LiveJournal is gone.

[matt1993]

I can't believe it. LiveJournal ACTUALLY shut down.

Well, TECHNICALLY it's still up but it may as well be down because for me takes so long to load ANY page that every single page times out before I can load it. And it's probably never going to be fixed just like the paid account payment situation will also never end.

I'd better get used to being depressed for the rest of my life.

(Note to self: if by some miracle it ever comes back, this is the first entry to not be on LJ yet)

EDIT: YAY! It's working again! Took four hours, but it's still working! Now if only the payment problems would go away...
(Crossposting to LJ now that I can post to it again, for the sake of consistency)

Comments

[vesper_evensong]

Wow I must have missed the down time in all the chaos. Yeah the payment problems won't go away until or unless the whole Russia/Ukraine thing resolves and I had hoped that would be short lived but it doesn't seem to be. It's a bummer. It's also why I created a recreation of my journal here, and imported the many years of stuff I have written, as well as set this up as a back up. I also set up semagic to allow me to post to both simultaneously. That was tricky but well worth it since it is a lot less work.

[matt1993]

:( I at least hope the Russia/Ukraine thing will EVER end - and that the payment problems will be over after that.

I already imported my LJ entries to DW back in 2017 because so many people were leaving LJ and I wanted to keep in touch with them, but I still don't want LJ to completely go down (especially while I don't know if my DW is missing anything that was on LJ - I went through them all to fix things that didn't import correctly but other links and images have become broken since then) because I have friends who are still only on LJ.

So THAT'S what semagic is? I think I'd heard of that but wasn't sure what it was. I could certainly use an easier way to post to LJ and DW simultaneously since DW's old cross-posting to LJ feature no longer works.

[vesper_evensong]

Yes - Semagic is just a third party program that you can use to post to either or both of them. It takes a bit of tricky setting up to get it to do both at the same time, but I found it to be very useful. Yeah the cross post feature doesn't work now, and that's annoying, but at least I found a way to do it all the same.

When LJ started having issues due to the Russia/Ukraine thing and the sanctions caused no ability to renew LJ, I decided that I needed an alternative just in case. I also have more friends that prefer to use LJ also. Most of the active ones also have DW but also prefer to stay on LJ unless they have to move over. So basically I just made sure that everything imported ok over here so I have that back up. This is my actual journal for my life and I don't want to lose all these entries about the last couple decades of my life.

I have no clue how long this issue will go on - and I suspected it might be a while, and while LJ would love to take payments from people again, they are prevented from doing so. So rather than getting all upset over it, I chose to find a work around if need be. It's frustrating - I know.

[matt1993]

I have some questions about Semagic:

1) Is there a FAQ or something? I Googled and found this, but it doesn't answer a lot of my questions about how it works.
2) Is it possible to use Semagic to edit an existing entry, or just to post a new one? (If it can't edit an existing entry, you can ignore questions 3 and 4)
3) If I want to edit an entry made before I started using Semagic / before the one time I imported my entries to DW, and want to make the same edit to both entries, will it be able to edit both the LJ and DW copies at once?
4) Conversely, if I want to edit just the LJ or just the DW version of an entry (i.e. fixing things that didn't get copied over correctly to DW if there turns out to still be anything missing, or having LJ and DW entries use the same images but LJ has the copies I uploaded to LJ while DW has the copies I uploaded to DW), can I do that? Or is it only possible to upload both at the same time?
5) What else can I do with Semagic? Is it possible to add/edit/delete tags from both sites with Semagic? Upload images?

Thanks for your help :)

And I understand what you mean about finding a workaround rather than getting upset about it. It's just hard for me to not get upset about it especially if a) I don't know for a fact it won't last forever, b) I don't know if I'll be able to ensure everything that was on LJ is on DW with as few broken links/images/videos as possible before I lose my journal should that happen, c) all of this happening just makes it sink in even more how long I've been putting off things I've always wanted to do. There's so many things on LJ (and on the Internet in general) that I've always been meaning to read or visit that went down before I even got a chance to. Just yesterday I found out that gadzillionthings.net (a humor website that had been around since 1997 and had stayed up all the way until this year or last year) went down. :(

[vesper_evensong]

Matt, I'm so sorry it took me longer to get back to you on this. I needed to wait until I did it again to make sure I knew what I was doing enough to answer questions for you. I'm going to paste the tutorial I was given. I hope that this helps

1. There hasn't been a very good FAQ for a long time sadly. This is kind of a tweaked work around situation.
2. I have never edited an entry with semagic... but there is an option for that - I think it's probably going to require you to edit it in each place though, not two at once sadly.
3. I think I covered most of what I know about this in 2. I usually just read over my entry before I posted it to both simultaneously so that I can add things or change things before posting. It also has the option to save it for later if you need to do that. You don't lose what you type if you close it after you save it.

