Sunday, October 25, 2009

Yahoo Geocities Alert!

Updated at 8:40 p.m.
By Nicholas Stix

For weeks now, Yahoo has been warning users of its free Geocities Web sites that it will delete all such pages on October 26 (without saying whether that means at midnight sharp, or at some time during the day). As in, tomorrow. Yahoo has said that one may simply download each page to one’s pc, the conventional way, and indeed, I have done that in the distant past, with no problems. However, I just started trying to download all of my pages from scratch, and after doing two, tested to see if I could pull them up from their folders. In each case, my pc at first showed the title I had given the file at the top of the page, before re-directing to the (internal?) URL, http:///js_source/adframe07.html, and the screen message, “The address is not valid.”

Maybe that’s something unique to my crazy computer; maybe not. If you have been downloading Geocities Web pages the old-fashioned way, do what I did, and try to pull them up off your pc. Still better, first go offline, and then try and do it. If the files come up intact on your pc, more power to you. But if not, you’re going to have re-do the entire job, and fast.

P.S. If you have the same experience as me, the only safe ways I know of to save the files is to copy and paste each one, either to a word processing file or an e-mail, and save it. But seeing as I plan on technologically joining the 20th Century anytime now, you may have a less “cumbersome” (Yahoo’s preferred term) or more modern solution. If so, by all means post it, but to my other readers: I will not be liable for any bad advice anyone posts here. Caveat (or freeloader) emptor!

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