I would like to offer a foreword. The following are some suggestions to save work that has been posted on Open Salon. I am not advocating that these suggestions are the only ways or the best ways to do this. You may have your own strategy - and that is fine. These are simply my personal preferences and I am posting this for people to have options and efficient alternatives. If you like, please post detailed descriptions of your own preference. I would really really really appreciate some restraint in the comments and mail messages. I know that some people will want to say that such-and-such is a dumb, obtuse approach and launch into an intense, passionate 'ad hominem' attack. Please save your energy, if that indeed is your response. I am truly tired of the consistent negativity of some people to these 'how to' posts. These methods are stated because they simply work for me.
Previously, there was an article about protecting text content of a written article: How to Prevent Losing Work on Open Salon. The focus of this approach is to prevent work from vanishing because there was a browser or a site problem.
After an article has been published, there are often comments that the writer may want to preserve, as well as the article itself. There is an easy way to do this:
1. find your article that you want to save. For this example, let's use an article that my father allowed me to post on this space. The article was: Joplin and Dangerous Women.
2. to continue with this example, go to the article. Let's assume that you want to save it. Click "file" along the top of your browser.
3. find "Save as" from the drop down menu.
4. save the file to your desktop (that is just a convenient location).
4. now, go to the desktop and click on the file.
You will find the page saved, along with all the comments and graphics. That Open Salon page will be saved to a file on your desktop. Each page that you wish to save can be done in this way and then archived in a dedicated folder.
Method Two
There are some times when the text content of an article needs to be portable. That can be done by putting the article on a text editor and then copying the file to a jump drive. An alternative method is to use an email service such as Google Gmail as an online storage site:
1. create an email account for the purposes of storage. An example may be: opensalonimportantstuff@gmail.com. (This is a fictitious email account.) Google offers a generous amount of megabytes for free storage.
2. copy the text to a Compose Mail window - and mail it to the account itself (opensalonimportantstuff@gmail.com).
3. the incoming email that you are sending to yourself can be archived in various folders. I have folders for dog articles, security articles, sports articles and so forth.
There are numerous reasons why I use Google Gmail for archiving. It saves hard drive space on the laptop. The Google email is available at any internet connection. I don't need to have my own laptop or netbook to access the work. And finally, there is the "Search Mail" function that helps me to locate an article.
Again, using my father's article as an example, if I have it archived in a Google Gmail account, I can locate it easily. I know that Janis Joplin was discussed in that article. I would "search mail" for the word 'Joplin' or the word string 'Janis Joplin'. The Gmail service would locate the email that I am wanting to see.
Certainly, it is possible that Google may have a major catastrophe and have an email failure. However, Google has redundancy in its servers and its reputation at stake. An additional security measure would be to forward each correspondence file to yet another email account, for an additional archived copy.
A Final Third Method
I used the article done by my father as the example for a specific reason. In that article there are two videos. Now, if my goal is to archive everything including the videos, I can do that with the HTML (HyperText Markup Language). It is easy and I can do it without any knowledge of computer coding. And so can you.
In Open Salon, go to More ---> Manage Posts ---> Edit (for the specific article needed). When on the "Edit Post" page, click the small box with HTML inside it. It is two lines below where the article tags are placed.
After clicking that small box with HTML on it, another window will open. That will be the HTML Source Editor. Now, you want to save everything in that Source Editor window. From the top left hand corner to the very end of the article, highlight and copy.
Paste that somewhere. It can be in a text editor, an email or anywhere you want to save important information. This HTML code that you have copied to the clipboard will replicate the article and videos exactly. Therefore, my father's article with the videos can be replicated precisely at some other site. All that needs to be done is for me to take this HTML code and paste it in the appropriate place on another site. That will allow me to transfer that article intact from Open Salon to whatever site I have decided to reproduce the article. It would take only a few minutes to copy and paste the code. And you don't even have to know what the code means. In my case, I know that my father's article looked fine on Open Salon and the coding was good. I just have to paste it.
