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Sunday 6 May 2012

If you blog, you'll know how I feel

This is a sad tale of loss, stupidity and greed, and only two of them are mine.

A long, long time ago, I read the blog of a friend---a young woman who is full of life and good humour---and decided that I could probably manage a blog myself.

My first post was a bit fearful; I wasn't sure why I wanted to write, I wasn't sure I knew anyone who would actually read if I wrote, but that was back in the day when lots of people were starting blogs and reaching out to people they didn't really know but seemed fascinating.

After writing my first post, I filled out the profile which asked about favourite books and movies and music, and within minutes, someone who shared my interest in a band listed there had written me a funny note, that was just intriguing enough to make me go over to her blog and read her posts.  I don't know how often it happened that I read something interesting in the comments of a blogger, clicked on the writer's link and ended up with a new friend.  And they really are friends, the ones I've been delighted to meet in person, and the ones I still hope to meet one day.

I continued with that blog for about 6 years, and I loved it.  I loved writing it; I loved the comments I read; I loved that I was writing about my family and friends, chronicling things I found profound or silly or witty, and that I'd be able to look back on these posts and perhaps interest my grandchildren in reading stories about our family and friends.

That blog was where I told things as they happened and as I reacted to the things going on around me; where I babbled on about all the happiness in my life, and where I wrote about my mother's death.  I often went back to the archives to help me remember how I'd felt about something or to check what a friend had written in the comments.  I loved it.

A mistake, a technical and horrible mistake happened and I could no longer use that blogsite, but a friend helped me to move it to a dot net site.  That friend got seriously ill, and when the time came for me to renew with the host, because she was acting as my webmaster, I had no opportunity to renew the site even though I spoke to someone representing the site who could have helped.  I didn't know the username or the password, and even though I could tell the guy what was on almost every page, he wouldn't let me renew.

I understood, but was heartbroken.  And honestly, I didn't really believe all the stories were gone.

Recently, I wrote to the person who now uses http://lornainwonderland.net/  He or she is using it to host a blog about kitchen design, and naively, I thought might let me buy the URL---after all, what does www.Lornainwonderland.net do to pull in people interested in kitchens?

I got an answer back that I could buy the URL for a mere $700.00.  I'm sickened and disappointed, but not acquiescing.  I think I'd rather not have put my heart on my sleeve like that.



11 comments:

  1. I'm a blogger (sort of...much less than before, anyway) and I do understand. I'm going to go archive my blog right now. I think I can do that with Blogger, now. Don't give up hope, but don't give up $700 either.

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  2. I'm so sorry, Lorna. Perhaps there's a way to re-archive your posts via the Internet WayBack manchine?

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  3. I feel your pain. I'm trying to figure out how this new Blogger stuff works and see is all my posts are still there. I've no idea how to archive my blog.

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  4. Someone is also sitting on my old domain -- so to speak. But I gave it up willing and didn't lose anything, so they can enjoy their sit as much as they wish.

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  5. $700 is very greedy, I think!

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  6. How synchronistic, I've had a very similar blog-happening (twice now O_o); The first one started much like yours, with the desire/need to leave .blogspot.com thus switching to a .net &, tho' a custom URL can be used on Blogger, it had never seemed necessary so a different approach to blogging altogether became the answer – especially with the import of that 1st blog's contents so that everything blogged thru the years would still exist without the issues of the 1st Blogger blog.

    Over time, I too lost access to the .net blog; like you, the internet home that had been built was still there but the door was gone &, since it couldn't be opened anymore, access to everything was lost – not the actual content, of course, nor the URL – it just led nowhere. The URL was renewed though, despite returning to Blogger in the interim, as keeping the doorway/renewing the URL gave me a chance to rebuild the door/make the content accessible again & right where it would be looked for.

    When the URL was up for renewal again, my health had gotten progressively worse as did my internet access (What access? ~_^), there was a question of funds but not renewing would take the content offline once more if I didn't finally get all of the previous content from the 1st two blogs imported into the 2nd/current .blogspot.com as planned all along. With me often not even having internet access & then not for very long much of the time as well as being in & out of hospital, that intended action proved an impossibility.

    I so looked forward to merging all three blogs & their respective content into one, especially as I'd then have a backup of the 3rd blog's content too, yet the more I worked towards getting anything done online, the less I could do even the slightest thing online; sure enough, my trusty Macelangelo, died. The not-so-comical comedy of errors continued as I repeatedly had issues with the websites' host – being where everything lives [Ever have one of those lives? |_|)] but also where I'm able to work with everything. (cont…)

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  7. (the continuation…) So, there I was, feeling hopeful & finally functional for the first time in such a very long time, Macelangelo had his new hard drive & I had slowly but surely (for the 1st time ever ~_~) improving “health.” In all my excitement to have Macelangelo alive, frustration set in yet again as I'd not been able to increase his RAM tho' desperately needed to utilize his new drive & software yet I attempted to resume my online responsibilities at long last if far slower than I imagined even I could go… that's when all the blogs I manage went offline.

