Sunday, July 05, 2009

What a Relief, Asta is Staying

As most of you know, Asta was going to stop blogging. And for those who understand what happened, we can just picture her shock when she learned she'd lost 83% of the photos she's posted in the last 2 years. She posts beautiful photos, funny graphics, so her panic and discouragement was understandable.

We don't think her mom needed to apologize and she's not a dunce. She is a very caring, intelligent lady who lost hope for a moment but had the courage to return and try to help others learn from what happened to her. We all make mistakes! So this is a good opportunity for other Blogger users to learn something invaluable. You can read about what happened at Asta's blog.

On this subject, we received an email from Mom Robyn of HotMBC (House of the mostly black cats) today, reminding everyone to back up their blog. This is very good advice!!!! We tried but we couldn't install a necessary program so until we get a new computer (yeah, right -- when fat pigs fly!), we can't.

However, Asta's problem was not in losing her blog posts, but in being new to Picasa and not understanding that any photos deleted in Picasa online would be deleted in her blogs. Once the pictures are deleted, the links are gone and like Asta's mom said, she would have to go back and put in every single photo from her hard drive again. Readers can still pick up the humor, but they'll have to imagine the photos in the older posts.

Since we have never done a backup or an upload from a backup, we don't know enough about blog backups to understand whether backing up Asta's would have helped her in this situation. Our question is whether uploading a backup would have also uploaded the photos to Picasa, but if it would, it sure would be worth it. (Will fat pigs be flying any time soon? We'd sure like to backup ours.)

And Mom Robyn (of HotMBC), we apologize for responding to your email in a post but for some reason we were unable to reply to your email. The message just refuses to "leave home." But perhaps you can answer the question of whether a backup would replace your blog photos in Picasa.

For those of you that use blogger your pix are not stored with your Blogger posts, but they are stored in Picasa. You get about 1 gigabyte of free storage space. If you don't have the Picasa program on your computer, you don't need to download the program for blogger to store your photos there online.

If you haven't visited Picasa before, log onto your blog (ID and password). Blogger only! Then, either open another tab or window or use the same one, but type picasa.google.com in the bar. It should take you to picasa download, but what you want to do is to click on "and go to Picasa Web Albums to share and explore photos." It should open up your Picasa/blogger photo file for you. Anything you delete in there will be deleted from your blogger posts! So don't delete unless you intend to. But for anyone who is using blogger that didn't know that, you might want to check it out. Better to learn this now than when you receive a notice from Blogger that you are approaching your 1 gb storage and you panic.

Sorry we didn't do a 4th of July post. Jan was busy rearranging the furniture so she could use her new computer cart with the pull out for the keyboard (but no room for the mouse. Hehehe) See Friday's post. And then she took off and left us alone; didn't even bring us any leftovers from dinner.

This is Jan's new workspace. Sorry about the blue lines at the bottom of the screen but Jan said we can't post her scribbles. She scribbles a lot! And loses them a lot! So she tapes notes to her monitor.

So since Jan kept us offline most of yesterday, it serves her right that she worked up such a sweat today (really, she was dripping all over the electrical cords) trying to untangle all the cords behind the computer so she could move the monitor onto the cart. Guess that was our day's entertainment. We should have taped it.

And she says we're messy? She put the little dog there to guard the cords. (Really to keep us kitties away from the cords, but ....)

Hope you all had a fun 4th!

(s) Crystal, Cotton, Merci, Cyndi, Percy, Cameron, Buddy, Rusty & Sam

20 comments:

  1. Hi Auntie Jan! Mommy said to tell you that Tatum took the pictures right before they left! We stayed on her for hours!!! :)

    Thanks for the reminder to back up the blogs! WE LOVE ASTA!!!

    Mommy says that she will back yours up for you! She has an external hard drive.

    Love, uSSSSS

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  2. Jan, thank you for the information. My mom didn't realize all of this and she would hate to lose everything. She does have an external hard drive, so she will work on the back ups.

