Charm

[pyesetz]

I use Charm to back up my LJ.  It didn't do exactly what I wanted, but it was written in Python so I just put up with it.  Today I bit the bullet and made my first-ever changes to a Python program!  I posted my results to ljcharm.  The author can take my changes or leave them, but in the meantime my local copy of her program obeys my command.  The programs on my laptop work for *me*, not for their authors—and not for those fatcats in Redmond who think that what I did should be a crime because I didn't get pre-authorization from the copyright holder.

Comments

[rabitguy.livejournal.com]

Just gave this Charm program a whirl and it aborted halfway into downloading my LJ. Promising looking program, though.

[pyesetz]

Ms. Leong hasn't released a new version since last November.  I think LiveJournal recently changed their rules on the challenge/response authorization, drastically shortening the time-out.  Probably it would work if you configure Charm to use the old authorization method.  I just put up with it, restarting the download at the month that failed.

[tuskyn.livejournal.com]

Very cool. Do you know if there are programs to gather LJ images? BTW Hello, I'm a friend of Maximous.

[pyesetz]

Which images?  User pictures?  Just use "Save Page As" there.  FotoBuilder?  Dunno.  The FotoBuilder manual doesn't seem to offer any backup method.  I suppose one could use

   wget -r http://pics.livejournal.com/pyesetz

But that downloads all possible sizes of each picture, and buries the metadata in gobs of irrelevent HTML, and doesn't let you retrieve friends-only pictures.

My first thoughts were...

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

This post automatically generated by Charm. Your friends-only posts are now publically available at the following website...

Re: My first thoughts were...

[pyesetz]

Charm is open-source.  Your local copy of Python compiles it from your local copy of the code, which you can read to determine that your posts go nowhere but LiveJournal.  How can you ever really know whether IE6 secretly sends your posts to Microsoft as well as LJ?  For that matter, how can you know whether LJ is sharing your posts with the FBI?  If they were, it would be a federal crime for them to admit it to you.

[zi-mugudarina.livejournal.com]

Pyesetz thinks you are zi_mugudarina of San Francisco
Waaaaaaaaay off. That's not even close to my proxy's location.