Friends

lion_lamb
Can a movie based on a novel ever be as good as the book? That's the big question for Twilight fans this week, and a sure topic of discussion on this community devoted to all things Bella and Edward.

geocaching
Have a hankering for a high-tech treasure hunt? After you take your GPS for a walk in the woods in search of the latest geocache (i.e. hidden container), you can share your find, get tech tips, and discuss the sport at this geocaching community.

topmodel
Have we really reached the end of another ANTM cycle? The finalist of Cycle 11 is announced on Wednesday, so expect some fierce discussion and model partisanship at this top Top Model community.

Welcome to a Very Special Edition of LJ News.

Moving Day and What It Means for You

Moving What Where?

The long-awaited server move takes place this Tuesday, November 18, at 8:00 a.m. PST. We're moving the site from servers based in San Francisco to the servers in our new data center in Montana. A massive data move like this takes a lot of heavy lifting, and to haul all that data from San Francisco to Montana, we have to take the site down, starting at 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning. We don't think the move will take more than four hours, but there's always the possibility that it could take longer (the best laid plans and all).

What Does This Mean for You?

During the downtime, nothing on LJ will be available—no posting, no Friends page, no LJ mail, nada. When we bring the site back up, we're going to ease into it rather than open up a floodgate of traffic. Posting might not be immediately available or the site could be slow to load for a while.

New servers mean new IP addresses, so it's possible that LJ mail might not reach your email inbox because your email provider or client doesn't recognize the new IP addresses. We're working with email providers to whitelist the new IPs. There are a few things you can do on your end:

• Add these two IP addresses to your "allowed senders" list (or whitelist) and address book in your email client: 208.93.0.18 and 208.93.0.50. These are the new IPs for sending comments notifications and LJ mail to your email inbox.


• Add lj_notify@livejournal.com and webmaster@livejournal.com to your email address book.

If you can't edit the spam or junk filters in your email client, you may need to disable them entirely. Make these changes just before 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning or shortly after the site comes back up to ensure that your LJ mail makes it to your inbox.

Those of you who use domain aliasing to forward your domain to your LiveJournal will need to create a CNAME record that maps to livejournal.com. Please note that we're no longer supporting the A record. For more information, check the domain forwarding FAQ.

Before the move, you can check lj_maintenance for complete details about the planned downtime. During the move, you can check status.livejournal.org for updates about the site's status.

Permanent Account Sale Delayed

We regret to inform you that due to the server move, the Permanent Account sale has been pushed back to December 4, rather than November 20 as announced in the last news post. After the virtual dust has settled from the move, we'll be able to turn our attention to the Permanent Account sale. Except for the start date, the details remain the same: You have a limited opportunity to purchase LJ for life for only $175. It's a bummer to delay the sale, but on the bright side, you have more time to save up.

But What About A La Carte Userpics?

We know we promised more information about a la carte userpics, and we're sorry that details have not been forthcoming (blame it on the move). We're still planning on having a la carte userpics, but we don’t have any details yet. When the move is over, we'll have more information. We're sorry for the delay.

We're pulling the plug! And putting it back in a different location! Ok, that was bad.

Seriously though, our data center move -- from San Francisco to Montana -- is scheduled for THIS TUESDAY, November 18, 2008 at 16:00 UTC (this equates to 8AM Pacific timezone) and will last for 4 hours. Unfortunately it'll be total downtime for all our sites and services -- no posting, no reading, no email.

Another news announcement will be posted on Monday November 17, including links to updated FAQs that you'll want to check out before the move.

As always, status.livejournal.org will have any updates during the move so bookmark it and check it out for the latest news.

All of us at LiveJournal have been eagerly looking forward to this move and I want to thank you for your patience and understanding as we put the finishing touches on something that will allow us to bring you an even better product in the future.
Though for us in the Ops and Engineering teams, we'll be REALLY happy if, on Tuesday, everything just works the same way it did on Monday.  Heh.

bt

I'm feeling the onset of negativity, but methinks it's more-than-partly down to the fact I'm hungry. Which makes things better. On a sidenote, my abdomen makes a fuckload of noise, but this apparently isn't too bad a thing, as it means there is no obstruction in my bowels, and everything is operating as it should be.