These are just some proactive approaches to saving work that has been posted to Open Salon. Part of the financial/business news of November 29 (2010) was the possibility of a merger and/or acquisition of Salon.com. Naturally, that caused some concerns over the fate of Open Salon. The hope is that Open Salon continues to function in an uninterrupted fashion, no matter what happens with Salon.com.
Nevertheless, internet history has indicated that operational parameters of sites change rapidly. Further, for any website, redundancy is important. Data catastrophes can happen. These methods allow some personal options to prevent the possibility that a sole copy of your work disappears forever into that internet ether. In case of problems, you will have a functional copy/copies of your previous efforts.
Catherine Forsythe
S.O.S. - Save Open Salon?
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
rugrat
ccdarling
Erica K
Director of Studies
Stephanie Russell-Kraft
Jeremiah Horrigan
Salon.com
Comments
learn and the hard-wired brain cells hurt! ... rated ... lew
Brian, perhaps you might have more time for whack-a-mole! Thanks for your constant support of these articles! It is truly appreciated.
There are dozens of ways to save content and I doubt anyone knows them all. Personally, it's post like this that I like because I always manage to learn something new. I'm always up for learning an easier way to manage my computering, so big thanks in advance for this.
Question: Above, referring to something with a video in it, you said, ""take this HTML code and paste it in the appropriate place on another site.""
OK. What are appropriate sites for doing this? I may not wish to post it somewhere but that is all I know how to do. I don't know how to put it into an email or make a copy in Word (if that is even possible) or anything. Yeah, I'm so new to all this that I still have my price tag on.
Any help will be much appreciated.
As for putting it in an email, it is just composing the email and pasting everything there. Send the email to yourself and you have a personal archive, in case you ever need it.
You are a sterling example of all that is good on Open Salon. Your helpfulness and proactive citizenship in this small world that we call OS is exemplary.
Snarkers are inconsequential to all of us who love you.
This possibilty of OS being jettisoned into cyberspace purgatory is a hard thing for those of us who consider OS a real community is difficult. By keeping us abreast of these possiblities, you have allowed us to get used to that idea. It is a long slow death where we can have the time to say goodbye rather than the instant loss of a heart attack.
And, who knows? Perhaps someone buying Salon may recognize Open Salon as being the best part of Salon and keep our small world alive.
I have appreciated everyone who has recommended other sites and, in my "farewell address", I will recommend my own perch. But no place will ever be like this place.
One request is how I manage to save my RicTresa original banner. There is some code somewhere...
Again, Catherine, I thank you for your unselfish sharing in this community.
Thankee muchly!
rated with much appreciation
HUGGGGGGGG
I believe you are the canary in the coal mine, and people (me) need to be backing up our accounts in the cloud somewhere, given the nature of the market and all it's vagaries. I fully expect that one day, perhaps soon, we will attempt to open our OS link, and it will read "server not located" - so thanks for this.
Another OS friend pm'd me that all he did to save his posts, although time consuming, is to copy and paste the post to a Word doc.
And as you referenced emailing, I thought it easy to use the OS email feature at the top of the post, email to myself and save to an OS file. Also time consuming but ensures we can then back up our OS posts to an external hard drive for posterity.
I really like your idea of a separate email account (gmail) for this purpose.
Thanks a million!
In method one, is the file actually saved on my computer and still available even if, for example, the OS servers are turned off and sold for scrap? Is it possible to "port" these kind of files directly into another site like Blogger (Google's blogging site????)
What would your recommended method be for those of us that might want to create a redundant site to protect /move our prior posts? (Come one! I know you have a favorite!!! ;~) )
I use a windows system.
I'm abot=e to save a lot of things in my "documents" file and, it is just like google's "cache" in that it saves everything that you typed/read, etc.
Other than that, Catherine's how to's are very good.
Now I'll be able to easily back up everything in time for Lola to have her picture taken with santa at her favorite doggie store ; )
You can also highlight the text located in the post, right-click Copy and paste the text in a Word file. Then, you save the file as a Word document. All the hyperlinks and figures will be copied in the text.
Thanks for all your suggestions.