5. I don't think you do full functionality of the individual sites regarding all their settings like the tag organization. It does allow you to choose your tags, or even create new ones, but I haven't seen that it allows you to edit them and manipulate them specifically. It's never done that. I don't use the lj site or dw site to host pictures because it will only show up on one and not the other, so I use a place like postimages.org and have a free account there and then I use the URL to post to both journals at once with the same image.

For some of this stuff you'll have to manipulate settings on the individual sites, but for posting it makes it much much easier to be able to post once rather than post, copy, paste, and post again on the other location. It has it's limitations and it's not perfect, but it's at least something. The following is the instructions I used to get this to work.
------------------------------------------------------------
DIRECTIONS FOR SETTING UP SEMAGIC

First, download Semagic: http://semagic.sourceforge.net/index.html FYI - I am not familiar how to do it if you use a Mac computer. I'm also not sure it works on Win11. I haven't done that yet. My anti-virus program also flags this program as being possibly dangerous. Worry not.

The next thing you do is set it up for both your Dreamwidth and Live Journal accounts. If you have the same name in both Live Journal and Dreamwidth there are slightly different directions which I'll give to you later.

Setting up for Live Journal first:

Open the Home page type your username in the box which says "username" and password on the password box. Then, click "File" (upper left corner), then click "Server Settings" Here are the settings necessary. Some may already be set:
Server: scroll down and find - www.livejournal.com
Port: 80
Path: /interface/flat
SSL: unchecked - empty box
Username: yourusername
Password: yourpassword
API: scroll down and find - LiveJournal

You can check to see if you can get into Live Journal if you want now.

Setting up for Dreamwidth:

Open the home page and highlight your Live Journal name and type in your Dreamwidth name if it's different than your Live Journal name **(see below for directions if it's the same.)** NO - IT DOESN'T DELETE YOUR LIVE JOURNAL NAME - IT'S STILL THERE! Password will be your API key -- see below for directions to do that.
Server: scroll down and find: www.dreamwidth.org
Port: 443
Path: /interface/flat (It may be already set for that)
SSL: checked
username: yourusername
Password: API key **(See directions below on how to get this.** DO NOT USE YOUR PASSWORD -- IT WON'T WORK!!!
API: Scroll down and find LiveJournal.

**If your user name in Live Journal and Dreamwidth are the same:**

On the home page (before you go to server settings) put in anything EXCEPT your actual user name. For example, what I did was put "dwsweetmeow" -- the dw to designate that its Dreamwidth -- but you could write anything, it doesn't matter. When you do that, it changes the username inside the server settings to "dwsweetmeow." You don't want that, so you must change the contrived name to your actual name within server settings. Return back to the home page, and you'll notice that it DIDN'T change your user name to the actual user name, and that's exactly what you want. In other words: The home page is the contrived user name -- the server settings use the actual user name. (Yikes - I hope that is clear?!?!)

**Directions for creating an API key:**

While logged into your Dreamwidth account, go to: https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/emailpost. Scroll down to where it says "Manage API keys" and follow the directions on how to create one. It's not difficult. The keys (which replace your password in this case) are very long, and you'll just cut and paste the key given to you and put it in the password spots on the home page and server settings.

BTW -- The author of the Semagic program maintains a journal where he explains updates and answers questions. He's Russian (so his first language isn't English), but he's very good, very kind, and he answers questions in a timely manner. Here's the link for that: https://ljwin32-sema.livejournal.com/ You can also use Semagic for Wordpress and Blogger, but that's an entirely different set of settings.

I hope this helps. I've tried to be very detailed and cover all the questions and snags I found. I also hope I haven't forgotten anything. I know that sometimes excess details can create confusion, so please ask any questions you have.

[matt1993]

No worries about the late replying - I do that too!

1. There hasn't been a very good FAQ for a long time sadly. This is kind of a tweaked work around situation.
Well, I think your comment answered most of the questions I had, at least :)

2. I have never edited an entry with semagic... but there is an option for that - I think it's probably going to require you to edit it in each place though, not two at once sadly.
At least posting to both at once might be worth it. I'm still deciding if it has enough features to be worth trying to set up (since I don't anticipate posting much until I have significantly less anxiety about either the future of LJ paid accounts or the quality of my writing).

