Blogs @ Guelph

Blogs @ Guelph Closure

The Blogs @ Guelph Early Adopter project is now closed - please see the service closure announcement for more information. This web page provides documentation on how to archive your Blogs @ Guelph posts and delete your Blogs @ Guelph posts.

Please note: All your posts for Blogs @ Guelph are in your home directory, in the "public_html/blog" directory. These files use a part of your storage quota. Once the service is no longer available, it is recommended that you delete this files to reduce your storage usage. Please be sure to archive any information you wish to keep before deleting these files. If you are familiar with publishing web sites with your account at the University of Guelph, archiving and deleting the files in the blog directory is not different from working with any other content in your public_html directory. For more information on this, please see the Publishing Content documentation on the CCS Web site.

Archiving Your Blogs @ Guelph Posts

Using Your Browser

This simplest method to archive your blogs is to save the individual posts by browsing your blog's archive and saving the web page with your browser. This method is quick and easy for a small number of posts and conveniently archives your posts as locally-saved web pages. If you have a large number of posts, or hope to migrate your posts to another blog service, you may want to consider using a download client which is described after this section.

To save each post in your blog with a browser:

1. Go to your blog (the address will follow the patter: http://blogs.uoguelph.ca/YOURUSERID/blog/)
2. Click the title of the most recent post - this will take you to the individual entry view of your blog
3. Save this page with your browser
   • On Internet Explorer 7 click "Pages" on the top left of the window. From the drop down, select "Save As"
   • On Firefox, click on the "File" menu and select "Save As"
   • Choose where on your computer you want to save the page.
   • Select the "Webpage, Complete" on the "Save As Type" drop down
4. This will save your page on your computer and place all graphics and other resource files in a subdirectory
5. Click the previous post title (found on the line below the post title, on the left hand side) to move to the next post you wish to save.
6. Repeat the previous steps. Note: If you save more than one page this way, you will need to change the name of the file being saved, to prevent overwriting a previous page you've saved. It is recommended you add a sequential number or the date to the file name to make sure the file name is unique.

 

Using A File Transfer Client

If you have many posts to archive, or if you prefer to use download clients, you are able to directly access your home directory and download the appropriate files. These files are plain HTML files, which can be easily copy and pasted into another blog service or your own web pages. The documentation for publishing content to your personal web site covers the information needed to access your blog posts. This section provides additional information specific for Blogs @ Guelph users.

All files associated with your blog is located in your home directory in your "public_html/blogs" directory. All of your posts are located in the directory "public_html/blogs/default". Each HTML file in this directory is a post from your blog. Each file with the ".meta" extension is the associated meta-data file for each posted and is not needed for archiving; meta files contain author information and a timestamp. Comments are stored separately in the "public_html/blog/default/.comments" directory. Comments are not directly associated with each post; to archive comments you may download this directory.

Connecting To Your Home Directory

The recommended file transfer client is Filezilla, a free and open-source application which supports secure file transfer. If you prefer, any file-transfer client which support secure connections may be used. If you wish to use Filezilla, it is available for download from the Filezilla homepage. Once you have installed Filezilla and started it, or the file-transfer client you prefer connect to your home directory, with the following settings:

FileZilla Connection Settings

 

Once logged in you will be located in your Unix home directory. Enter 'public_html/' into the Remote Site field.

Archiving Posts With Filezilla

Filezilla lists remote files (the files on home.web.uoguelph.ca) on the left hand side, and your local computer of the left side:

All files associated with your blog is located in your home directory in your "public_html/blogs" directory. All of your posts are located in the directory "public_html/blogs/default". Using FileZilla, navigate to the "public_html/blogs/" directory. Download files on the right hand side by right-clicking on the file and choosing "Download". This will archive the file to your local computer. Once you have archived your posts, you may delete these posts from your home directory.

N.B.: Each HTML file in this directory is a post from your blog. Each file with the ".meta" extension is the associated meta-data file for each posted and is not needed for archiving; meta files contain author information and a timestamp. Comments are stored separately in the "public_html/blog/default/.comments" directory. Comments are not directly associated with each post; to archive comments you may download this directory.

Deleting Your Blogs @ Guelph Posts

To delete the files associated with your Blogs @ Guelph blog, you will need to delete your "public_html/blog" directory. The recommended method for deleting this directory is to use a file-transfer client, such as Filezilla, a free and open-source application which supports secure file transfer. If you prefer, any file-transfer client which support secure connections may be used. If you wish to use Filezilla, it is available for download from the Filezilla homepage. Once you have installed Filezilla and started it, or the file-transfer client you prefer connect to your home directory, with the following settings:

FileZilla Connection Settings

 

Once logged in you will be located in your Unix home directory. Enter 'public_html/' into the Remote Site field.

Deleting Files

Filezilla lists remote files (the files on home.web.uoguelph.ca) on the left hand side, and your local computer of the left side:

To delete all the files associated with your blog, select the "blog" directory under the "public_html" directory by right-clicking on it. When you delete this directory, you will be deleting the three directories it contains, "default", "resources" and "WEB-INF". Choose "Delete" from this menu. Once this is complete, all files related to your Blogs @ Guelph site will be removed. Please be sure to archive any posts you wish to keep before you delete this directory.

If you have any questions or would like assistance, please contact the CCS Help Centre at 519-824-4120 ext. 58888 or by email at 58888help@uoguelph.ca.