Letters by Burk #159: Backup Week
Two exports that aren't backups, one domain for all your addresses, and earnings in the menu bar.
Hi friends,
somewhere between exporting my Medium archive and my Substack archive, this became backup week.
Neither export is a real backup. One doesn't know my subscribers, the other has no images. So I wrote down what to save on top, for both platforms. Two more posts fit right in: my addresses on my own domain, and my earnings in one place where I can see them. Plus one about the automatic transmission, which has nothing to do with any of this.
Here's my week.
How to Really Back Up Your Substack (Posts, Subscribers, and URLs)
Substack's export has no images, no drafts, no Notes, and 84% of it is mail tracking. A real backup takes a few more steps, and your own domain is the biggest one.
Read it on Medium or on Substack.
How to Really Back Up Your Medium (Posts, Images, and Subscribers)
Medium's export knows every IP address I ever logged in from. My images and my newer subscribers? Not in there. Here is what to save on top, and where it hides.
Read it on Substack.
Use Subdomains to Put Your Domain on Every Platform
stories.byburk.net for Medium, letters.byburk.net for Substack, shop.byburk.net for the shop. One domain, all the addresses. This one started as a reader question in the comments.
Read it on Medium or on Substack.
I Built a Menu Bar Revenue Dashboard With Claude Code
I got tired of opening six dashboards to check what I earn. So I used Claude Code to build a Mac menu bar app that shows Medium, Substack, Gumroad, and PayPal in one click. About 600 lines of Python, no dependencies.
Read it on Medium or on Substack.
Who Invented the Automatic Transmission?
Two brothers who were both named Thomas, a gearbox that sometimes exploded, and the $57 option that finally got it right. It took 40 years.
Read it on Medium or free on fun-facts.net.
📎 From the Archive
Still the question I get when I talk about backing up a Substack: why not just a blog then? This one from last September is my answer, and it hasn't moved much.
Read it on Substack.
💡 Fun Facts
MySpace lost every song uploaded between 2003 and 2015 in a server migration. Around 50 million tracks from 14 million artists. The company confirmed there is no way to recover them.
GitLab deleted its own production database in 2017. They had five backup methods. None of them worked. What saved them was a copy an admin had made by hand, six hours earlier.
World Backup Day is March 31. On purpose the day before April Fools'.
PS: Fun facts have their own home now. I started a little blog at fun-facts.net.
That's #159. Back soon. ✌️
