Blog Backups with Google Reader

I stumbled upon this yesterday, when mailing myself something that I’d read in Google Reader, the popular RSS feed aggregator. I have subscribed to my own feed since the fourth posting and it dawned on me that I could mail my own RSS feed to myself.

Important note: This only works for backing up small numbers of postings. If you go over a certain limit (a sure sign is when Google Reader displays a capcha), Reader thinks you’re a spammer and locks you out for a few hours. You can switch to another browser until this happens again but you will get locked out eventually if you’re not careful. If you already have a backup routine and want a little extra security, this is an easy method.

NaBloPoMo

Today is November 30, 2009, the end of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) for November. Actually, every month is a NaBloPoMo month, but I didn’t know that when I signed up on Nov. 3, so I’m actually short by two blog postings, officially.

It was an interesting exercise. At first it was much harder to find things to blog about. One thing that helped was to line up draft postings for Friday and Saturday, because the time around Shabbat is busy and I don’t always find something bloggable in my kitchen or laundry room. I didn’t notice any increase in traffic. I think that the only way to guarantee that is to cross-post to the NaBloPoMo blog site, which is essentially blogging twice. I did that a couple times, then lost patience.

I’m glad I tried to stick with daily blogging and I’m relieved to reach the end of the month. The kind of things I blog about don’t really lend themselves to daily posts, unless I want to turn this into a daily photo site (to do that, I would have to get out a lot more).