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  3. Sorry to learn about what happened with Asta's pictures on blogger. I was thinking the other day of deleting some photos from Picassa too that might have been duplicates or doubly posted there, but I'm glad that I didn't do it now. I think there used to be quite a good program there for backing up blogger but I've forgotten it now. Will try to look for it.

    Hope you had a great Independence Day. Take care, and have a good week :)

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  4. Hi evewyone.
    Thank you fow youw suppowt and kind wowds..I'm glad you explained about Picass on youw post, cause it was ouw ignowance that was ouw undoing.
    We wealize that all of you awe way too impawtant to us..and life would be pwetty emty wifout you.
    I love yo and hope you had a lovely holiday
    smoochie kisses
    ASTa

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  5. Losing blog pictures would be our worse nightmare. We think our blog host has back up for us, but our Jan will probably get distracted again and not find out.

    Misty

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  6. Now that sounds like something my mom would do. Over the last 8 years since she got her own computers she has made many big boo boos!

    She just last week downloaded something from Picasa and was very upset by how it overtook her all photos! So she deleted Picasa from her computer!

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  7. If your photos are uploaded to picassa, you'd need to back up your picassa account as well--and that's something picassa ought to be doing for you. I don't use this service so don't know exactly how they work though.

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  8. Tank woo fur all the infurmation!

    We were soooo sad on Friday night to see Asta's post then Mom got happy during her transport when she saw the messages on her khrakhkberry...

    Woo should see the khorded mess my Doggy Nanny's 'puter has - Mom TRIED to make it neat when she hooked up the one last year but I think she made it even worse!

    Hugz&Khysses,
    Khyra

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  9. Backing up your blog will not backup anything on Picasa. Sorry.
    Backup programs might back up the blog and the photos, but when they go back up restored, they'll still have the original links to Picasa, at least most will. (There might be one I don't know about that does it some other way.)
    I'd rather have the text and the option to put photos back, though, than no option at all.
    Robyn

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  10. Thank you for that information, it was very helpful.

    woos, the OP Pack

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  11. We think you did a great job with the cart! Too bad there's not a spot for the mouse =:-}

    On Deb's new desk at work, they have a special flat piece that slides out on either side of the of the keyboard. Problem is that it slants so the mouse rolls right off the bottom of it! Isn't that stupid??!! Deb says she'll have to put up a little ridge on the bottom somehow to keep the poor little mouse from falling off.

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  12. My mom stores all her pictures in her google email, plus a jump drive, plus a CD. All of which I'm not sure I understand. I'm glad Asta is staying-she and her mom are very creative.

    love & wags,
    River

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  13. Hey they got some good tube thingys at the home improvement stores that will gather some of those cords together neatly.

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  14. We have not had the chance to meet Asta, but we knew what had happened. We are happy that she is blogging again =)
    Thank you for remembering my birthday! What about the brother of Jasmine, unfortunately he died when he was only 3 months old =(

    Jas & Gi

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  15. We don't know Asta but we are happy to hear your friend will continue to blog. That is always good news.

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  16. Jan's new work space looks nice, and we are glad to know our Mommy isn't the only one who scribbles and tapes it to the monitor.

    We are very relived Asta is staying, her problem with the photo's sounds like something our Mommy would do. ~S,S,C & F

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  17. That's quite an electrical cord farm you have there - must be very tempting for passing rabbits to chew! Thanks so much for the gen on picasa, too! (we never had a clue!)

    whisker swizzles,
    Lovey (for Charlie's DogBlog)

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  18. I am relieved too to hear that Asta is staying. Thanks for your advice on the importance of backing up! Love, Dino

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  19. Thanks for stoppin by ta see Da Special Kitten Unit 2 week photo!

    Mom fanks u fur dis infurmashun about picasa. We waz wonderin where dem photos goed.

    long time ago when mom started a blog u had to upload photos to a storage place afore postin dem.

    After dat, when u cood jus upload inta da bloggie, we didnt knoh hoa ta saa our potos dat we uploaded but didnt post!

    We go by and talks ta Asta now...

    luv,
    Katie Too.

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  20. how to see... Bootsie stop playin on da keybord! I iz tryin ta spell fings!

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