The hubbub over Livejournal

[wraithfodder]

Apparently they sacked/shed/fired/laid off, choose your moniker. A bunch of folk who work at LJ no longer do. It's either 20 out of 28 gone, or a "dozen or so", depending on the source.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10132684-2.html said yesterday "Social-media pioneer LiveJournal is the latest company to announce a round of layoffs, trimming down its employee head count in its San Francisco and Moscow offices. A statement from the company came after a rumor on gossip blog Gawker suggested that a shocking number of LiveJournal employees--20 out of 28--had been cut. LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company."

So, anyway, this might explain the 'hiccups' LJ has been experiencing.

Now I'm sitting here, going sheesh, bad enough AOL toasted my CSI site. Still haven't found a new home for it yet, but I love Livejournal cuz of all the folks on it and the sharing and fanfic and pictures and just fun. Anyway, I sure as heck don't want to lose my journal, which now makes me think... HOW can I back up the entire journal? Anybody done it and have recommendations? I'm sorta leery about downloading software I don't know (plus I have Vista). And, when you download the journal, does it save comments? And is there a way to mirror a LJ elsewhere (and does it bring over comments, too?)

Yeah, I'm a neophyte at this stuff. I prefer writing entrise and torturing, er, playing with my Stargate Atlantis action figures (who, by the way, had a simply terrible time tonight as I write a new story *cough*)

 

Thanks!

Comments

[rkbwrites.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to be suggesting LJArchive (http://fawx.com/software/ljarchive/) for backing stuff up. I can't report on whether it's good or bad since either there's no Mac Version.

As for LJ's future the general consensus is either: Aieee, the sky is a fallin'! or, Meh, it happens or Time for me to upload Wordpress to my domain name.

I'd suggest option 3 for a personal blog so you don't have to rely on a 3rd party like blogger, lj or vox unfortunately, that kinda takes out the whole community vibe that LJ has built up over the years...

[zats-clear.livejournal.com]

I have Vista and the back up worked. Altho I have not yet figured out how to upload it to my IJs!

go here (http://muck-a-luck.livejournal.com/798131.html) where CK helpfully linked up stuff she had used before

[seratonation.livejournal.com]

lol, wrong entry, here's the one i meant to link to

http://seratonation.livejournal.com/184276.html

(its flocked, but i can unflock it if you want, its a list of helpful tutes tat help with teh backing up and transferring to another jornal (though transferre does not include comments/taggs etc

[obelix]

I've been backing up my lj for awhile now using lj-archive and yes it does download the comments.

I've also mirrored my lj on Insane Journal using LJ-Sec BUT it doesn't carry over the comments :-(

LJ-Sec also allows you to mirror to journalfen and others.

Oh and my username on Insane Journal is obelix same as here :-)

[reiko-afterglow.livejournal.com]

After doing some digging post the initial freak-out, I have made my own conclusion that this is all being blown out of proportion, and calm will come soon again.

But it's never bad to back things up.

[ladyniko.livejournal.com]

That was my thought. I was like, "Well, they no longer have the servers in SFO proper... so, do they really need all the bodies there?"

If anything, they probably outsourced the labor those folks were doing with the hosting site in Montanna, at a cheaper rate than they were paying the San Fran based bodies.

And, IJ is great - Squeaky keeps on top of most of the issues right away and lets you know when things are off-kilter and he's working on them. :) I need to go buy a perm/paid account over there.

[jedi40.livejournal.com]

Now I know why I could not get on LJ for over two hours.

[lamaudite.livejournal.com]

For comments, I'd suggest lj2blogger (or Blog2Blog). It's an app done by a guy called Paul Cooley and he's over on blogger and you c an ask questions and he'll answer, helping you make it work. His app grabs everything and then you can mirror it on WordPress to see the comments. Last time I checked, which a few months ago, WordPress was the only place that allowed you to import entries and comments.

http://linuxlore.blogspot.com/2006/12/livejournal-to-blogger.html

LJArchive is good for backup and having a copy you can browse through of your journal on a local hard drive.

[lamaudite.livejournal.com]

Actually, scratch that. It's ljArchive that creates a lovely xml file that you can upload to WordPress, with entries and posts.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing about Dreamwidth which is being developed. It could be one to watch. I've backed up using lj-archive and had no problem. ancientcitadel knows a bit more about it than me here I don't think we should go into meltdown just yet but it doesn't hurt to be cautious. :D

[ladybeth.livejournal.com]

LJ Archive seems good, I'll have to find you the link (if someone hasn't already commented with it). There is another program I'm trying to transfer past entries to another journal, but so far I'm not sure how it works, so I can't say if it works or not.

[mantriddrone.livejournal.com]

i used a utilty called "LJ-SEC" to back up my journal into a a new account over at Insanejournal. it actually worked great and did everything for all my entries which go back to 2003. unfortunately it doesn't do comments to those entries but what does?

use the following link for step-by-step instructions on how to do so

http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/284083.html

[patk.livejournal.com]

Okay. I did download the content of my LJ to my harddrive the day before yesterday. I can try and tell you what I did and perhaps it'll help you as well.

The first thing you have to do is this: Log in into your LJ account and go to this site:

http://www.livejournal.com/settings/?c=OldEncoding

Switch user to the journal/community you want to check.

Look at the box "auto-convert older entries from". If it says "None", you have to chose "Western European (Windows)" from the pull-down menu. You need to do this or LJ Archive won't be able to backup your journal or community.

Click "save".

Then go to this site:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/

Then I did the following: I clicked on "download" in the green box and then this site came up:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143280

Then I clicked the blue "download"-link which brought me to this site:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143280&package_id=157384&release_id=403625

It lists 5 different download-posibilities and I chose the fourth from the top, the one with the extention ".exe" because it should work with "any architecture" (I had no clue what "architecture" means but just though that, if it works with "any", well ...) .

A window popped up, asking about where to save the file. Chose any place you want. I downloaded it right onto my desktop but it's up to you where you want to save the file.

And now comes the "install and launch"-process.

Double-click the ".exe"-file (wherever you've put it), you get a window "Welcome to the ljarchive setup wizard". Click "next". Wait. Click "I agree". Wait. Click "install". Wait. De-check the "show readme"-box, leave the "run LJArchive"-box checked. Click "finish".


The next window says: "Welcome to the ljArchive. To create a new journal archive select the menu item File/New Archive". Do exactly that. Click on "file" (upper left corner) and click on "new archive". The next window asks you where to save the ljarchive. Select the place where you want to store your cope. I chose desktop (I can always put it elsewhere later). Click "next". The next window wants your LJ-login and your password. Type it in. Make sure that the "download comments"-box is checked. Click "next". Wait. Click "finish". Wait. Wait. Wait.

It needs some time to download the whole content of your LJ plus the comments. Get a cup of coffee meanwhile. As soon as the process is finished, it shows you a page of your LJ and from there on you're able to work with that by using the toolbar of the window.

If the download process doesn't start immediately, wait or try it again. It's sometimes pretty busy.

Hope this helps. :-)

[marilla-pm67.livejournal.com]

Hey I added you today .... hope you won't mind.

Well anyway, I'm rather a given person, even if I don't know the person well.
I looked, or rather snooped into your LJ.

I have a huge web space, if you want, you can host the CSI site there. (I don't ask for anything, at all...)

For the backup, use LJARCHIVE and if you have a backup journal, like IJ, you can repost everything, by using LJ SEC, then finally before LJ's gone, you can crosspost by using SEMAGIC :)

Hope this help you.

Sam.