I have almost all of my content back from my old blogs, and posted here. There’s just a handful left to post, then I can go back and make it look good again.
I’m grateful that I have the ability to research and experiment to solve a problem — like appearing to lose all of my old blog posts. WordPress stores the actual blog content in a database, not the directory called WP-Content. I suppose if I had taken actual classes about WordPress and it’s inner workings, I would have known that. But I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants for the last 10 years, learning as I go.
The panic I felt when I couldn’t find my posts changed into uneasy acceptance. I could get some more current content back through The Wayback Machine — at least screenshots of the blog posts. I didn’t really need all that old content. It would be fine. Really.
A couple days later I got curious about where those blog posts would have been stored. The answer: in an SQL database. SQL databases are something I don’t get into at work because it is not my place as a non-programmer to look into those things. So I asked a co-worker about how to read data from an SQL database if you didn’t have the appropriate software or even MS Access at home. He told me “its just a fancy set of tables”. I know how to read tables and dump tables into something so I can read the insides. It’s something I’ve done many times, usually using Word or Excel.
The next day, I’m looking through my site for all the databases, copying them, and dumping them into a text reader to scan. Low and behold, I found a lot of old content — including content from a blog I thought I had deleted a long time ago. I’ll be merging that content in next!
After the third database dump — there is was my old blog, code included. Links to pictures, some still available, some not. I spent the next four hours moving the database content into this new site, and recovering some gems in the process.
That brings me to the present and my gratitude for my ability to research, ask questions, and think through possibilities. And that I don’t have to leave those abilities in the office at the end of the workday. They are ingrained in who I am.