well, let's say you start a journal... and when you first start on LJ you make all of your posts Public (save the few restricted or private posts you might make with little reminders to yourself, e.g., a confirmation number for something you ordered off the net)... but then after you've been around a while, you decided that you are going to make your journal "Friends Only" effectie immediately, and that now the vast majority of your LJ posts from this point onward are going to be "Restricted/Friends Only"... you would (well, this is how i did it in my journal, anyway) make a PUBLIC POST with your F/O Sign.... and then go the LJ ADMIN CONSOLE and execute the following command:

set newpost_minsecurity

Do not enter the < or > symbols; these are only for reference purposes. To set the minimum security level to Friends-Only, replace with "friends". To set the minimum security level to Private, replace with "private". To set the minimum security level to Public, replace with "public".

More information may be found in this LJ FAQ ( ... )

Wow! Thanks for all the info.

I pretty much only want to make a few of my posts friends only though. The majority of it is public, but every now and then I'll make one friends only. Is there a way to put the banners on like the little random ones here and there?..or do I have to make the entire thing f/o to use it?

Thanks again :)