To site owners who care about their websites

Hi All,

Sometimes I'm getting messages from people asking for help, reporting that something went wrong with module installation or applying modifications to his website. In most cases it's not immediately clear what did he do to achieve an error or crash, but in all cases it's just because of incorrect module installation. I would like to give some advises here on how to keep your site healthy and without errors.

1. Alwaysmake a backup copy of working website: first make sure that you have no errors before making a backup. Never make a backup copy of damaged\non-working website, even if you feel you have to do that, mark it clearly with the error description.
2. Make a copy of your database daily or more often, depending on users activities frequency. If something goes wrong, you can roll it back fast with minimum information lost.
3. Never make any major changes to live website directly. Do you know how NASA driving Mars rover? The time needed for a signal from Mars to Earth can take up to 20 minutes one way, you can't have fun with joystick or with live video. Instead, they have exact the same rover clone (except some sensors) here on Earth under their hands, and they are testing every single command on it, every turn or automatic hand movement before sending them to real Mars rover. If you want to install a module for the first time or alter some program code, calculate your every single movement: make sure you've done it successfully on your offline site clone first. If you don't know how to install something, it's much easier to hire someone to do this work rather than paying for fixing, which is much more expensive.
4. "Warning" is not an Error. If everything works well, but you see some warning messages on some pages, just turn warnings off by writing "error_reporting(0);" in some of your files, like /etc/admin.inc.php.
5. If something already went wrong, you have no backup copies, no local site clone, don't panic. Try to remember every steps you've done and undo them one by one. If you already closed all files and undo is not possible, make a copy of changed files and try to replace them with default ones from clear Dolphin package.
6. Always turn off and clear all cache systems before applying any changes to your site. You can turn it back on after you make sure everything works as it should.
7. If you decided to ask somebody for help via personal message, don't send all your access information in the first message. Check person' reputation and make sure that you'll be able to explain your problem in language that this person speaks. Explain your problem shortly and ask him if he is ready to help you out. You'll be asked for more information if needed and provided with terms and price. When sending requested access information to the person, make sure you are sending all asked information about your server: FTP and cPanel are not the same thing, send cPanel access only if asked; make temporary FTP account for the person who will work on your site; site admin access should contain not only password, but admin username as well. Don't forget to include your site full URL (not only site name!) and, if your site is on dedicated or virtual server, provide its path on the server: it will shorten time for developer to start faster. 
8. Value your and other people time. When explaining your problem in personal message, please try to explain it as short as possible, but as fully as possible. Don't write two pages of not important information such like how you love your dog or how your car got stuck yesterday evening and you missed a soccer match (yes, sometimes I'm getting these for real). Writeonly what concerns the problem, notmore. Also developer unlikely want to know about how long did you work on your site and how much money have you spent on it, or how fast it will grow in the future, etc., etc. 
9. Re-read your information before sending and think if another person will understand it. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we can't read other people minds and what is obvious for you, not always obvious for other people, even for developer. For example, if you've been asked what did you do before getting an error, don't answer "I don't know" or "I've made some adjustments in admin" — it will bring more confuses and will take much more time to figure it out.
10. Let's respect each other in messaging: if somebody didn't replied to you immediately in 5 minutes, don't keep sending more and more messages and getting angry. Usually you are not writing to Apple every day with the question "When finally will you approve my app?" Normal response time for many developers is a couple hours or one day. Please remember about different timezones, weekends and some national holidays. It's always better to know timezone and work hours of the person you are working with.

Hope this helps.

somewhere, radefantasy smiles

 somewhere he is preparing the next public bashing ...

 nahh he is busy managing his half a million members!

I did help him recently; if he decides to bash me I really don't care.  However, this topic was about some important points that noobs to Dolphin and Dolphin like platforms should follow.  Perhaps they should be a part of the Dolphin installation guide.  I worry about my site going down; I worry about making an oops.  I am currently trying to get the upgrades in place.  I have had to start over because I found issues by first doing the upgrades on a test site.  So the original topic is very important for those that might not know better.  I recently helped someone and I had to work on the production site; I did not like doing that and mentioned to the owner that a clone of the site for test work should be created.

Good advice.

