This is truly a Tuesday “tech wreck” because that’s exactly when it happened! (I hope that we haven’t cursed Tuesday’s with this series!)
I teach at a middle school with a 1:1 program, which means that every student has a laptop. It makes teaching really fun because I am constantly able to use my tech skills to communicate my content. Awesome, right?
Except when the tech doesn’t work, which does happen. Nothing’s perfect, after all.
The Class Website
One of the central features of my class is our website, which contains notes, our syllabus, and links to tests & quizzes on Quia, a testing site that takes all the pain out of grading. When it comes to test day, I rely heavily on my site so that my students can come into my room, go to the site, and click a link to go to a specific test on Quia. This is very important because there are few exercises in futility more frustrating that trying to get middle schoolers to type in a long, complicated URL.
So, last month, when I had scheduled a test in all of my classes for the same day, I got the sudden urge to log into my WP Remote account. (WP Remote is a site that allows me to update plugins, themes, and the WP Core on about a dozen of WordPress blogs that I run.) I logged in, realized that Jetpack had updated (again!), and I went through and clicked “update” on about a half-dozen blogs. I logged out and thought nothing of it.
Until the next class.
That was when I realized that the Jetpack update on my school site had failed, and my site was dead. I want to be clear that I don’t blame WP Remote in anyway. Updates fail, which is why WordPress, WP Remote, and everyone with good sense tells you to backup your site before you update plugins.
I, however, hadn’t done that.
I was updating without a net, and I fell to the ground. Thankfully, I only hurt my pride. An hour later, after logging into my hosting account, finding the Jetpack plugin folder, and clicking that wonderful “Delete” button, I was back in business.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Fail to Backup
Friends, keep your site backed-up.
Don’t take unnecessary risks.
Don’t look foolish in front of a class of middle schoolers…or whoever it is that depends on your website.
Have you ever had an update fail and cause you some series stress?
[Image via hans.gerwitz via Compfight cc]
Eric Dye says
Amen and amen.
Phil Schneider says
Maybe we should make t-shirts:
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS FAIL TO BACKUP
Eric Dye says
Seriously.