Blogger Help Group

Make sure you check out the AOL Imports section of the Blogger Help Group. This is being actively watched and responded to by the folks at Blogger.

Update on Private Journals and Comments

As Joe mentioned earlier today, in order for Blogger to be able to migrate a private journal, you would first need to make it public. There was an issue in this process that would result in the comments being deleted once you made the journal public. We subsequently requested you hold off until we sorted this out. We have.

I'm pleased to report that those of you who maintain private Journals and have been holding off migrating them while we corrected this, you may now proceed to make them to public and start your migration. We made the necessary adjustments which will allow your comments to follow your posts over to Blogger.

How you can help us help you...

Hi again,

In order for us to be able to help with migration issues, especially if you got as far as being able to create a Blogger URL, it really helps if you include that URL in your comments when looking for help. While you're at it, please include your AOL Journal URL too, although your comment is associated with a blog we want to make sure we have all the facts.

Migration Update

A Couple of Updates

Issue 1- Failures to Find Journals
Blogger have been examining some of the failure cases that have been reported and after testing URLs given to us, it appears there may be some confusion around URL to use when starting the migration.  So the Journals URL you need to enter should be the one people use to view the blog. The URL should never contain white space.

Example:

Good URL:  http://journals.aol.com/screenname/TitleOfBlogWithoutSpaces
Not So Good URL:  http://journals.aol.com/screenname/Title Of Blog With Spaces

Issue 2- Failure to Upload Journals Image
Blogger is currently having problems uploading Journals images that were added directly from AOL Photos when that feature became available March 2007. These images use the URL structure http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid= . Blogger is working on the issue. If you've already imported your Journal to Blogger you may need to reimport it to copy these photos over. Oct 10 Update: Images of the form pictures.aol.com/ap/simgleImage.do?.... are now importing into Picasa Web Albums.

Blogger.com Transfer Update

All,

Now that we've had about a day's worth of transfers to Blogger, we've tracked a couple of issues that I wanted to make you aware of, and I wanted to reiterate a couple of important tidbits.

Private Journals & Comments - While it's possible to move a private journal to Blogger by first making it public, it does look like there is an issue in importing the comments from that journal, and they may in fact be deleted upon import. We're is investigating a solution to this one, and will let you know the moment it's in place. Until then, unless you either don't have any comments, or don't care to keep them, I'd suggest you hold off on migrating private journals for now.

Account Name Already In Use - If you had established your Blogger blogs prior to the import using the same blog name, the Blogger importer will *not* be able to use it as it will not overwrite any files.  You'll first have to clear out or rename your placeholder Blogger blog, then re-initiate the import process. 

Feature Requests for Blogger - While we've been working very closely with the good folks at Blogger for the migration, we're really not at all involved with the future development or enhancement of their product.  I'd encourage you to use their feedback mechanisms to make these suggestions, as they may never see them here in Magic Smoke.

AOL Pictures and Albums - As Frank commented below, individual AOL Pictures images in your Journal are actually getting copied over to Google's Picasa. AOL Pictures albums, however, will not be included in the import process.  If you wish to re-associate your AOL Pictures albums with your new Blogger blog, you'll have to do that manually.  Ditto if you wish to move them to Picasa.

Blogger Can't Find Your Journal - Is your journal marked private?  If so, that would be why. Prior to making it public and initiating the import process, please review the first bullet point above.  If the journal is *not* private, let us know and we'll try to figure out why it's not being found.

Images Not Stored in AOL Pictures - Images hosted anyplace *other* than AOL Pictures are not being automatically copied to Picasa, and will have to be copied over manually, if you desire.

I think that about covers all of the known issues at this point.

I know there is a lot of anger and frustration out there about this shutdown, but please understand that we are doing everything we can to make this as painless as possible.  The team doing this work is primarily composed of the same people who developed and managed Journals through it's launch and growth stages, and we're just as sad as you are that the call was made to retire the product. Our partnership with Blogger isn't making us a dime, and was done solely because they offer a very solid product and are backed by very passionate people who were willing to take on quite a bit of heavy lifting to make this a smooth transition. Our collective hats are off to them for being such great partners in this, and if you give this a shot, I think you'll be very happy being part of the Blogger family.

Tags: Journals, Blogger, Shutdown, Migration, Import

Blogger.com

As you probably know by now, AOL Journals is scheduled to be permanently shut down on Oct. 31. It’s never an easy decision to shut down a product, especially one like AOL Journals that some of our members have used and loved for many years. But with a decline in Journals usage, we have to look carefully at all of AOL’s features and products to ensure we’re using our limited development and operational resources in ways that provide the greatest value to the largest number of members as possible.
 
Though we know this is an inconvenience, the good news is that we've partnered with the good people at Blogger.com to provide a smooth transition for your journal. Blogger is a free service from Google that makes it easy to share your thoughts with friends and the world. Blogger supports most of the features you've come to expect from AOL Journals, and it's easy to get started. If you wish to transfer your journal to Blogger, they will move your posts, comments and photos to your new blog on their service. When you're ready, go to this link to get started.

