#datahoarding

[badgraph1csghost]

How to Use a Computer, Part 6: Datahoarding and You

I know, I said that part 6 would be about how to mod your PC, but we're going to put that off for a bit. The future of the internet looks pretty sketchy right now, what with Hachette v. Internet Archive, RESTRICT, and KOSA. Right now, the US Government is desperately trying to censor as much free information as possible by any means, so I thought it would be good to discuss the basics of datahoarding.

First, what is datahoarding? Just what it sounds like-- you hoard data. To hoard data, you simply download it to your computer and save it locally. "Local" meaning "on your computer", as opposed to "off-site" which would mean a cloud storage server someplace. You might be tempted to store your datahoard in the cloud, but don't. We're trying to save data FROM the internet, not jockey it about between servers ON the internet.

There's a wide variety of data to hoard, and it may seem sometimes like there's too much; so, hoard based on your interests. If you're into Doom level CDs, hoard that. If you're into recipe books from the 1840s, hoard that. If you're into MIDI sequences, hoard that. I won't get too much into where to find that stuff, apart from the Internet Archive; but Reddit might know something about where to find specialised data.

Instead, let's discuss some helpful datahoarding tools, both physical and software. I briefly mentioned a pair of extensions in the Firefox section; SingleFile and DownThemAll; but I failed to mention that Firefox has some downloading abilities of its own; like Internet Explorer of old, it has the option to Save Image As, Save File As, and Save Video As. Unfortunately, "Save Video As" will not work on Youtube or any commercial streaming service. It will work on Tiktok, however. Both the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox have this ability, so if you see a nifty kind of video on your dash that you'd rather like to hang onto, either right-click with your 2-button mouse, long-click with your 1-button mouse, or long-press on your touchscreen, and select "Save Video As" or "Save File to Device". Hey! That was easy.

Incidentally, since we'll be encountering ZIP files a lot during our datahoarding endeavours, Firefox also has the innate ability to immediately distinguish between one of those malicious "website dot zip" links and a genuine ZIP file. If you find a link to something ending in "zip", hover your cursor over it and look at the bottom-left corner of the browser window. If it's a domain name, the information will look something like...

However, if it is a legitimate ZIP file that 7-Zip or Windows Explorer can open, it will look like this...

Now, of course, you'll still want to use a bit of common sense when you download anything. Just because it's a legit ZIP file doesn't necessarily mean that the files the author claims are in the folder are actually there. Firefox can't protect you from things you voluntarily install on your computer. Now then, here's a picture that you can practise datahoarding on. Right-click, long-click, or long-press on this image and select "Save Image As" or "Save File to Device".

Back to Firefox's datahoarding extensions. SingleFile will condense all the data on a webpage into a single HTML document and save it to your Downloads folder for offline review. It works better on some websites than others. Like Tumblr, for instance; it can't save your entire dashboard, but it can probably save pages of your blog, as long as it's mostly text and still images. SingleFile is better suited for webpages that are static, non-dynamic, such as Reddit threads and old-web pages.

If you want to save a Wikipedia article, you won't need SingleFile. A little-known function of Wikipedia is its ability to generate PDF versions of its articles. At the top of the article, directly below the Log In button, click on "Tools", and select "Download as PDF".

DownThemAll allows you to be more selective about the types of files that you want to download from a webpage. You can download audio files, pictures, videos, text, archive files (namely ZIP, 7Z, and RAR), binary executables (EXE and MSI, for instance), other kinds of files, or all files that it is able to download. You can also give it links to files that you want to download so you can create a queue. You don't have to actually be on the website whose server the file is stored on in order to actually download from there with DTA, which makes it helpful for FTP servers.

If you want to save a snapshot of your current screen; maybe you're on a website that you can't download from, maybe you're playing a game without a unified screenshotting system, whatever; press the Print Screen key on your keyboard. The key may say something like "Print", "PrintSc", "PrtSc", or "PtScr". This will allow you to take a screenshot of the current appearance of your screen and save it to the clipboard. Once you have it, open MS Paint and either click "Paste" or hold "Ctrl" and press "V" to insert the screenshot into the Paint workspace. At this point, you can either save it as it is, or do anything else to it that you would ordinarily do in Paint; add text, draw on it, crop it, stretch it, resize it, that sort of thing.