I've been on a bit of a Chuckfest recently: read Fight Club, watched Fight Club, read Choke (where I got the above tidbit of info), read Diary. Probably gonna see Choke on Friday, as it has Sam Rockwell on it, and I feel I haven't seen him in too long.

[A quick look on imdb reveals Sam has kept himself busy, with a short break in 2005-2007. Scrolling further down reveals he was "Head Thug" in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) and "Teddy" in ace Nickelodeon production Pete & Pete.]

... I just keep wanting to gripe about stuff cos I'm hungry. As you'll have recognised from my post yesterday (and by the by, Sarah is bizarre for never having heard of Um Bongo), life's actually pretty snazzy at the moment. Not really sleeping as much as I like, but this does give me more time to watch films like New Jack City ("I wanna shoot you so bad my dick's hard!" Quite.) and Casino, which is pretty good in terms of its incessant pacing & good characters, but has one of the worst opening explosions ever (it could have been good, but for the awful cut where they replace De Niro with a dummy - the only example I can think of which is more ham-fisted is early in Singin' In The Rain when Gene Kelly is a stuntman and runs into the old shed before it explodes, but that film incorporates such things into it's charm. Still, Scorsese, a quick fade would've sorted that jump in the film - bear that in mind next time, and remember, I owe you several slaps in the face for The Departed). (Gosh, that was a long tangent, wunnit? Time fort a new paragraph I think!).

I could also bitch about money, but I've kinda barricaded myself into a good mood in fiscal matters thanks to yesterday's post (which didn't mention the recent £180 lay-out, but did take it's figures from afterwards, so it's a moo point). Also, I got my new improved paycheck today, and if they're all gonna look like this, I'm a happy camper. Here was me thinking I wasn't really being rewarded enough for the extra responsibilities I took on as supervisor, and it turns out, I was right! Also, isn't responsibilities a fun word to type? Responsibilities. All the is are fun. On the other hand, that italicisation was a bit of a pain.

So yes. In short, I'm only in a mood to complain because I need my dinner, and once I've had my dinner, I'll realise I'm too satified to write anything interesting. Peace out, homes.









Responsibilities. Hehehe.

Events further escalated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo yesterday when a hippo took an apricot, a guava and a mango. After combining them and performing the ritual "dainty tango", his associate the rhino was quoted as saing, "I know, we'll call it Um Bongo!"
Um Bongo (yes, Um Bongo): reports confirm that it is regularly consumed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some political pundits have stated that this is an obvious retaliation to recent events when the python picked the passion fruit, the marmoset the mandarin, and the parrot painted packets that the whole caboodle landed in. It is hoped that negotiations over coming weeks will be successful, so that when it comes to sun and fun and goodness in the jungle, the disparate factions can agree that they all prefer the sunny funny one they call Um Bongo.

In financial news, Niki has bought most of his essential purchases (drumstool, DS charger, no Xbox Live as yet...); palmed off his at-long-fucking-last Apple rehab as a business expense (Mother requires more typing); has only one bill left to pay for the month (and it's the phonebill, of which he only uses Broadband, so shouldn't be too crippling); and placed himself in good stead with regards to food for the rest of the week, leaving his bank balance hovering somewhere in the region of £0-£100DR, which is none too shabby. With the promise of less tax, a rebate, overtime, and cheapo Christmas shopping (charity shop gifts for everyone, methinks, what with the half already bought potentially being offended if I went upscale now), things look good. Credit crunch my scented dick.

In other news... There are some people you see too little of. This edition of 'Niki's People' is brought to you by the surnames Pond, Shanks and Taylor. What lovely fellows they are :)

Also... My girlfriend comes back in 26 days or so. I am pleased.

nanowrimo
Week two of National Novel Writing Month is upon us. What better way to rally your word count than with some wise plot advice or an invigorating round of NaNo sprints over at this very wordy community?

lucylou
Comics artist Lucy Knisley is so devoted to the medium that even her journal is in comic form, from an account of her latest book event to her experience waiting for Obama to speak in Grant Park on election night.

louisebrooks
Silent film star Louise Brooks deserves to be known for much more than her hairstyle (even if it is one of the most famous bobs in history). The Louise Brooks Society dedicates itself to the life and times of a gifted actress and insightful writer.

