not a good day on the internet

[foxtongue]

Valleywag: LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut 12 of 28 U.S. employees.
CNET: LiveJournal clarified that it was "about a dozen" cuts, amounting to about a fifth of the company.

The beginning of the end. Again.

Given the current situation, I'm going to start running my LJ Archive back-up daily, instead of monthly, and cross my fingers that someone out there finds a way to make LJbook run again. I don't believe the entire site will evaporate overnight or anything, but I've been writing on Livejournal since 2003. To lose it would be a death in the family, as the site contains not only a clear and concise map of my life and a full history of my writing, it also holds all of you, my friends and family who daily sustain me. How many of us even have each others real names, let alone e-mail, address or phone number? This is the medium of the majority, if Livejournal vanished, so would our ability to keep in touch.

In the interests in making sure we don't lose what we've built if it all falls down goes boom, I've whipped together a quick little poll. Don't feel you have to fill it all out, but if you don't give me, say, your phone number, who else will call you up on your birthday to sing you e.e.cummings?

If you don't feel comfortable posting your personal information to a livejournal poll, e-mail whatever contact info you like to my hotmail address: bloodkrystal@. Also, here I am on: facebook - myspace - flickr - you.tube - del.icio.us - twitter.

[Poll #1326405]

Comments

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

If anybody else wants other backup tools, I have my modified version of jbackup.pl that does a decent job as well.

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

I use a Python script, ljdump, and I've been pretty happy with it, finally. It picks up my comment threads, as well as entries, which is very important to me.

LJarchive looks good for those who are Windows users. LJdump is cross-platform (being python), but is a mere console script, having no GUI. Windows users will have to install Python to get it working, but I believe most other OSes already have it installed by default.

Our social lives and histories really are far too important to leave to the tender mercies of profit-seeking, market-vulnerable service provider. That's why I don't sign up for FaceHoook, Myspace, et al. I get everything emailed to me, as well as backed up. The only reason I really need to come to the site is to perform the authentication needed to view locked entries. If OAuth is implemented, I won't even need to do that.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

jbackup.pl gets absolutely all of the contents, incl comments, custom lock levels, all of the metadata in original form (like location, music, mood) etc.
User numeric ids and names. It's portable as well, Perl with only a small number of CPAN modules (notably GDBM_File, XMLRPC::Lite).

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

I'll see your metadata, and I'll raise you... a dancing jackalope easter egg!

[icemem.livejournal.com]

For mac users my experience is that ljmigrate is the best option. That's a link to the very easy to follow tutorial, but be advised that if you're on 10.5 or over, Python is already installed by default so you can ignore that bit!

As a lovely bonus, you can also use it to consolidate multiple lj accounts into one, if that's your bag.

[coffeeman.livejournal.com]

Oh HELL no. Someone is trying to start a grassroots effort to buy LJ back from the Russians.
ljuser_buyout

[syukton.livejournal.com]

I've had my lj since 2001 and I've had a permanent account since 2002 (a kindly gift from a certain diapholom whom I don't actually know. Like, at all. Anyhow, I will be sad if LJ goes away, but I don't think I'll be sad for very long. My first few years of entries were very angsty. heh.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I am tempted to go see just how angsty, and yet...

[blogtodiffer.livejournal.com]

I gave you the address that will be valid within the next month, since there's no sense using the old one.

The phone number is a cell, I'm only awake after 18:00.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

I don't normally give out my phone number... but how can I pass up even the remote possibility of a musical e.e.cummings birthday call? :)

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

kill kill kill!

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

??

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

beats me, always a good mantra?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I found myself saying, "in for the a meter, in for a mile" earlier this week. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

i clasp my elf hands together!

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's an international verion of in for a penny, in for a pound.