All of that having been said, datahoarding takes up a lot of disk space. Drive C is going to fill up mighty quick, depending on what data you're hoarding, and you're going to want an alternative storage device. That's why I cautioned against using a cloud storage service earlier; Google offers a seemingly unlimited amount of storage in their Drive service, but, like everything else they do, it's monitored. If you upload a folder full of Star Trek DVD rips, they're going to see that and they may lock you out of your account. Moreover, if you happen to be an American, they may volunteer that information to the FBI, as they've been known to do, and suddenly, you're the subject of an investigation. Fuck all that.

Remember when I talked about optical drives last week? This is where they really shine. Get yourself a spindle of 100 blank DVD-Rs and tell Windows to use them all like flashdrives. It'll take awhile for the computer to write everything to disc, but this is a better long-term storage solution than a cloud service and it's cheaper than a USB hard drive. Each DVD has about 4 GB of storage, which is adequate for about 20 episodes of a half-hour TV programme, every game ever released for every console made in the 1980s, and the entire World Book Encyclopedia, complete with pictures; and you've got 100 of them!

I know, I know-- every hobbyist datahoarder is calling me an idiot right now for recommending DVDs, saying "they don't last long enough". Mate, there's no such thing as a 100-year medium in the 21.2nd century. Not even your expensive 16 TB HDDs are going to last that long. The fact is, as long as you handle your disc media with care, they're on absolutely even footing with USB hard disk drives. The other fact is, the more storage you have on a single disk drive, the harder it's going to be to create a backup copy when the time comes. If your 16 TB HDD is going to fly apart tomorrow, you're never going to be able to back up everything stored on it, and you'll have a catastrophic data loss. At least with DVDs, 4 GB is easy to back up in a pinch, and they're easier to destroy in case your hoard takes you to the high seas and the local constabulary pops round for a visit. While you're buying things, also buy a box of CD jewel cases (the hard plastic ones with the hinge) because you'll need somewhere to store all these DVDs and the spindle is really not the best place for that.

Now that we're quite a bit down the page and certain people are not paying attention anymore, r/datahoarding is a gathering of hobbyist datahoarders who can turn you onto sources of data, Internet Archive collections, and websites that may have interesting stuff for you to grab. If your hoard is going to contain mostly game ROMs and ISOs, r/roms has you covered. Imagine being the guy who decided not to call the piracy subreddit “r/mateys”. Oh well.

Anyway, that's all we have for datahoarding. Join us next time as we discuss modding your PC (for real this time).

[reseptivaras]

all of this is great but relying on neocities or dreamwidth or tumblr or any service to stay up (and free!) is not ideal

save the media and information you care about, take backups (ideally have an "off site" copy, at a parents / friends house)

also, if anyone wants to learn how to make their own website (for fanfic archival or any reason), feel free to ask me. either here on tumblr or @reisir on discord.

kind of a tangent but, i have also made a script that downloads every youtube video you like. because the internet does forget. i won't.

How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps

As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.

But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!

Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!

Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.

Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".

Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!

Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.

Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.

Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.

Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)

The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".

Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.

Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)

Blogpost version, with FAQs and discussion

Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:

Melannen's Fanfiction Archive

(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)

If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!

[swissdatahoarding]

Tutorial um HDD / SSD zu kaufen, indem man 10 CHF Geld gratis kriegt: einfach bis morgen 26 März hier anmelden und Cashback sammeln https://ift.tt/khYwu4Z via /r/swissdatahoarding https://ift.tt/LAetcgp #swissdatahoarding #swiss #switzerland #schweiz #svizzera #suisse #datahoarder #datahoarding #storage #disk #drive #backup #cloud #usb #ssd #hdd #memory #archive