 

We've conducted a fair amount of internal testing against the Blogger.com import process over the past few weeks, and have identified a few issues that you may run into:

• Some users may get "Transfer process failed" error when trying to import their AOL Journals. They may need to clear their cookies and try again.


• Badly formatted HTML may cause Embed or Object tags not to be imported.


• Some users may see the import fail during the final "Publish imported posts now" step. Refreshing the page usually solves this problem. Also, some users will be able to go to www.blogger.com to view, edit, and publish their imported blog, even after the failure message.


• AOL Pictures Albums embedded in your Journal will not automatically migrate over during the standard process. Individual images will migrate just fine, but any albums you wish to re-associate with your Blogger blog will have to be done manually, post-migration.


• If your Journal is currently marked Private, you'll have to flip it to public status prior to the migration, otherwise the import tool will not be able to find it.  Once you've moved the Journal to Blogger, you'll be able to set it to private again at your leisure.

You can always find the latest list of general Blogger Known Issues here: http://knownissues.blogspot.com and Blogger's AOL Journals Help here: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=112742.
 
If you are planning to move your Journal to Blogger, we recommend that you help your readers find your new blog by posting a redirect link in your AOL Journal, which will stay live and fully functional until Oct.31.

Tags: Journals, Sunset, Blogger

AOL Hometown

Instructions for downloading your files from AOL Hometown are contained in this entry on the AOL People Connection blog. This only works for US-based accounts.

Keeping in touch

With the demise of AOL Journals, we'll lose the Alerts system for keeping track of journals. So, something else needs to take its place. I suggest to use a feedreader. One is provided by Google, called Google Reader. If you've set up a Blogger blog, you've set up a Google account. Google Reader is part of that. It's fairly simple to use.

Each blog has a so-called RSS feed, often indicated by an orange graphic in the address bar. You can subscribe to that by clicking on the graphic . You are then prompted to specify which feedreader to use, and confirm. All you have to do from there on is check back the Reader at regular intervals. You will be notified of comments through Blogger, or whichever journaling hosting service you use.

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_1

Wednesday 1 October

I'm very pleased that many are already changing to a Blogger blog.

Sue [catslittertray] has come
up with an idea to keep in touch through Facebook. I'm unfamiliar with
that site, but email her direct for details. Suffix her screenie with
@aol.com, and it'll reach her.


Similarly, Sal has set up a group on MSN.
(edit 13.34 BST)


I am extremely concerned about the number of people that are as yet
unaware of the changeover, and have requested Vish to transfer all the
unclaimed blogs to a dedicated Blogger account, admin'd by me. Haven't
had word back yet (it's 5.10 am in CA), but hope it's going to work.



If you don't know which blogs you host on AOL, put the following into your browser's address bar: journals.aol.com/screenname and hit Enter. It'll come up with a list. Or not.



The migration link will be accessible in a couple of days from now.

In case you haven't been reading my comments..

Some of my responses to users comments

To Paul, yes a copy of your journal will be made on Blogger. Your journal will still be available till Nov 1st. Also, the migration will be opened up to Journals users starting on or after Oct. 7th. We will be using this week to iron out any kinks in the process.

To
Sherri - I would not worry about the migration too much. It should be
fairly straightforward. Blogger will also have a helpdesk that you can
send email to, if you have any issues and a live real person will
respond and help out. So, all efforts have been made to minimize the
pain.

To Yasmin (cayasm) and everybody else - Your journals will
be copied over in its ENTIRETY (entries, comments, about me). So,
anything else you hear is not true.

And no, your email account is not affected by this at all as some have been suggesting.

I understand that people are upset and that is okay. However, I request you to be patient and understanding as we work thru this process.

Vish

Trying out Blogger

I know a lot of you are trying out Blogger by creating blogs. So, when you create a test blog over there, call it something other than the name you want to use for your journal.

The reason I say that is because during the migration (read:copy) process, it will ask you for a blog name on Blogger into which to copy your journal. At which point you might not get the name that you wanted, because you have used it up on the test blog.

Of course, like everything in life there is a way around this, but I do not want to complicate your life any more than it is now. If you are savvy with Blogger then feel free to go and grab a name of your choice. I will show you a way to use that name to migrate your journal later.

The best thing you can do ahead of the actual migration is to create a gmail or blogger account.

Vish
p.s I created a blog on Blogger called jlandhub.blogspot.com as a placeholder for magic smoke(sadly i could not get magicsmoke.blogspot.com).

1 November

On this date:

All AOL Journals will be deleted, and no longer be accessible. Their content will be migrated to Blogger before that time - again, TBC.
All files, images, data, hosted on AOL Hometown will be deleted and no longer be accessible. It is advisable to download photo albums hosted on AOL Pictures (see procedure a couple of entries back) and host them somewhere else.

I've got to leave it to Vish to alleviate concerns regarding the private journals - I'm just giving technical support and relaying whatever info comes my way.

Migration - the timetable

This week, a trial-run will be performed on one or two selected journals. They will be transferred to Blogger, to ensure the procedure works. A further announcement will be made when this procedure goes live to all users.

