Tower of Babel

[babysimon]

So, I now have a cron job which backs up trishpiglet's and my LJ twice a week.

Just one thought: all these backup tools produce different file formats don't they?

Comments

[ms-katonic.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yes. LJ Archive saves them in .lja format, which I think is unique to that program.

[ms-katonic.livejournal.com]

Although you do appear to be able to export the resulting archive into XML and HTML for possible upload elsewhere, although how and where one would do this is another question entirely.

[babysimon]

Quite a big one. HTML isn't suitable for uploading into a database, and XML is not so much a file format as a means of making file formats. There are lots of XMLs...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

And I've not seen a plethora of tools to upload the files so produced to something (or indeed anything) else.

I wouldn't describe that as a backup. It's a copy, perhaps, or an offline archive-with-potential (if you're a hacker).

And more fundamentally, they're solving the wrong problem. If LJ died tonight, access to my old posts would not be the thing I'd miss most.

Which isn't to say it's not worth doing. Though I do worry that the increased server load of everyone running backups is not a winning combo with sharply depleted (and deeply demoralised) tech staff.

[alethia-juturna.livejournal.com]

You rock.. ;-) and i agree - all in different formats, and what i'd miss most is the connection.. *hugs* Dinner sometime? I may be crawling out of my hole!