Help?

[oyceter]

Argh. I renewed my paid LJ time just last month and am greedy and don't want to let go of my icons or Scrapbook. On the other hand, am irritated by flagging and tag limits.

Anyway, those of you on Mac, how do you back up your LJs? I used to use LJ Archive, but it seems to be Windows only.

Comments

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

'ello-- am here through friendsfriends list. I'm on a Mac and I use LJ Book (http://www.ljbook.com/) to turn my LJ into a big ol' PDF file.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

what are tag limits?

[rilina.livejournal.com]

You can download your entire LJ using XJournal. I don't know how easy it is to get info out of said archive though. I bookmarked a post on this way back when; let me see if I can find it.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Okay, hopefully you're comfy with working in Terminal, because the best option I found earlier this year when the LJ-rage was truly hot and heavy was LJ Dump (http://hewgill.com/software/ljdump/). It spits out an XML-ized bunch of files that represent your comments and stuff. And I *think* I used it to upload all of my entries to a WordPress install that I was working with at the time. It depends on what you want to do with the entries, I think-- if you want to be able to look at them, I'd say just find a windows pc and run LJ Archive. If you want to be able to do things with them, I'd say either export your journal using the export journal (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=8&q=backup&lang=) feature here or use ljdump, because that will produce XML files you can actually import elsewhere or manipulate if you know what you're doing.

Hope this helps...

[oyceter]

Oh! I saw that and dl'ed it, but then could not figure out what the heck I was supposed to do, because I fail at reading instructions. I think I'd like to be able to look at my old entries and to export them; I'm thinking of setting up LJ Archive once I set up Windows on my Mac, and then I will attempt to figure out exporting. Thank you!

[oyceter]

Oh cool, thanks!

[oyceter]

They're apparently now only allowing 1000 tags total per account. I don't think I am up there yet, but given how obsessively I tag things, it worries me.

[oyceter]

Thanks for the tip!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

...
shoot. Is there a way to count how many tags you have?

(I think I'm glad I recently cleaned out my tags)

[oyceter]

Doh. I can't seem to find a way in Manage Tags. I just ended up copy-pasting all my tags from my tags page and dumping it in a text editor, then I made the text editor number all the lines. Looks like I have 686.... Oh dear.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

I saw that and dl'ed it, but then could not figure out what the heck I was supposed to do, because I fail at reading instructions.
Nah you don't :D. It's a python script that you're supposed to run in Terminal, and if you aren't familiar with doing that, you'd be confused at what the hell to do with it. It's taken me a while to grasp that concept myself, and not look for stuff to double-click ;)

I think you'd probably have a better time with LJ Archive if you can get round setting up Windows on your mac-- which should actually be quite easy with either Parallels or VMWare, whichever one you choose. Just remember to check if their recent versions are Leopard-compatible, and check their forums for any threads about them to see what problems, if any, to expect. 99% of the stuff that happens when setting up something like that has almost certainly happened to someone else, and can be fixed by googling or going through their forums.

And no problem about the help :P. I wish I'd had someone to tell me what to do when I was trying to figure out how to backup stuff earlier this year XD

[oyceter]

Ohhhhh. Yeah, I tried installing python and then could not figure what else to do, and I haven't been able to figure out Terminal yet. Woes! New OS makes me feel like such a computer idiot!

Ooo, good point. I think I have Parallels right now, but I haven't gotten Windows on it yet b/c I need to find my old disc. Bwahaha. I refuse to get Vista. Also, I need to take my old computer hard drive up and hook it up to the Mac so I have something to put my backups on. Maybe I'll run Windows on the old hard drive.

Sorry about all the computer babble! But yes, thank you!!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

PS. I am running LJ Dump right now and it's proved very painless. So far, at least.

[oyceter]

Oh! How did you do it? I think I downloaded it and then I wasn't sure if I had Python and tried to type things in Terminal and I think I utterly failed to do anything.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Python is preinstalled on new Macs.

You basically:

1) Download and unpack the zip.
2) Modify the .cfg file per README instructions
3) In Terminal, go to wherever you've put the unpacked zip. I put it on my desktop so:
cd ~/Desktop/ljmigrate

4) Execute script by typing:
./ljmigrate.py

5) Wait a really long time.

[oyceter]

Thank you! I hate being such a computer newbie... Speaking of which, what is the ~ in Terminal? Is that just referring to an upper directory? Also, does Terminal actually tell you when something has executed correctly? And for ./ljmigrate.py, could I do ./whateverdirectory/ljmigrate.py, or do I have to navigate to the actual folder?

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I think ~ refers to the root directory, which in this case is your user account.

Once you enter the code to be executed, you'll get feedback and updates; the program is very chatty. It will sort of explode on you with feedback if you cause an error.

And for ./ljmigrate.py, could I do ./whateverdirectory/ljmigrate.py
I have no idea on this one.

[oyceter]

Yay it worked!