[gender-trash]

update: i made a script for downloading fics with workskins from ao3 as epubs complete with workskin styling! i've tested it on exactly two (2) fics so uhhh if you try it out and it breaks please file an issue or send me anon hate or something and i'll take an peep

[frankierohugejorts]

is anyone here good with computers?

hey guys, so ever since jude died i've been trying to sorting thru his socials and stuff, and ive been trying to like. see if i can archive some of his stuff, especially pictures and videos of him

ive been trying to do this on tumblr, but bc his privacy settings are set to 'hide from ppl without an account' i cannot use an original post finder tool and i can't even access his /archive page, and trying to scroll thru his blog manually is almost impossible bc eventually the site reloads and sends me back to the beginning, and changing the page number in the url manually does nothing, so i cant even find my place again

ive been looking into those webpage archiver tools, (like tumblthree i think?) but i don't understand enough about computers to know how to run most of them im finding in places like github, and even if i did i only have access to a chromebook, so im unable to download a program, especially one that runs on windows or linux

anyway, im basically wondering if there's anyone who knows about computers who might be able to give me any sort of advice or point me in the direction of a decent archiving site or chrome addon that doesnt require any special apps and might be able to actually access jude's blog, and maybe won't give me 8 billion viruses???

[signeficunt]

if youtube ever goes down for good and u want to watch any of these videos again u know who to call 🤙😎

i can't believe i missed james somertons apology video 😭😭

[penebui]

Clear File of Osamu Tezuka’s MACROSS THE ART 1982-2018 (Sold Out)

[ranvwoop]

I am generally a proponent for being able to care about multiple things however every post i see fearmongering about @o3 hypothetically being Censored because What if they come for your f*nfiction is. hmm

[amuseablesun]

hey, mysterious benedict society enjoyers!

i read about the series getting scrubbed from disney+ and it genuinely broke my heart. the novels were my comfort series as a kid and i wanted a tv/movie adaptation for as long as i can remember. for it to be scrubbed like this just so disney can cheat their writers and not pay their taxes is nothing short of disrespectful to the people who worked on the show. i refuse to let it hit the memory hole.

i have a full copy of the show, both seasons, available as .mp4 files, and i'm happy to share! i'm not gonna drop a link or anything in here bc i would like to keep my blog, but if you want the files just dm me! i'm glad to send it over.

[multidimensional-trashcan]

The tale of Rumpelstilzchen (rumpelstiltskin) has lost any and all meaning in our world. Ten seconds after Rumpelstilzchen tells the queen he won’t take her firstborn if she guesses his name correctly she would just call Mark Zuckerberg and would not only receive the name but also birth certificate, search history, preferences in bed, bank account details and every single password he ever used. And not only wouldn’t she find that creepy at all but she would probably congratulate Zuckerberg on his business model which ‘benefits the whole kingdom’.

[badgraph1csghost]

Damn son. Shit went DOWN here while i was away writing html huh.

[anyonghalimaw]

so. tumblr shitting itself coz capitalism demands endless constant growth that eventually becomes unsustainable huh

[swissdatahoarding]

Strompreise 2023 in der Schweiz. Von 8.49 Rp./kWh (Zwischbergen) bis auf 58.76 Rp./kWh (Gaiserwald). k.A. wo 70.78. Medianwert 27.2 Rappen pro Kilowattstunde. Dies entspricht einer Zunahme von fast 30%. via /r/swissdatahoarding https://ift.tt/0SyGfXo #swissdatahoarding #swiss #switzerland #schweiz #svizzera #suisse #datahoarder #datahoarding #storage #disk #drive #backup #cloud #usb #ssd #hdd #memory #archive

[gender-trash]

my hobby: downloading PDFs

[fake-colors]

time to do some data entry work to catalog the ridiculous amount of digital files i've collected >.< hold on in the process of writing this i realized i have over 10,000 things to organize... dear fucking god. i already have the workflow figured out luckily but uhhhhhh that's a lot

[pleasant-plant-x]

I FUCKING LOVE M-DISC !

I WANT PILES UPON PILES OF OPTICAL MEDIA VIRTUALY IMMUNE TO BITROT !