It also has the option to save it for later if you need to do that. You don't lose what you type if you close it after you save it.

That would help a bunch! :)

5. I don't think you do full functionality of the individual sites regarding all their settings like the tag organization. It does allow you to choose your tags, or even create new ones, but I haven't seen that it allows you to edit them and manipulate them specifically. It's never done that.

Aw, I'm still going to have to do that manually I guess. :(

I'm technically exceeding the tag limit on DW since when I imported my journal to DW in 2017, I had more tags on LJ than the limit on DW was at the time. So (by using the DW site directly) I can tag my entries and add and remove tags from them, and "create" new tags by finding one with zero uses and renaming it (thank goodness I created so many pointless tags when I started on LJ because that means more room for tags on DW!) Anyway, should I be concerned about that getting messed up when I try to post or edit an entry with Semagic that has tags that don't exist yet on DW? (this often happens because I don't have a tag I thought I had, or I make a typo that's really hard to hunt down) Or an entry with a tag that exists on my LJ but not on my DW or vice versa?

Also, is Semagic still going to work on LJ? DW no longer allows cross-posting to LJ on account of LJ refusing connections from DW, so would there be a similar issue with using Semagic to post to LJ? It sounds like you have it set up and working, but still, it's a concern I have.

I don't use the lj site or dw site to host pictures because it will only show up on one and not the other, so I use a place like postimages.org and have a free account there and then I use the URL to post to both journals at once with the same image.

I've never heard of postimages.org but back when I was on LJ only I always preferred using LJ's ScrapBook - I didn't want to use an external hosting site (despite doing so temporarily until I had a paid account for the first time) in case that site went down. And when I moved to DW, I uploaded my images one by one onto that site as well while also keeping them on LJ, and painstakingly edited my imported journal so that the DW versions of my entries would use the DW-hosted images while the LJ versions would still use the LJ-hosted images (that way if one site were to go down for maintenance it wouldn't affect the images on the other copy of my journal). Unfortunately I haven't been fully consistent with this, but fixing the remaining ones is on my to-do list. (Now that I'll NEVER have a paid account on LJ again I suppose I'll have to upload any new images to ONLY DreamWidth and just use those on both my LJ and my DW entries. Unless I need a friends-only image in which case I guess I'd have to join postimages.org!)



FYI - I am not familiar how to do it if you use a Mac computer. I'm also not sure it works on Win11. I haven't done that yet. My anti-virus program also flags this program as being possibly dangerous. Worry not.

I don't use a Mac, so no issue there. However... does it work on Windows 7? Because, uh... I still have Windows 7 in 2023. (Happy new year by the way)


Copying and pasting the relevant instructions so I can find them easier:

**If your user name in Live Journal and Dreamwidth are the same:**

On the home page (before you go to server settings) put in anything EXCEPT your actual user name. For example, what I did was put "dwsweetmeow" -- the dw to designate that its Dreamwidth -- but you could write anything, it doesn't matter. When you do that, it changes the username inside the server settings to "dwsweetmeow." You don't want that, so you must change the contrived name to your actual name within server settings. Return back to the home page, and you'll notice that it DIDN'T change your user name to the actual user name, and that's exactly what you want. In other words: The home page is the contrived user name -- the server settings use the actual user name. (Yikes - I hope that is clear?!?!)

**Directions for creating an API key:**

While logged into your Dreamwidth account, go to: https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/emailpost. Scroll down to where it says "Manage API keys" and follow the directions on how to create one. It's not difficult. The keys (which replace your password in this case) are very long, and you'll just cut and paste the key given to you and put it in the password spots on the home page and server settings.

So API keys is how it will log into DW, but how does it log into LJ? API keys again or another method? Same URL but with livejournal.com instead of dreamwidth.org?

[vesper_evensong]

I would recommend getting Semagic, and setting it up to log into your LJ account(s) and just checking it out with that ability just enabled so that you can play with it a little and see what it can do. It's very possible that it does more than what I typically use it for. I've known about it since about 2007 I think - so it's been around a long, long time. I liked it back then because I could write out an entry before being online or when the net went down for me and I could post it later because it saved it.

Tags -
I basically imported my DW account and tags directly from LJ, so they are the same between both for me. I did not create tags except a few in the beginning long ago, and I just created new ones as I needed them so I have no limit I've hit on tags on either site despite the fact that I have a TON of tags. I'm not sure how to help with the different situation you have on the tag limits.