I wonder if Daniel Day-Lewis ever goes to the pub with some friends, y'know, a year after whatever film he's just done (so as to give himself time to chill out a bit), and they're all sitting and having a laugh, and then one of his friends is like, "Daniel, seriously, you're just fucking mental!" And I wonder if he's all, "Haha, yeah, I know what you mean!" Or if he's like, "Shut UP! I will KILL you! I will come OVER there, I will DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE, and I will FUCKING KILL YOU! I'LL DRINK IT RIGHT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU BASTARD IN A BASKET!" and then he throws a knife at the guy and screams, "THAT'S A WOUND!" then he runs out and, just before he leaps through a waterfall, shouts, "NO MATTER WHAT OCCURS, I WILL FIND YOU!" and then he jumps, and all his friends are sitting at the table, bewildered, and one turns to the guy that's been wounded, and says, "Haha, yeah, I know what you mean!"

In other news, life's pretty good. I'm feeling groovy, I'm looking the tits, I'm chilled and mellow like a Pinot Grigio, bitches. I've completed all the tasks on my current to-do list, and I'm generally just coasting the good life. And my breakfast did have hog in it, so Ice Cube's full of shit! Peace.

Find Your Friends, Now with Dialog Box

We wanted to give you an update about the Find Your Friends feature we talked about recently in news and feedback. Based on your feedback, the opt-in implementation has an overwhelming mandate from the people. So that's the method we're going to use. Before we launch this feature, we need you to set your preference for the setting. The next time you visit the LiveJournal homepage, you'll see a dialog box that prompts you to set your preference for whether you want your email address to be searchable by the new Find Your Friends feature. If you have more than one account, the dialog box will appear the first time you visit each account's homepage.



The Find Your Friends feature will be launching in the weeks to come.

Permanent Account Sale Coming Soon

It's almost here—the Permanent Account sale! For a limited time only, you can purchase a Permanent Account for only $175. Your chance to get LiveJournal for life starts on November 20. Check out the benefits:

• All the cool features offered to Paid Accounts


• The highest amount of storage available on LJ (currently 10GB, but we think there might be room to grow in there)


• No ads in your journal and, as long as you're logged in, you won't see ads anywhere on LiveJournal


• The most userpics available on LJ (currently 144 and increasing all the time with our Loyalty Userpics program)


• $25 of your purchase price donated to charity (look for details about the chosen organizations in the next news post)


• The peace of mind that comes with never having to make another payment

We've been talking about this sale for a while now, so hopefully you've had some time to save up for it. Remember, the Permanent Account sale is very temporary. We don't want anyone to miss out, so tell all your friends that the sale starts November 20 and ends November 26. After that you'll have to wait at least another year for your chance to buy a Permanent Account.

When you purchase a Permanent Account, you can gift a friend with any balance of paid time or extra userpics you might have. Look for more details in the next news post, and keep an eye on the Gift Shop to buy your Permanent Account as soon as they go on sale!

Profile Page Goes Live

The redesigned Profile page is graduating from beta and going out into the wider world of LiveJournal. The design team put hundreds of hours into this redesign, with a marathon three rounds of beta testing. We considered every comment and critique that came through feedback and worked hard to incorporate as much user input as possible. We think the profile page is much improved and ready to go live.



Thank you to all the beta testers for your hard work and feedback. We couldn't have done it without you (no, really).

Montana-Bound

By the time you read the next release, a shinier, faster, better LJ will be up and running on the servers at our brand-new data center in Montana. The ops team is hard at work packing up bits and bytes here and unpacking them in Montana. The new servers and data center are an investment in LJ's future; they also offer more immediate benefits, such as room for more userpics, improved energy efficiency, and, of course, cool new servers. Check lj_maintenance for news and announcements concerning the move. If there's any downtime during the move, exact dates and times will be posted there. And you can always check status.livejournal.org, our offsite status page.



