\n ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/dowcd.jpg\")
Another
\n of the topics of interest that came up on Thursday night, and which was
\n driven home in dramatic fashion mere hours later by the bollocks in the
\n Berkman server, was the precarious nature of digital archives, and the
\n worries that bloggers have about permanence of their work and writing.<\/p>\n
Dave said that was the kind of problem he liked, because he could sit
\n down in a few hours and come up with a solution. We don’t know
\n what he had in mind, but we have given some thought to the problem and
\n concluded that what we need is an easy way to convert a month’s worth
\n of the Dowbrigade News into a PDF. Burn 12 monthly PDFs onto a CD and
\n you have a fairly stable, relatively permanent record of one year’s worth
\n of your Blog.<\/p>\n
It could be stored and used as a backup or archive. Good quality
\n CDs are supposed to last up to 100 years. It could also be given as a
\n gift or stocking stuffer, sent to people who
\n live
\n in isolated
\n off-line backwaters or read on airplanes. For certain more stylish
\n and less topical blogs, it may be a superior mode of distribution.<\/p>\n
Since we use OS X, it is simple to create a great-looking PDF
\n by using the built-in "create pdf" option in the print dialog box .If
\n only Manila had an option to display a whole month of posts at a time,
\n it would be very useful for creating pdf archives.<\/p>\n
We currently try to do this once a week, usually on Sundays, but since
\n it is hard for the Dowbrigade to remember where he parked his car from
\n day to day, let alone something that is supposed to happen once a week,
\n and because when we are posting at a robust rate we can only display
\n about
\n four days
\n at
\n a
\n time,
\n our record
\n contains
\n many
\n gaps.<\/p>\n
An easy format for storage and archiving as well as non-networked distribution.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another of the topics of interest that came up on Thursday night, and which was driven home in dramatic fashion mere hours later by the bollocks in the Berkman server, was the precarious nature of digital archives, and the worries … Continue reading