Though I’ve never had a problem, it’s not unknown for a blogger to find that their blog’s database is deleted or corrupt. Most blogging systems use a SQL database, such services are MovableType and WordPress. An advantage of this is that you can directly access the database, backing it up at will. Naturally, backing up is a chore and you often simply forget to do it. One option would be to set-up a cron job, but not every blogger has the option or know-how to do this! BackupMyBlog is a remotely hosted service which acts as a solution.
In it’s beta stage, you get free access, though Mark Allen has said this may increase to $20 for 3 months of daily backups. I wouldn’t do this, though I’m sure many people would. There’s no official word, though.
Currently, the service only supports mySQL, which is good for most people, and by entering your blog’s URL and FTP details, it can often automatically discover your database settings. The site automatically backs-up every day, sending you the output through email or RSS. Pretty Web 2.0, though no AJAX 
. Using either a mySQL file or a PHP script, you can restore it. If you choose to use a PHP script, you must upload it to your server. This makes me feel a little more secure. Personally, I’d choose the .sql method (copy and pasting it into PHPmyadmin).
In order to set BackUpMyBlog up, you have to either choose either a manual setup and wizard set-up. The latter is a three step process (inputting your FTP details, selecting the correct directory and confirming the auto-detected SQL info is correct), which works farely well. My only moan is that on the second step it doesn’t convert let’s say ftp.joeanderson.co.uk/public_html/blog into http://joeanderson.co.uk/blog/. One spooky thing is the fact you have to admit your mySQL password, I don’t know if there’s a possible alternative for them.
Another use of this service. apart from routing backups, is to backup when switching software/servers. Naturally, this would be aided by an option to backup at will.
One other problem is that you only get 10MB of space. My database is 2MB big. In today’s world, as it’s often said, disk space is no longer the problem; processing power is.
Just one other thing of note: it doesn’t backup such things as images. So, this service may not be perfect for photobloggers or pod (or vod) casters.
Only one other thing which has struck me: this may put a strain on the blogger’s resources. If, for example, they are running on low bandwidth and are having a daily backup of 10MB made (large, it’s hypothetical). So, you might end up using 310MB of bandwidth on backups alone. Also, I have a feeling some hosts may even ban this as their servers would have to generate large files, slowing down their processors.
One idea. Offer a remote and local service. Make the latter free (but it would be harder to set-up). The local service would backup files in HTML files and in emails.
Tags: web 2.0, backupmyblog, blog
Unfortunately this will not work if you are hosted with Blogger, but there are other solutions for that
Thanks for the review and the ideas for new features/improvements.
To answer a couple of your concerns:
1) The 10MB is the total size of all the compressed backups. BackupMyBlog uses a very space saving YAML-like backup format internally so 10MB will hold a lot of information.
2) The backup script was designed to put a light load on the remote server. It only downloads 250KB chunks at a time so it doesn’t hog the database on a shared server.
Thanks again for the reviewed.
I try to backup my database twice a week, however I do tend to forget. I don’t think I’d pay to have it backed up-although I would certainly try it out to see how it works.
Doug Martin: One of mine is 0.7MB big. I’ve set it, now, to weekly.