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]

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 :(