Please be patient, a heck of a lot of work is going into this. Keep monitoring Magic Smoke for updates.

Stating the obvious

PLEASE RELAY ALL INFORMATION TO ANY USER OF AOL JOURNALS WHO MAY NOT BE AWARE OF THIS CHANGEOVER.

Private journals

Only public journals can
be migrated. The plan is that the user just prior to migration will
change the status of the journal to public. After which s/he will
migrate the journal and will be given a choice to make the Blogger blog
private at the end of the migration.The user of course has to come back to AOL Journals to revert the journal to private status again

Backing up journals

If you have qualms about the transfer process to Blogger, it might be an idea to invest some time (read: hours or days) in backing up your journals. The procedure below does not take comments along, but at least you have your posts and graphics.

1. Go to the front page of your blog, and click just left of the date stamp on the top entry. Holding your left mouse-button down, drag the mouse cursor to the bottom right of the page. It will automatically scroll to the bottom, you don't need to work the slider yourself. Now press Ctrl-C.

2. Change to your wordprocessing application, which you have opened on a blank page, and press Ctrl-V. Your entry will be copied into the word processor.

3. Return to the journal page and go to the bottom, where it says Older Entries. Click this link. The URL indicator will now change to your journal's URL and the suffix /?page=2.

Repeat points 1 and 2 BUT take care to paste your entries at the TOP, i.e. at the START of your wordprocessing document EACH TIME. Journals entries are listed in reverse chronological order on the site.

If your journal has many entries, this will take a long, long time.

Dormant journals

Guido wrote:


I do restate my concerns about blogs which are not being updated
(temporarily or permanently), and a very sore point would be those
journals that were written by those that have since passed away. Will
the transfer to Blogger be an active, or a passive move - by that I
mean: do we as users have to make a move, or will AOL do it for us,
whether we are actively involved in that or not.

Vish's reply:

Unfortunately, this will be
an opt-in process. Meaning users will have to create an account on
Blogger, and go to the migration page and request for the migration.
So, dormant blogs will be lost..sadly.

Guido's comment:
I have requested the dormant blogs to be copied over to my Blogger account. I'll probably be inundated with blogs on November 1st, but I don't care. If anyone has any thoughts or problems with that, please leave a comment. There is a procedure on Blogger to transfer ownership of a blog.

Start now - AOL Hometown

AOL Hometown (including File Manager) is heading for the chop as well. So, head for http://hometown.aol.com/_fm (if you're in the US) or http://hometown.aol.co.uk/_fm if you're in the UK.

The easiest way to deal with image files from Hometown is to open a Photobucket account, if you don't already have one. Apologies for singling out one site, but they offer the option of uploading from a URL.

1. Right-click each link on File Manager and copy the link location
2. Go to the upload location on Photobucket, selecting upload by URL
3. Paste (Ctrl-V) the URL into the relevant box
4. Repeat for each and every image file.

File Manager also contains your AOL hosted webpages (*.html), which you will also lose when Hometown goes by November.

1. Open each page on a separate browser window or tab (if your version of Internet Explorer allows).

2. Click File, then Save Page As - complete HTML, which will save the HTML to your harddisk drive. You can then clean the HTML of all the AOL garbage that it contains and upload it to your own website outside AOL.

Clarification

I hope Vish won't mind if I clarify a few things.

Back in July, it was decided by Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of Products for AOL, that a plethora of products should be sunset because they don't make enough money. Read this official email here.

Apart from AOL Journals, this also includes AOL Hometown. Some of us are familiar with AOL Hometown as an area of FTP-space (storing static images, not animations), with a very poor user interface. I have no official word at all about AOL Pictures: the AOL Pictures blog has not been updated for 13 months, and there is no word on the Pictures site. Personally, I'd suggest to save anything stored on both 'products' to your own harddisk asap.

Finally, please don't shoot the messenger. 

Sad but true..Journals closing its doors

As most of you already know, Journals will be officially closing its doors on Nov 1st, 2008. This has been a tough month for me, as I am as much a part of JLand as you (having been part of the product's development team since its inception).

The good news here is that AOL is working on a migration plan and most likely destination is Blogger. So, you will soon receive another email (I think scheduled to go out Oct 7th) describing the migration process.

Although, it is incredibly
sad that JLand as we know it, is going away, I think this is the best thing to
happen for JLanders. In fact, the advantages of moving to Blogger are many..
- users can
permanently save their blogs as books or other files (something that a lot of you have been asking for).
- we can grow the
community over there.
-
users can monetize their blogs by putting ads in their blog

- you can get better themes and so on...

I am planning to migrate the Magic Smoke blog over, so that it can be the hub that we had here. So, in the coming
days and weeks I look to your support and ideas to make sure we keep the
community together after the migration.

And finally, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for some great memories. I have made lot of friends and you guys deserve all the credit for making JLand the finest example of community on the web.

Thanks and
Peace,

Vish
p.s Folks are wondering if their entire journal will be migrated and the answer is yes. ALL entries, comments, pictures, polls, videos will be migrated.