Cloud Computing Here and Now — Our Youngest Experts Explain the Cloud,” features a whole bunch of cute, smarty-pants little rug rats that make websites and are working on video games that feature super-spies with heads made out of cheese puffs. They were born with the internet — broadband, even — and it’s as second nature to them as hair bands are to the rest of us. I mean the music variety, by the way, not the hold up your hair type — but I digress.
Watch this video. It may make you feel like somebody’s grandparent, or even great grandparent — but it is a very clear look into the future of tech. Well, the future from the point of view of a high-end consulting company that is obviously convinced of the impending takeover of cloud computing — and trying to sell people on it — but that’s not saying they’re wrong.
Watch the video below — What do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eq3Sj1GGs8&feature=player_embedded