Crossposting -
The direct crossposting feature doesn't work any longer. That was the reason I went looking for an alternative, and it was a friend on my LJ that told me about this whole semagic set up (HeyUrs if you know her). She's the one who sent me that information in a comment that I have saved because it was very helpful. Semagic basically doesn't crosspost. This set up allows you to have two logins going simultaneously and to then use the "post to multiple journals" option. They have the option for multiple LJ's or multiple DW's or even other sites I don't know much about, and mix and match. I'm using it to post to both my DW and LJ accounts simuntaneously. Because they have the same login info, I found that part of the instructions to be very helpful. I have my husband help me with this process each time because he's a little better at figuring this out than I am, but it is only more confusing because of the same username/password situation for me.

Photos -
I see... you seem to have figured it all out much better. I just never wanted to deal with the LJ hosting stuff because back when they first introduced it, I tried to use and and it failed to load the image about 9 times out of 10 - so then I used photobucket, which is now a pain in the butt to use. I've been using postimages.org now for about 4-5 years, and it's been pretty consistently helpful and up and available. It's also free. You can pay if you want to put more in there than an allotted amount, but I haven't hit that yet and I have been constantly uploading forever now. Because I save them later to PDF format, it brings the photos into the document, and I then no longer worry about them loading later. I also keep back ups on my computer so if I need them again I have them.

Mac Computer Part -
That was the wording of the person who wrote the instructions, and not me. I have windows 10, but I used semagic on windows 7, and back to windows ME I think. I don't use Macs though because I have a computer degree, and I know how to build, fix, and upgrade PCs so it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to use Macs anyway. But I am QUITE certain it works in windows 7 and would be pretty much exactly the same. The reason is that semagic hasn't changed in FOREVER now.

API Keys -
This is needed instead of your password into DW but not with LJ. With LJ your typically password will work for that one. You basically tell it to log into both, and give it both sets of info to do that with, it just so happens that it's different regarding how each site does the password thing.

[matt1993]

This set up allows you to have two logins going simultaneously and to then use the "post to multiple journals" option. They have the option for multiple LJ's or multiple DW's or even other sites I don't know much about, and mix and match. I'm using it to post to both my DW and LJ accounts simuntaneously.

So long as it's possible to write an entry once and have the entry be posted to both my LJ and my DW automatically, and both be editable individually if I need to (as if I had posted the entries individually), it's what I'm looking for. I've been referring to that and DW's crosspost feature as "crossposting".

Windows/Mac part - I see! If Semagic hasn't changed in forever, though, I hope it either still works on Windows 11 or it's a long time before I have to use Windows 11. Question: is there anything I would need to keep in mind if I were to install it again on a new computer after I install it on this one? (Like, if I install it on this computer but then end up upgrading to Windows 10 later this year which is a possibility?)

API Keys -
This is needed instead of your password into DW but not with LJ. With LJ your typically password will work for that one. You basically tell it to log into both, and give it both sets of info to do that with, it just so happens that it's different regarding how each site does the password thing.

That sounds confusing, but I hope I can figure it out.

[vesper_evensong]

Another thing you should know is that I have used a program online to save my journals by year (you can choose any arbitrary stretch of time) into a PDF format that you download and keep and you can choose how much info is included such as mood, or music, or comment threads, etc. I can give you that link if you like, and then you have a permanent copy of your stuff, and can work to compare things rather than feel insecure about losing them from LJ if things to more sour than they are now. I do this with mine because my journal is a record of my life. So I have them saved in pdf by year so I can have them printed and spiral bound later.

If this would help you... it used to be called GadsLJbook, but I think it changed name. If you google that you should find it and if you don't I can dig through my bookmarks to located it for you.

I know it's hard when things are not exactly as you'd like them to be. Change is sometimes really hard. Nothing on the internet stays the same, and if you hadn't gotten through that website since 1997... I don't know what to say as that was around for well over 20 years. People die... their hosting situation changes, and as you know even things outside their control change as it has with LJ. The best we can do is to deal with what is here and now. I do realize that change for you is a really difficult thing, but on the internet it's constant. That's what I've learned since 1997 when I graduated with my CIS degree - the tech/computing/internet world is a rapid change kind of thing. I'm AMAZED that website was around from 1997 to roughly 2020 ish. That's actually a very long time for a website to exist!

Hang in there... I'm doing my best to see if I can find ways to help us both.

