RANT: Yahoo! Geocities = FAIL
The date's in: Yahoo! Geocities is closing for good on October 26, 2009,
They announced the intention early this year, but I was waiting for the final leg, somewhat confident that they would give some means for us to save our website when they finally nailed down a due date. I got an email yesterday, and I quote:
"To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears. Choose a location on your computer to save your files, then click OK or Save"
Bwuh?! ..are they serious? So, they're basically telling me to browse MY site like any other visitor, go through all my links, and click "Save Page As". And hey, here's hoping
I haven't updated my website since they stopped FTP access (i.e. where they let you use a desktop client to manage the files of your website), but I do know that they replaced it with a web-based file manager... 'cause how else were you going to put your files on your website. It stands to reason that you should have a similar option IN THE WEB-BASED FILE MANAGER to download your files. The mind-boggling thing is they directed users to scour their websites from oblivion like a public user. Basically, they haven't provided a way to save our websites--they're saying, "uh, do it yourselves, like you would any site. ..Oh, or, if you want, you can pay us and then you can keep your site." *glowers*
I just tried it in Chrome: I couldn't even view my offline page because the public page I just saved included all the Geocities junk (ads and extra tags and javascript)... so what? I'm supposed to go in now and carefully clean it up?
I know I'm a bit riled up, and it may seem weird, because really: I'm not sure anyone uses their Geocities web page anymore. I know I don't, although I kind of like going back once in a while to reminisce. And I'm also confident that I will be able to salvage my site despite no help from Geo..
I guess the reason why it bugs me so is because I've been on the Internet a long time... and I've professionally developed web applications for the past 7 years (fiddle with websites and communities before that), and this just seems such like a BASIC thing. [Seriously: a file manager that only lets you put in files, but not download a copy? HUH?] ...*takes self to a corner and froths at the mouth*
Okay. Okay. Anyway, rant over. If you DO have a Geocities account, I've found two methods that I'd be willing to try:
HTTrack is a web-grabber utility; it basically does what Geocities is suggesting you do: browse a site and save a copy. But it's all automated (with some setting tweaks) so that you can let it run and tada-you've got a copy. The problem with this (I think), is that it has the same issues with going to your site and using your browser to save a copy. You still get all the Geocities junk (ads and javascript and who knows what else). If you don't mind though, and just want a copy somewhere, then I'd suggest you look into that.
The sitewizard's instructions is in a way as tedious as Geocities' suggestion, if not moreso, but (1) I think if you're following your filemanager listing, you decrease the risk of missing a file, as you might if you're trying to navigate everywhere on your website, (2) you get your original files and none of the Geocities junk, and (3) THIS is really what Geocities should have provided, without the tedium. :-P
Best of luck.
They announced the intention early this year, but I was waiting for the final leg, somewhat confident that they would give some means for us to save our website when they finally nailed down a due date. I got an email yesterday, and I quote:
"To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears. Choose a location on your computer to save your files, then click OK or Save"
Bwuh?! ..are they serious? So, they're basically telling me to browse MY site like any other visitor, go through all my links, and click "Save Page As". And hey, here's hoping
- you manage to navigate through all your pages and make sure you get EACH one, and
- you're web-savvy enough to know how to save your complete webpage so that you also grab the images and other related files, otherwise all you'll get is a bunch of HTML files without any of the formatting (if you were using CSS) or background images or embedded images--or hey, what about those media files if you've got 'em?
I haven't updated my website since they stopped FTP access (i.e. where they let you use a desktop client to manage the files of your website), but I do know that they replaced it with a web-based file manager... 'cause how else were you going to put your files on your website. It stands to reason that you should have a similar option IN THE WEB-BASED FILE MANAGER to download your files. The mind-boggling thing is they directed users to scour their websites from oblivion like a public user. Basically, they haven't provided a way to save our websites--they're saying, "uh, do it yourselves, like you would any site. ..Oh, or, if you want, you can pay us and then you can keep your site." *glowers*
I just tried it in Chrome: I couldn't even view my offline page because the public page I just saved included all the Geocities junk (ads and extra tags and javascript)... so what? I'm supposed to go in now and carefully clean it up?
I know I'm a bit riled up, and it may seem weird, because really: I'm not sure anyone uses their Geocities web page anymore. I know I don't, although I kind of like going back once in a while to reminisce. And I'm also confident that I will be able to salvage my site despite no help from Geo..
I guess the reason why it bugs me so is because I've been on the Internet a long time... and I've professionally developed web applications for the past 7 years (fiddle with websites and communities before that), and this just seems such like a BASIC thing. [Seriously: a file manager that only lets you put in files, but not download a copy? HUH?] ...*takes self to a corner and froths at the mouth*
Okay. Okay. Anyway, rant over. If you DO have a Geocities account, I've found two methods that I'd be willing to try:
- How to Transfer / Move Your Website from GeoCities [thesitewizard.com]
- HTTrack [httrack.com]
HTTrack is a web-grabber utility; it basically does what Geocities is suggesting you do: browse a site and save a copy. But it's all automated (with some setting tweaks) so that you can let it run and tada-you've got a copy. The problem with this (I think), is that it has the same issues with going to your site and using your browser to save a copy. You still get all the Geocities junk (ads and javascript and who knows what else). If you don't mind though, and just want a copy somewhere, then I'd suggest you look into that.
The sitewizard's instructions is in a way as tedious as Geocities' suggestion, if not moreso, but (1) I think if you're following your filemanager listing, you decrease the risk of missing a file, as you might if you're trying to navigate everywhere on your website, (2) you get your original files and none of the Geocities junk, and (3) THIS is really what Geocities should have provided, without the tedium. :-P
Best of luck.