    My Hunny simply switched to a .blogspot.com right off, asking that I forward his personal URL tho' I've not had a chance to make his archives accessible yet nor make the forwarding a permanent redirection; what hugely sucks right now is that his readers are likely getting numerous “page not found” 404 pages but I've just not had the chance to point Blogger to his archive (exactly as I'll also be doing for the blog described above) & am just thankful I got him to personalize his .blogspot.com 404.

    Meanwhile, this latest SNAFU took a 2-year-old online magazine that I'd built down; right as its readership was steadily growing & it was catching the attention of advertisers. I've spent the last two weeks building a .blogspot.com for KingsRiverLIfe.com as backup while making the magazine's archives accessible again, all of which caused way too many 404s along the way, not to mention errors – ongoing for all the blogs I've built – & likely still will for a time which is, of course, harder for a business to overcome than a personal site. /sigh

    KRL's Editor-In-Chief was distraught, feeling just as you describe in your heart-wrenching post Lorna, convinced I'd let her down & lost her content somehow. No matter how I tried to reassure her, explaining that blog contents are databases which URLs simply point to & a URL as well as any content can be pointed to &/or away from each other along with numerous other configurations. I'm actually still sorting the KRL mess while working on everyone's archives. Well, the three sites mentioned above anywho, maybe I'll get to work on my own site in time ; http://coffeesister.net!?

    PS: When I finally had to let coffeesister.com go, it became a backpack seller & even posted backpack ads to my other blogs & Facebook – since I wasn't online at the time, I couldn't remove the feed from my various profiles. <3 & |_|)

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  8. I'm confused, did u lose old posts? when did the url change to land of wonder? I'm just glad you'e still here!!

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  9. I'm not sure I understand everything you wrote, but I remember when this happened. One of your commenters mentioned Way Back Machine (http://archive.org/web/web.php) and I have heard of this. I wonder if it would be able to recapture what you had. Does the current owner of the domain have access to your archive back then? $700? Wow!

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  10. A lot of the commenters seem to be getting the URL confused with the content. Not the same thing at all. The URL is simply a pointer that tells computers "look here for that." URLs make things really simple whereas an actual SERVER address that the content resides on is terribly long and confusing. Fortunately the Internet is designed so that we don't have to ever look at the server addresses, just the URLs, which is why they exist.

    I have a URL that says "rhodester.net" which points to a server that says something like "100.6599998.bt6yh4.t0074"

    See? Isn't rhodester.net easier to remember and type in if you need too? But the content is on the server at the big number given above.

    Someone bought your easy-to-remember URL after it'd expired and changed it from "look at Lorna's stuff" to "look at this awesome kitchen design." That doesn't mean Lorna's stuff is gone. It's still there and can be grabbed off the server.

    So forget the URL. If someone bought it, they own it and can point it at the moon if they want. $700.00 EITHER means they are a greedy jackass OR they've spent some time building traffic to that address and successfully sell kitchen stuff, so that would compensate them for lost business. Go figure. Either way, it doesn't matter, it's just A POINTER.

    If you want to go for another personal URL lornainwonderland.com and lornainwonderland.org are available. You can pay a fee and set either aside right now even if you're not going to use it yet. Or you can point one of those to this blog.

    By the way, if I really wanted to be a jackass, but I don't because I'm not, I could buy up every lornainwonderland URL possibility right now simply because I know you want it and then sell you the one you want for ten times as much as what I paid for all of them.

    I let rhodester.com expire a couple of years ago because I was only using rhodester.net and had no use for it. Someone bought it and contacted me, offering to sell it to me "at a premium." Since I had willingly let it go, I just never answered them, despite them having contacted me twice since then. HAHA! Enjoy your useless "rhodester.com," Mr. entrepreneur!

    Whatzername here (you KNOW who!) will magically get your content off the server because A)It's STILL there, and B) She knows the magic server number. Yeah, the big long one. So all that stuff you've written over the years can be downloaded as a single file and then uploaded to this place.

    So dry those tears and never breathe the term "Wayback machine" again. That's not what it's for. The wayback machine is for us to look back five years or more and say, "Wow, we really sucked at design." That can be a lot of fun, but it's not for recovering old content.

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  11. Wow, Lorna ... I want the Rhodester on my side!
    Glad this is so resolvable for you.

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