[matt1993]

Another thing you should know is that I have used a program online to save my journals by year (you can choose any arbitrary stretch of time) into a PDF format that you download and keep and you can choose how much info is included such as mood, or music, or comment threads, etc. I can give you that link if you like, and then you have a permanent copy of your stuff, and can work to compare things rather than feel insecure about losing them from LJ if things to more sour than they are now. I do this with mine because my journal is a record of my life. So I have them saved in pdf by year so I can have them printed and spiral bound later.

I've been meaning to do something like that, except using LJ and DW's native "export to XML" or whatever feature. (Not just to have a backup of my journal, but for a variety of reasons. Because keeping track of all the broken images and broken videos and such in my journal would be a lot easier if I could search for everything with "http" or "https" in it, etc., and turn that into lists of all the images and videos and such in my journal that I can go through to check for links to sites that I KNOW have went down, so that I can replace links and images with archive.org versions if any. There's many more reasons but I won't bore you, lol.

So there's a way to export to PDF as well? Cool! Is there also like a Word document option?

If this would help you... it used to be called GadsLJbook, but I think it changed name. If you google that you should find it and if you don't I can dig through my bookmarks to located it for you.

I googled but didn't find anything. :(

Nothing on the internet stays the same, and if you hadn't gotten through that website since 1997... I don't know what to say as that was around for well over 20 years.

Oh, I didn't discover that website in 1997 - it was created that year, and stayed around for a VERY long time and continued adding new content every month or so for a long time (and then updates eventually became less frequent but nevertheless continued updating all the way to 2020 or 2021.) I discovered it in the mid-2000s and at one point in the past I probably did read everything on that site, but probably not everything that was added since then.

I hate how much I procrastinate on things I WANT to do, like checking my LJ/DW friends page more often or visiting YouTube channels, webcomics, other sites I want to visit (or finish reading/watching), etc. It's been a bad habit of mine for years and it always gets to me whenever any of these things go down before I finish. (Or sometimes even if it doesn't go down until AFTER I finish.) Thank goodness for archive.org and the few YouTube channels I've found that reupload content from specific deleted channels, so that whenever things I want to visit go down I don't lose ALL of my sanity!

[vesper_evensong]

https://www.blogbooker.com/
This is the URL to the site that I use.. it changed names somewhere along the way. It does several sites, and YES you can do PDF or a word file! I absolutely LOVE that site because it gives me a back up of things that I can later print. That's important to me for what I use my journals for.

You aren't the only procrastinator... I recently had 687 tabs open on my browser. Why? Well because I open things and procrastinate watching/listening/reading them, and then I couldn't bookmark them because my imported bookmarks from when I changed browsers were insanely confusing. It triplicated everything but at different levels in the hierarchy. I procrastinated organizing and dealing with the bookmark mess, so it led to me procrastinating the tab mess, and it got WAY out of control. I'm cleaning it up though.. finally. I just thought you'd like to know you're not alone that way. I often want to get through a lot of content too, but my life is busy being a mother who homeschools 4 kids. Lots going on all the dang time.

I have an ADHD kind of brain and I can easily get distracted, and things build up to unmanageable levels, and I don't get around to finishing what I start so much of the time. :)

[matt1993]

Thanks for the info! :)

You aren't the only procrastinator... I recently had 687 tabs open on my browser. Why? Well because I open things and procrastinate watching/listening/reading them, and then I couldn't bookmark them because my imported bookmarks from when I changed browsers were insanely confusing. It triplicated everything but at different levels in the hierarchy. I procrastinated organizing and dealing with the bookmark mess, so it led to me procrastinating the tab mess, and it got WAY out of control. I'm cleaning it up though.. finally. I just thought you'd like to know you're not alone that way. I often want to get through a lot of content too, but my life is busy being a mother who homeschools 4 kids. Lots going on all the dang time.

That's a lot of tabs!!! I don't think I'm even able to have that many tabs open... a couple of times my laptop has crashed because I had so many tabs open (it didn't show exactly how many tabs I had open but while it was above 100, it was probably well below 687). These days if there's something interesting I see online (recommended to me on YouTube, DeviantArt, etc.) I save the link to a text file on my computer instead of reading it right away. Meanwhile, I know my phone has a maximum of 500 tabs (though I used to end up reaching that limit a LOT before I figured out how to add pages to my reading list). I really need to go through and visit all of those or at least get the reading list from my phone merged with the list from my text file. It's a pain to do that manually and it seems like trying to do it automatically would be even MORE of a pain, so.. :(

[matt1993]

On an unrelated note... you seemed to really like my Spotify year in review for 2021, so while you're here I figured I should let you know that I posted one for 2022 recently. :)