If any of you out there were trying to reach this website over the last hour or so, you would have noticed a short, cryptic error message in place of this lovely new blog.

It would have stayed that way much longer had I not backed everything up shortly before doing what I did that made everything go haywire.

Backing stuff up saved my bacon this time. Whereas not backing stuff up has gotten it fried many times in the past.

So that’s why I’m sending out this helpful little reminder to the world: Back up early and often! Back up your backups, even!

(Oh, and while I’m at it—I’ll bet you should really be flossing more. And make sure you eat your vegetables. And don’t make that face; what if it froze like that? And…oops, sorry, parental overdrive kicking in at an inappropriate time here, sorry.)

I’ve even got a few bonus lessons for those of you running WordPress blogs:

1) Before installing any plugin, read the readme file.

2) Popularity Contest is a neat thing when it works, and all laud and honor to the author; but be aware that if it doesn’t work with your template, it can immediately mess things up, in the most thorough and scary fashion.

3) So did I mention that you really ought to do your backups?

(And don’t go swimming for at least a half-hour after you eat. And…oops, sorry again. Better quit now.)