Month: February 2008

Weblog Service updated to WordPress MU 1.3.3

Today our Weblog Service has been updated from WordPress MU Version 1.0 –> 1.3.3. Now the Weblog Service shares the code base with the most recent WordPress Version 2.3.3. The new WordPress MU offers a revised tagging system, UTF-8, more possibilities in the blog admin view,…, and a new widgetized ETH WebCD theme. The complete feature lists are available at the WordPress MU-Forum. Enjoy the new WordPress features!

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Posted on by Thomas Piendl

Data loss! What now?

Is there any chance of recovering lost ETH Weblog data posted between December 19 2007 and February 01 2008?

Below some suggestions which might be helpful for partial data recovery:

Internet data search:

  • Via Google Cache
    Google partially caches pages belonging to Google indexed blogs. Example: enter “site: blogs.ethz.ch/oas” in the Google search form and the search will be restricted to blogs.ethz.ch/oas. Continue in “advanced search” and restrict the date to a 1-2 month period. The result may be the missing blog entries. Instead of clicking on the link click on “cached”, there you should now be able to view your data. In particular, archive pages are cached.
  • Web Archive
    The “Internet Archive” can be found at http://web.archive.org. Enter a URL to see all its’ existing versions. However, the web archive is more effective when going back 1 / 2 year and more. In our case, it is unfortunately not very useful but I decided to mention it anyhow.

Copy data from an RSS reader:

If you or any other person have an RSS feed subscription for your blog, you may be able to use information from the RSS reader to restore the missing data (Benjamin’s tip). You can even post a delivery request for your missing blog entries on your blog.

Data search on your own browser:

Since it is possible that you have viewed your own blog posts on your browser you might still find them in the cache if the browser cache has not been emptied since. Maybe you know someone who has viewed your page, and your site might still be in their cache. Depending on your settings, it’s possible that only images and CSS files are cached, in which case you will unfortunately not find anything.

  • Firefox
    To find cache data in Firefox enter “about: cache” in the URL box. Then click on List Disk Cache to view a list of all cache entries. Click on any entry to see the cache file’s name and location. We recommend using Strg + F (or Apple + F) to search for your blog. Enter URL incl. year e.g. blogs.ethz.ch/myblog/2008. Listed below are two cache readers as examples (there might be other better ones)
  • http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_cache_viewer.html IE Win, Mozilla Win
  • http://echoone.com/filejuicer/ Safari Mac (particularly for Mac OS X

Sooner or later every cache gets emptied or updated. If you want to try and save your data, you must do it now.

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Posted on by Minda Rubinfeld

Blog Service is fully operational

During last night and this morning we received several legitimate emails regarding the “true” operating status of our weblog service. Here a summary of the frequently asked questions and their answers:

  • Are really all data and changes between 19 December 2007 and 01 February 2008 definitely lost and could not be recovered?
    Up to our present knowledge, they are lost and not recoverable. We are really sorry about this.
  • Although rather unlikely, if there would be a chance in the near future to salvage some of the lost data, what would happen to our blogs?
    In this case, we would contact the blog owners individually and ask if and how they would like to get the data back into their blogs. Anyhow, this would be an individual action per blog and would not alter the weblog service as a whole.
  • Is it now safe to post new entries, comments, start new blogs, etc?
    Yes, the weblog service is again fully operational since midnight. The faulty backup procedure has been corrected and works fine.

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Posted on by Thomas Piendl

Corrupted Database of the Weblog Service caused Data Loss

Unfortunately, all postings, comments, new blogs and any changes on established blogs of our service between 19 December 2007 and 01 February 2008 are lost and could not be recovered. Regrettably we are unable to revocer a functional database from more recent backups. Please consult the Blog Support <blog-support@id.ethz.ch> for further questions on this issue.

The weblog team apologizes for the trouble caused. The faulty backup procedure will be examined and improved.

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Posted on by Thomas Piendl