“Updating”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
They always tell you to backup everything on a computer. Well, what happens when you don’t even save it?
What brings this up, was the glitch that happened on Blotanical. When Blotanical went down a few days ago, I panicked. What if Blotanical was gone? How would I find some of my favorite new blogs? I’ll admit it, I’ve been lazy or maybe just unthinking. I haven’t added many blogs lately to my blogroll or bookmarks because I have come to depend on Blotanical. This site made it so easy to check out what other bloggers were writing about without having to keep track of all the blogs. But no more. I am going to update and keep current my blog roll so I don’t have that panicky feeling again. I’ll still use Blotanical like I did before, but I’ll have a backup just in case.
I’ll slowly be updating a few each day. I know I could subscribe to feeds, but I just rather hop from blog to blog as the feeling takes me. I consider this a lesson learned. Are you keeping a record of your favorite blogs?
On another note, my sister from Northern Virginia is flying down tomorrow for a visit. It will be so good to see her. I can hardly wait.
Here are some photos of my favorite kind of flower, the pansy, which are planted in a neighbor’s garden. Enjoy.
Always Growing 
Randy said,
March 9, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Jan,
Those photos are fabulous! I’m a member of Blotanical but I don’t know how to use the site. It’s difficult for me to find my way around. I hope you have a great time with your sister. You girls have fun hitting all the nurseries. :0)
Jan said,
March 10, 2009 at 4:25 am
Ah, Randy, you know me so well. Hitting the nurseries is high on our list of things to do. When you have time, you really need to explore Blotanical, it is such a convenient site to read garden blogs.
Janet, good luck with your new computer. Since I back up all my “stuff” regularly, I don’t know why it never occurred to me not to keep some sort of record of all the new blogs I met through Blotanical.
How interesting that the Germans have given that name to the pansy. I wonder what the background to that is.
Sherry, I have many bookmarked also, but those are pre-Blotanical, I am going slowly start saving the new ones.
Janet said,
March 9, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Jan, I know what you mean about backing stuff up…..my laptop (from which I did my blogging) died last week. As my sweet daughter is on spring break and traveling she has loaned me the use of her laptop. I was able to move stuff from the laptop to an external hard drive. Hope I got everything. She did told me not to down load anything on her laptop before she left! Ah kids. Anyhow, I know I need to back up the blotanical faves, once I get the new computer. Should be shipped early in this week.
I love the pansies. I was surprised to find in German the name is Stiefmütterchen. … or little step mother! All those German fairy tales about evil step mothers and here they name this sweet little flower ‘little step mother’.
Janet
ps- enjoy your sister’s visit
Sherry said,
March 9, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Hi Jan,
I do keep a record of the blogs I read. I don’t always keep my blogroll updated, but I keep a folder in my bookmarks just for gardening/photo blogs.
Lovely pansy photos, I especially like the deep pink color in the second photo.
Sylvia (England) said,
March 10, 2009 at 5:21 am
Jan, I always add a link into a back up file every time I fav something in Blotanical so I can use that to ‘visit’ you all but it is not the same. I miss Blotanical but I am sure it will be better once these gremlins are sorted. I don’t like feeds, I prefer the list that I get with all the new posts on in Blotanical. I hope Stuart can fix it very soon.
Best wishes Sylvia (England)
nancybond said,
March 10, 2009 at 6:28 am
Jan, I’ve always thought pansies had such animated “faces”, and if that’s’ the case, that bottom one is a bit grumpy! Hee. I’ve always meant to create a TEXT list of my “Favs” and never have — this would be as good a time as any, you’re right! Hopefully, all features of Blotanical are up and running again soon. 🙂
Brenda Kula said,
March 10, 2009 at 3:20 pm
My once gorgeous pansies have pretty much bit the dust. As for your question, I keep my favorites on my sidebar. And I also have many of them on Google Reader so I know when some, like you, update.
Brenda
artistsgarden said,
March 10, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Lovely pansies – they are so cheery.
I have a huge lists of my fav. blogs in google reader – but you are so right – it is so easy to read them all from Blotanical – and quite weird when Blotanical is not functioning properly.
K
RobinL said,
March 10, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Don’t be afraid to subscribe to the feeds! It’s so convenient, and much quicker than hopping from blog to blog. My feed list only highlights a blog when it’s updated, so I know I can skip all the other ones. I used to bookmark all my favorite blogs, and opening each one to check for new content was very time consuming.
Chandramouli.S said,
March 10, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Cool, they look sweet 🙂
Jan said,
March 11, 2009 at 4:47 am
Sylvia, like I said, I am slowly going to add a backup to the blogs I have found on Blotanical just to be safe. I, too, like the list of new posts better than feeds, and am glad everything seems back to normal.
Nancy, you are right; that little pansy does look grumpy. I think we are all glad the Blotanical problem didn’t last long.
Brenda, I always hate it when the pansies or violas succumb to the heat which you have been having more than we have. You were smarter than I when you kept your list, but I am catching up.
K, Blotanical just makes it so easy, but if something happens I sure want a backup.
Robin, I guess I should at least give feeds a try, but I really do like going from blog to blog from my blogroll if not using Blotanical.
Chandramouli, I think this shows why pansies are my favorites.