@ Kenneth Young: there’s no doubt that there’s a huge mountain (@michelle – you’re welcome!) to climb when it comes to internet marketing, and so far, frankly, Michelle is the one I’ve found who dishes out the content that’s actually straight to the point, all meat and no fluff. Yes, there’s a LOT to know, and things change – and you’re right that you’ll have to decide if this whole internet marketing thing is for you. Although the learning curve can be steep and there’s many things to know if you do it all yourself as I do (I don’t outsource… YET!) but if overall you enjoy it despite the many frustrations and road blocks that you encounter, then you’re on the right track. Learning to play guitar is very frustrating too, and there’s never a “real end” to learning and developing, but if you quit, you’ll never reap the benefits; playing guitar is fun!–and internet marketing can be too. One more thing: I’ve spent waaay more time and money than you have and not achieved a livable income from it, but I’m keeping at it; you’ll have to decide for yourself if you can stick it out and keep going. Personally, I wouldn’t advise trying to make a living at IM as your sole option for income (that’s just MY opinion!-after all, you may do better than I do and make a lot of money soon). Okay, that’s enough from me!

David

And poor me without backups to reinstall them.

anyway, I started over, and my new blogs are pretty powerful now. But today, I receive backups directly in my inbox. There is a plugin to do this.

Thank you.
Franck
the Body Guard marketer

Between trying to figure how the internet works and just to find out now it is changing again to figuring how to get plugins to work on my blog and finally to create my own website I have wasted 2 years yes that is wright 2 bloody years.I guess that is the route you have to take when you are living on close to street wages.

So I guess I have some soul searching to do and make which may be some new decision on marketing.

Kenneth

I am on your list following your 31day makeover, and THANK YOU for posting these articles.

Another good thing to do is changing the current “WP Prefix Table” to prevent sql injection attempts.

After viewing an exhausting tutorial through google, I was finally able to get it done correctly through my scary host gator PHPadmin. I know squat about wordpress, so I feel pretty good now.

Oh, and Login Lockdown to prevent brute force attempts by lame people with nothing to do.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/

I hope you don’t mind me posting all this Michelle, it’s fresh in my head right now…

Anyway, I spent all day on this, and I tested and retested and re-retested until I was able to expediently – and confidently – restore a destroyed WordPress site.

For those who may care to benefit from my full days’ work, here’s the step-by-step procedure I came up with.

Best,
David
PS: yes, I’m the “raising penguins” guy… ;-D
———–
BACK UP PROCEDURE:
1. Install wp-dbmanager plugin and configure; you will have to move and rename a file htaccess.txt to .htaccess, a nag screen in WordPress will tell you exactly what to do.

2. Create a backup of the .sql database using this plugin (it’s all pretty self-explanatory in the plugin – after install look below “settings” for a new DATABASE option to click on – it’s the second option, “BACKUP DB” > scroll to the bottom and click on the BACKUP button).

3. Now go to the next option under that one you just used, it’s labeled “MANAGE BACKUP DB”, and download the backup you just created by selecting the radio button, and then clicking DOWNLOAD; save it somewhere you’ll remember and find easily.

4. Using FTP client of choice, download your wp-content folder somewhere you’ll remember and find easily.

RESTORE PROCEDURE IN CASE OF HACKING ETC.

1. At your hosting cPanel, do an uninstall of the WordPress install for that domain (in Bluehost, it’s in the Simple Scripts area > My Installs

2. In FTP client delete all files in the domain’s root directory folder, and as for a totally clean start, also delete the actual domain root directory folder; this may have to be done in your hosting service’s FTP client under the public_html.

3. Make a fresh domain root directory folder for the site in public_html.

4. Install WordPress via hosting service cPanel.

5. Then in “my installs” under Simple Scripts, click on “Advanced” to see the file path (that “file path” terminology may not be spot on, but for example, it will tell you the WordPress install “number” – such as “something_wrd6″ or “something_wp04″.

6. At cPanel, choose “phpmyadmin” > choose the “something_wp#” (what you found in step 5) – it will appear on the left – BE SURE TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT ONE!

7. Near the top click on the IMPORT tab/link > use browse button to locate the .sql file you created and backed up using the WordPress DB backup plugin > then click the GO button at the bottom right.

RESULT:
This restores your WordPress website to it’s previous condition, with all settings, posts, categories, comments etc. in place. Now you can go to your backup file wp-content and FTP upload desired themes, plugins, etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
After you import your .sql file, you will NOT login to your site http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin with the new password provided in your fresh Simple Scripts install – you will login with the password you always used, or at least the one you used when you created the backup of your .sql file.

ALSO IMPORTANT:
The order in which you restore is pretty critical; e.g., you CAN’T install new WordPress version, log into your WordPress dashboard, and then import your .sql file.

Then I created that user and pass word in my sql setup. This may be what is happening to you.

This is a great series! Thanks for offering it to us.

BTW, I’m sorry to hear of your power outage. By sheer coincidence, 10 minutes before reading your post, I received a call from my mother who tells me that her power has been out since Sunday night. She lives in Rescue, CA (outside of Placerville) which, by the looks of your photo, isn’t too far from where you live.

Hope your power comes back on soon. You’re right: preparation is the key!

Thanks again,
Scott