Unpacking is the hardest part of moving.

Watch This Space

Back in our lj_2008 update, we mentioned that we were going to start increasing our local partnerships in India and elsewhere. Like india_sport, for example. Building on those experiences, we've been hard at work expanding our global footprint with a new partnership with one of the leading newspapers in the United Kingdom. So watch this space in the next release for an exciting announcement!

Search Update

So, Find Your Friends is almost ready to go (you can choose your setting now, before the feature goes live, as noted above). But, as talked about in the lj_2008 update, our goals for improving search included two other projects. Where do they stand?

• Search for public posts and comments: We're making great progress on developing a search engine for public posts and comments, which will include tags and interests.


• Journal search: We've been so hard at work on the other two search projects that Journal search for Paid users to search within their own journals isn't going to make it to the finish line in 2008. We're still working on it, although it has turned out to be a bit more complicated than we originally thought.

Word Counts and Daily Posts

As of last Saturday, furiously clattering keyboards can be heard echoing around the globe. NaNoWriMo is off to a roaring start—word count updates are flooding the NaNo servers, main characters are refusing to cooperate, and world coffee prices are skyrocketing due to demand. We had an overwhelming response to lj_nanowrimo (and the overflowing email inbox to prove it), and we're all (except for our accountant) really rooting for you to finish those novels. And for those of you who are busy crafting daily blog posts for NaBloPoMo, keep it up! We know you can do it.

OpenID 2.0 Now Supported

In the last release, we upgraded our OpenID client support to include OpenID 2.0. So if you're a user with an OpenID 2.0 account (like Yahoo, for example), you can use that ID to log in to LiveJournal.


And More

You can find all the details of this week's release at lj_releases.

Thanks to the lovely Sarah's most-hostess-ness, I am typing in the Napier computer room, with it's half-satisfying half-infuriating chunky keyboards. My boss told me today I've been paying too much tax, which is the best news I've heard in a while; hello beefier paydays and tax rebate! This is handy, as I have a few essential purchases coming up, including a new drum stool and a proper Xbox Live subscription. Shut up, yes it is.

I'm feeling this week is a week for seeing people, which is why I mass-texted an invitation to a non-existent fireworks display on Wednesday. But really, come on, there should be something on, right? How will those pesky Catholics be reminded to know their place? Anyway, apologies will be sent to those who expressed an interest.

Quantum of Solace was... confusing. I guess unhelpful factors were (a) not having seen Casino Royale and (b) falling alseep for the first half of the film, but nothing seemed to make much sense. Without giving anything away (I shall cunningly replace any important words with the uniform 'thingy'), why did the thingy explode? How did Bond get involved with thingy? Was the thingy really just thingy, disguised as a thingy? Yes, I made that last one up. I'm sure all of these questions could be answered by watching both films fully, but I also felt that there was alot going unsaid anyway, in a rare credit to the audience's intelligence (and lack of narcolepsy). Reviewing what I saw of it though, I'd class it in the good-but-not-great category. It also suffered Wall-E-esque oversaturative ads at the beginning, but what's a girl to do?

Only other film grabbing my short & curlies this week is Eagle Eye, which shall be utter shite, for reasons beyond (but including) The Beef, but shall be an amusing enough way to pass an evening. Hell, I enjoyed Enemy Of The State. It seems much the same thing.

In other news... It would appear I'm being a hard-hearted dick recently. In between passing on a birthday gift & reccommending a workmate for dismissal, I managed to squeeze in telling Kit I'd rather not spend time with her ever again. I wasn't essentially mean about any of these decisions, and they were all (varying degrees of) necessary in the bigger picture, but still, one must acknowledge when one is being a tad dickish (ironically, the work colleague - ok, subordinate - came under fire for telling me to "stop being a dick" when I wouldn't agree to a fag break).

I'm spent for now folks, let me rest a bit and we'll try again. It's not you, it's me, ok?