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Servers and Servants

At last! I’m back in the world of blogging. It’s a long story, with a happy ending.

Heavy Blog

For a few months now, my blog has been creaking and straining under the weight of posts, photographs and almost any other virtual thing that I could cram on here. I had trouble logging in and then it would crash and photos started disappearing from posts and pages. In the end, I had no choice but to download the whole lot and go through it with a fine toothcomb.

Little Boxes

It’s a little like tidying out the garden shed or garage. Everything is neat and tidy when you first build it and you take great pride in placing tools and items exactly where you want them. Next thing you know, you’re filling the place up with old bags and damp cardboard boxes with a thought that you’ll go through them in a day or two, when you’re less busy.

Maintenance

Even after spending a lot of time going through the blog, it was still a nightmare sorting out what photos were missing and what photos remained went with which post. A lesser man would have given up, I tell you, says I with a wife looking on with eyes rolling around her head. She doesn’t understand that these things need maintenance, just like the car. ‘Oh you switch it on and away you go!’ Now my eyes are rolling around my head.

More Memories

I even took to complaining to my website hosts, who, to be fair have always been very good and understanding with me. The frustration can show in an email sometimes and they know it. They were so kind as to even extend my database by an extra 50 Mb as that was part of the problem with my blog refusing to even let me at times. I’ve since updated and fingers crossed, like a brand new shed, it will all go well.

Apart from a little more tidying up with the photographs here and there, I should be back to blogging a little more regularly. Oh, I was busy too making a community website for our village. If you would like a quick look at it, here it is: Llangunllo Community Website

 

66 thoughts on “Servers and Servants”

  5. John
    Reply

    Your village looks beautiful, Nice job on the website. Logging in to your blog more often could help you keep better track of any issues that have come up. I have self-hosted before but prefer to stay inside of WP.com, and using the overpriced Business plan but it’s nice with the plugins. Be well!

  15. Pingback: Servers and Servants – Takeyeah4 me

  26. Anonymous
    Reply

    I’m very glad to see that you are back. A few of the bloggers I follow have been having similar problems recently, so you are not alone.
    The village site is great…but I can’t help but point out that from my side of the Atlantic that your Tardis is the wrong color… I know it’s a call box. but I just had to make a wisecrack.
    I had been wondering why you hadn’t been posting. I think it can get expensive to maintain a site for years with all of our text and photos. I started in 2018 so I’m nowhere near my limits, but a little housekeeping in advance may not be a bad idea

  36. Herb
    Reply

    Thanks for sharing what happened. Sometimes bloggers you follow for quite a while just quit. I’m glad you didn’t quit. I haven’t had time to explore your village website but it looks pretty from what I can see so far.

  38. SueW
    Reply

    I knew you were still here because of your visits to my place, but often wondered if I’d missed one of your posts. Lovely to read your post.

    I’m glad you finished your website maintenance, yep the reference to the shed is about right, a bit like me sorting out the storage in the old stables during the summer.

    I liked the community website, excellent job, and I enjoyed the tractor ride. It gave me ideas.

    Welcome back! ????

    1. Trev
      Reply

      Thank you, Sue. Yes, I kept up to date with your blog and many others I follow. Fingers crossed that all goes well from now on. Glad you enjoyed the tractor ride. Thank you again, Sue. ????

  40. Anonymous
    Reply

    Welcome back! And well done for sorting the problem. Computers and the internet are lovely until they go wrong when they become compete pains!

  42. delphini510
    Reply

    It is great to see you here again, your blog title always makes me smile.
    It seems you are a servant to the server, I know the feeling. Just now your likes won’t load
    on mine…????.
    There is a funny song called ‘ Little boxes, little boxes …..’ , wonder why that came to mind.????.

    Miriam

    1. Trev
      Reply

      Thank you, Luisa. I don’t think my wife has commented, but yes, I had to sort the blog out. It was like opening a can of worms. Thank you again. 🙂

  46. juliecroundblog
    Reply

    You have made me wonder if I should try to find a way to delete old blogs. I never have but would like to be able to select the best ones and get rid of the rest. Is it importanat or are they all in the cloud and it doesn’t matter?

    1. Trev
      Reply

      I had to get rid of some of mine, Julie as they were missing photographs or links from them were broken. There was quite a lot especially from the early days. I suppose if you have an infinite amount of space in the cloud, then it doesn’t matter. Mine are hosted privately and even the company that owns the hosting started complaining things were getting bogged down on their server. 🙂

  52. Gibson Square
    Reply

    Welcome back to Blogger’s World. For 5 years I self hosted, but it became too expensive so I’ve returned to the WordPress personal plan. I love the design of Silly Old Sod, which you couldn’t use hosted by WordPress. Looking forward to more regular posts again about the stuff of life which most of us overlook.

  54. Anonymous
    Reply

    Whew. Your post gives me the shivers when I think about old stuff on my own blog–700+ blog posts fora start. In my case it’s all online but even so, how could every back number of my blog (any blog being like a semi-searchable magazine) still be of interest, let alone relevant? Must start pecking away at it soon. You are an involuntary role model. Nice village site BTW, and nice village ????

  57. Eileen
    Reply

    I feel your pain, Trev. The same thing happened to me on my gardening blog (kept separate from this one). In 3 1/2 years I had completely filled my data allocation with photographs. As I refuse to pay for a blog, I decided my only option was to delete all photographs for 2018, 2019, and 2020. I have them saved on a hard-drive anyway, and the posts are still there. But it took days to get rid of them. I’ve learned my lesson now though – no-one needs to see 10 photographs of tomatoes, or lettuce or individual potatoes! I upload just what I need to accentuate the post, AND I save them in a smaller format before I upload them from my file. No-one will ever need or want to look back to compare bean harvests or powdery mildew – not even me.

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