3/31/2013

Show and Sell Pages Resurrected - For How Long? Back Up Your Information

First thing this morning I checked out the S&S site and everything was back to normal. There was no more warning about closing. Could it be that the begging worked? I am sure Steve and Rae became aware of the outpouring of emotion from collectors and the tremendous offers of help.
If they have had a change of heart, I hope that they make the rules of membership stronger and I hope they do accept some assistance in dealing with the nut jobs.

I have taken some measures just in case the site is shut down permanently. I didn't have a problem with losing photographs because I save all of my pictures in a SELL folder on my computer. When the item is successfully sold, I delete the picture. The problem is the description and the price. I don't want to lost that information again to I took screen shots of every listing. On a Mac the keyboard strokes are Shift/Command/4 and then you select the part of the screen you want to save. I don't know what the keystrokes are on a PC but I'm quite sure you can do it.

This is what a general screen shot of my listing looks like:

 ___________________

 If I needed more specific information, I would click on every ad and take a picture of each individual one.
___________________

This way, if I have a detailed description, I can copy it to another site when I list it.

Hopefully I will not have to do this.

Another site that Rae and Steve operate is a picture hosting site. This has been around for years and some collectors have hundreds of their photos stored there. If those sites close, they will lose their images if they haven't backed up their files.
Just like Flickr and other (free) hosting sites, they have no responsibility to stay open if they choose to shut down. If something with their software fails or their server goes down, you will not have access. Always back up your photos so you have access to your files. External hard drives are relatively inexpensive these days. Get one and back up your stuff.
Then, every so often, fill a CD with the files and store it somewhere else safe just in case. If your files are important, protect them. Don't rely on the internet, the cloud or anyone else.


5 comments:

  1. Thanks, Terri. I followed your link from the shoutbox on the dollpage and this is all very good advice. I've been relying on flickr to host all my pics, but you've raised an excellent point here. I'm going to be backing everything up from now on, just in case.

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  2. Great advice for saving a copy of our ads on The Doll Page. I do a copy and paste of my photos and take a copy of the information from my sale page to make one sheet in Wordperfect for each item or doll. Personally, I don't like to rely solely on the computer for my doll sales information. Love your blog. You're always right on top of what's going on in the doll world. Thanks for your efforts. Rita in CA

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  3. Can I get an Amen? I work for a website too and a few years ago we had a major system malfunction and members pages got wiped. Some people were really upset because that was the only place they had those pictures saved. It just makes good sense to have a backup and if it's something really important have more than one!

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  4. Hi Terri~ Saw this and thought...well, I will try to get in again. Same problem. I couldn't access my account. So I asked for a password reset- and guess what- now I can get in - no problem! I don't know what happened exactly- but- it certainly could have been my error in writing down my password or maybe a simple glitch in the system.
    I am just happy to be able to access my account.
    ~PB

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  5. The problem with the picture hosting site is that you can only save 1 picture at a time, there is no way to save in bulk. If you've got a lot of pictures, it's just too much work.

    Marna

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