The V-Team

Posted on Sep2010

One of the best parts of working on VaultPress is hearing from our beta customers and those who are eager to join them. This week we received a special request that we liked so much we’re reprinting it here, with the permission of the author, Craig Zielinski. Perhaps you might have a job for him too?

Hello you beautiful people:

My golden ticket expired but I’d really love to safeguard my site.

This has made me sad. It’s genuinely not my fault that I didn’t get to make use of it in time. Genuinely. Know why? I’ll tell you. Myself and three of my friends were sent to prison by a military court for a crime we didn’t commit. Seriously. We promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Glasgow underground. Today, we’re still wanted by the government and we survive as soldiers of fortune. In fact, come to think of it, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find us (just email me, it’s cool), maybe you could hire us?

Until then, I’d really like to try out VaultPress if possible.

Cheers,
Craig

Craig, we salute you. When you take a break from fighting the good fight, check your inbox. We expect you’ll find a golden ticket there for your troubles. 🙂

Posted in General | 4 Comments

Improvements to VaultPress Backups

Posted on Aug2010

An alternate ad banner idea that we didn't end up using, loosely organized around the concept that VaultPress goes to eleven.

It recently came to our attention that we were missing a few key files from our WordPress backups, namely:

  • .htaccess
  • favicon.ico
  • robots.txt
  • wp-config.php
  • language files (when present)

Our goal is to provide you a full backup of your WordPress, and while these files are easy to re-create, you shouldn’t have to! You don’t need to take any action if you’re a current VaultPress customer. New snapshots will automatically backup these additional files, which will make restores easier.

For our customers who are on metered hosting plans, there’s some cool stuff on the way. Stay tuned. 🙂

As a side note, we’ve just posted an overview of the features in VaultPress for folks who are considering signing up for the beta. Check it out, and let us know what you think. We’ll also be attending WordCamp Portland in September – hope to see you there!

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments

Touring the VaultPress Dashboard

Posted on Aug2010

I’m John, one of the developers of VaultPress. As we continue to add features to VaultPress, we plan to post screencasts to give everyone a better picture of what’s going on. For our first screencast, I’ve put together a quick tour of the VaultPress dashboard. We hope you like it, and there is much more to come!

Posted in General, Screencasts | Comments Off on Touring the VaultPress Dashboard

VaultPress heads to WordCamp Savannah

Posted on Aug2010

This weekend we’ll be handing out postcards promoting the VaultPress beta at WordCamp Savannah. These postcards are a slight modification of the “Hero” graphics we previously created for one of our online ads. If you’re near Savannah, stop by and say howdy to Matt and MT, the VaultPress team reps who’ll be on the campus of SCAD this weekend.


Posted in Announcements, Meta | 1 Comment

Behind the curtain

Posted on Aug2010

We know you’ve been craving more information on the inner workings of VaultPress and what you get after signing up.

VaultPress is an intricate system that does more than just back up your site. The VaultPress plugin uses WordPress hooks to receive alerts when any information has changed on your site and syncs those changes with our servers. Live ticker messages are displayed to show the status of exactly what’s going on – backing up a comment, adding a new post, changing an option, etc.

There are some changes that WordPress isn’t aware of such as files uploaded via FTP. To take care of these cases, VaultPress scans your site every evening and picks up these changes. If you’re a premium subscriber, VaultPress then scans the files for potential security threats or exploits.

Here’s a closer look at how VaultPress works.

Keep an eye on backup progress as your site is synchronized.
Screenshot of the plugin page during the initial sync

View stats, recent activity, and find links to your dashboard from WordPress.
Screenshot of the plugin page after the initial sync

After the initial sync with our servers is complete, the VaultPress dashboard is the best place to view your site information.

Get a quick look at all of your vaulted sites.

Browse through a list of snapshots and download plugins, uploads, themes, and database table dumps.

Premium subscribers get a list of any potential security issues found in files.

View a list of recent backup activity and status messages from the communication between VaultPress and your site.

Additional Help

You can now click on the Help link at the top right of each dashboard section to receive contextual help. Answers to most questions should be available there or in our flashy new Support section. Customers can read through the updated FAQ, learn about plugin configuration options, and view instructions on how to restore a site from a backup.

While we’re working on our automated restore service, we are currently offering complimentary concierge service to help our customers restore their sites. We hope to help everyone safeguard their site and sleep soundly at night. (And, yes, I just rhymed, yo.)

Posted in Announcements, Features | Comments Off on Behind the curtain