LJArchive

[jducoeur]

Thanks to tpau for pointing out the layoffs at LiveJournal. If this article is to be believed, it's probably not the end of the world -- everybody's laying off right now, and I can't say I'm entirely astonished that LJ is consolidating. But it's a good reminder that backing up one's journal is a good idea, just in case.

Thanks also to her for the pointer to ljArchive, a tool for doing exactly that. It's not a panacea -- it's .NET-based, so mainly intended for Windows, and I gather from its LJ community that some users have had reliability issues with it. But I found it quite nice: easy to install, easy to use, and quick. It took just a few minutes to get it up and running, and just a few more to download my entire journal (about 1800 entries and 14000 comments, so that's nicely efficient). It's open-source freeware, and even comes with a reasonably good viewer for reading and searching your journal. In fact, the search functionality is so fast that it may be the easiest way to look up old entries.

So I'd strongly recommend to Windows users that, if you don't already have a solution in place, it's worth downloading ljArchive and backing up your journal. I put the odds of LJ collapsing fairly low still, but it's always better to be prepared...

Comments

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

I understand everyone being unhappy were LJ to go away, but it's not clear to me what the value of archiving one's LJ postings would be. Do people imagine having the time someday to sit and re-read their old postings? Is it just a habit of the back-it-up reflex? Could there be some kind of Resurrection Day millenial hope that a new server system could raise up all the old archives from the dead into a new life, reborn and free from sin? Have there been posts of great literary value mixed in amongst the friendly chat, recipes, gripes, and grunts that make up the bulk of what I've been reading here?

Contestants are invited to complete this sentence:

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

Best answer wins a fully-ten-punched free-coffee card from Toscanini's on Main St, Cambridge.

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

Mock people for the comments made in reply to them.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

...find the information we thought was important but have since forgotten.

I will sometimes post links to amusing videos, news articles of interest, and the like (as well as, for example, a spreadsheet of last years brewing competition results). I find myself referring to those older posts even now, when I remember *about* the item but don't have the details handy.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I've used my lj as several things- wanting to remember when a specific thing happened, keeping track of things like migraines (which helped figure out the major trigger), planning stuff, recording thoughts and feelings, and genenral griping. I want to at least have the option of going back and re-reading things.

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

...remember the beginnings of grudge that erupted after a heated "discussion" on the merits of Buffy versus River.

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

Could there be some kind of Resurrection Day millenial hope that a new server system could raise up all the old archives from the dead into a new life, reborn and free from sin?

Actually, yes: there are other systems like deadjournal and insanejournal that use basically the same software, and there are systems like ljmigrate that will copy all of your posts and comments to such an LJ-compatible system (or, if you prefer, just back them up to your local filesystem).

Have there been posts of great literary value mixed in amongst the friendly chat, recipes, gripes, and grunts that make up the bulk of what I've been reading here?

Occasionally :-)

Contestants are invited to complete this sentence:

In the future, we will want to "look up old entries" in order to...

For the same reasons I occasionally read old (dead-tree-technology) diary entries or old e-mails: both to remind myself of facts, and to remind myself of who I was, what my concerns were, etc. back then.

[tpau]

in the future we will want to look up old entries because i keep a library of recipes and youtube clips that i want to access on LJ...

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

LJ is my actual journal, as well as a tool to keep in touch with my friends and/or discuss topics of interest. Memories I'd like to keep fade with the years; my journal will not.

[jducoeur]

I *so* don't agree. Several counter-points:

First: yeah, some journals *do* have literary value. I and a number of her friends have been telling ladysprite for years that her occasional "Adventures in Veterinary Medicine" essays are well worth collecting into a book, and I hope that she does so someday.

Second: for many of us, our journals are the best records we have of our lives -- far moreso than any diary or photo album. That has enormous sentimental value, and losing them would affect us as strongly as losing a diary to a fire or flood would to many people. You of all people should be aware of the value of keeping records and archives against inundations and conflagrations (digital or otherwise).

Third: don't underestimate the practical and business importance of these journals. Much of the design work for CommYou was conducted in discussions in this journal, and those conversations still have considerable real-world value to me.

No, none of this is irreplaceable; no lives would end if LJ suddenly melted down and took its content with it. But there is nonetheless considerable value of many sorts contained here, and it's well worth making a modest effort to preserve it against the vagaries of the Internet business...

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

Since I've got you and you're talking about lj archive, and have made it work can I ask a question?

I've got a message back having downloaded it and started the wizard to get my journal which says

"The server requires that you set you encoding settings before your journal can be downloaded. This setting can be found at your journal's web site, at the bottom of the 'edit personal information' page in the 'auto-convert older entries from' box"

I am prepared to accept that it requires it, and that other people may be able to find it, but I cannot find "at your journal's web site" even if it thinks I can, this despite some time looking, and that doesn't tell me what the encoding setting needs to be.

I am feeling rather dim :(

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I didn't get that message; I *suspect* it means that your journal is still in the old S1 format or something like that.

My best guess would be that "your journal's web site" means LJ itself -- keep in mind that there are a lot of other LJ clones like DeadJournal and InsaneJournal and stuff, so they can't just say "LiveJournal". And I'd guess that "edit personal information" means the Edit Profile function.

But that's just guesswork -- it *is* a badly-written error message for a relatively obscure situation, so you shouldn't feel dim about it. If nothing obvious shows up on your Edit Profile page, I'd recommend asking in the ljarchive community, which has a lot of people asking lots of questions right now...