Some of which i should follow myself. But alas i don't. I work on and develop mods right on my site. Have done it that way for the last 6 years now.

However, i have messed up my site bad enough to have to start over. But only twice. Not a bad ratio.

OK agreed. The thing is most new users still will not take good information like this on-board.

Good advice though; for sure!

I think the biggest rule is always backup regular; because one slip-up and BOOM! talking from experience.

great post. 

I screwed up once for not backing up before uninstall/reinstall a mod. 

Make sure you back up database and files LOCALLY as well as on your server...

In the past several years I have had 2 servers lose all my info. One was a server company that vanished without paying bills (affected others here also!) - the other was a hard drive pack up. At the time, thankfully I had everything backed up locally when the hard drive went, but not when the hosting co turned off my server when they closed... the backups were on the same server!...

 +100%, locally is more important, so you'll not blame anybody for data loss :)

 I work on live sites as well, but some people in most cases don't know what they are doing and missing some important rules while applying changes. Just got a customer, who uninstalled the module without undoing changes to the files, which messed up his website. Now have a headache.

One more thing: when hiring somebody to work for your site, make everything as clear as if you were in developer's shoes: re-read your task and send it only if you understand it fully by yourself. Developers are paid to do work, but not to crack their brain to figure out what means "Put 3 buttons and a system when receive a message that appears on friend user request". Please don't forget to put some commas in your message. It really helps to save time (and lives)!

"A woman without her man is nothing."

"Let's eat grandma."

For example:

Confusing: "Put a button that will show Hello world" —  will cause many questions and time waste on re-doing.

Clear: "Put a button on user profile page in "Actions" block, on click it should show pop-up window with the message "Hello world" and close button right below"

By saving time on typing not clear tasks, you could waste your and developer's time on clarifications after. If English is not your native language and you feel that you can't explain things clearly, it's ok: just write in your native language without mistakes, shorten words or slang words, with correct punctuation. We'll try to understand you better and help. 

Please make mobile better, everyone is moving to mobile! Make layout different, photo upload capabilities, videos etc............................

Make the live updates have auto, not many have time to be checking on all updates.

 You are on wrong planet sir...

 How so sir?

 You have 2 products on the market, you can't upload photos, nor videos and the layout looks like my sons book from 9th grade and he goes to one of the best schools. many good developers are waiting for boonex to fix their uploading of photos and videos for mobile.

I think what that means is that you clicked on the wrong topic to reply.  Did you intend to leave a comment on Andrew's Boon's topic about Dolphin extensions?

 Yes i did , and most mobile won't work due to the default boonex mobile, don't try to get technical here with me, continue creating mods so you can add to your 2 mods you have so far, i don;t have time for this childish conversation......have a great day and understand dolphin is a great platform in my opinion, they are just slacking and making it difficult for some mods that we as customers purchase. Last time i checked its a free country and if i want to add something even 50% relative to the topic in question i have every right. This by far is not bashing your mods i actually did buy one which was that long timeline and it was great, but just focus.

DeanMonte, please read this topic subject and find appropriate topic to write in. This topic is about advices on how to make sites healthy, not about somebody's modules or blaming somebody. Please do not write offtopic posts. 

 Brother boonexpert i care about my site, therefore i am simply mentioning what needs to be done so that your mods and other developer mods, paan, and pcintegrad nice mobile mods like you have some very nice as well can work proper. It's very simple brother. i am no by no means blaming anyone here nor indirectly, i think boonex has a wonderful platform, just get with the program and all problems will be resolved. Like an auto upgrade installer for the mods, instead of chasing around for upgrades, response time, you yourself have some nice mods, modzzz, AntonLV, AndrewP and many others. I am simply stating a fact bro, that's all. Yes you are correct always back up your site, communicate better, be more clear when PM'ing a developer.....i agree with you!! Go ahead continue i won't interfere, carry on!!! ;)

 Your a sweetheart

 I understand what you are saying and thank you for nice words, but I still think this is not the best topic to say that modules or apps have to be better. If you have a question like how to back up your site or database, you are welcome to post here. But not discussing modules or other stuff please. Let's just keep topics as close to initial subject as possible.

 agreed