Posterous is closing next week - here's how to move your blog to WordPress.com

Posterous is closing, Posterous is closing. Move your blog before 30 April 2013. Posterous is closing.

Section A - download blog - you need to do this before Posterous closes on 30 April 2013
1. Log into Posterous.com and click on the 'Backup' button (it should be visible from all pages but if not click on Spaces).
2. Click on 'request back up' next to name of blog, wait a bit, come back later (you'll get an email when it's done) and...
3. Click on 'download' to get a zipped file containing your entire blog, unzip as and when needed.

Bonus points

• Disable the autopost to Twitter and then...
  (Spaces > Your blog ('space') > Autopost setup (in panel on right) > hover over Twitter name then press red X to delete) 
• ...add a final post saying that your blog is closing / moving (if you do this once you've moved the blog to its new home you can include the new adress).
  
  This means that all your Posterous followers will get a notification but it won't go to your Twitter followers (who don't need this info since your new blog will seamlessly start autoposting to your Twitter account).

Section B - import blog to another host, example given is WordPress.com (free version) - you can do this at your leisure

If you want to move it to Tumblr then Posterous has suggested using http://justmigrate.com/ (you might need to do this before Posterous shuts though) - if you already have a Tumblr blog and it posts to Twitter you'll need to switch off the autopost function before you start the migration.

4. Unzip the zip and note that one of the files is an xml with the word 'wordpress' in it
5. Create a free blog at http://wordpress.com
6. In the dashboard [https://YOURBLOGNAME.wordpress.com/wp-admin/] go to Tools > Import > Posterous and select ('navigate to') the xml file
7. Wait patiently - or just open your new blog in another tab / window https://YOURBLOGNAME.wordpress.com/ - I've moved large blogs and it's been done and dusted within about 3-15 mins but usually takes an hour or so for you to get an email letting you know it's all done.

5b. If you prefer to go for the self-hosted Wordpress.org type of blog then there's a plug in that will help you transfer it (you need to do this before Posterous shuts though http://wpmu.org/posterous-shutting-down-how-to-move-your-posterous-site-to-wordpress/)

To create a new post on your new blog you can just click on 'New post' which appears on most pages including the dashboard, however this brings up a light version which I don't like one bit, I prefer to go to Dashboard, then hover over my name (top right) until the list of my blogs appear (I have several), then hover over the one I want to post to and choose the New post option that shows up there.

I've moved about 8 blogs so yell if you get stuck :)

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Section C - customising it a bit 
You need to be in your dashboard for this, it's https://YOURBLOGNAME.wordpress.com/wp-admin

• Autopost to Twitter etc: Settings > Sharing > Add Twitter account (also Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr)
• Getting rid of the weird tagline they keep adding: Appearance > Customise > hover over panel on right, choose Site Title and then amend text in Tagline field
• Tweak the look / themes / skin: Appearance > Themes

Section D - troubleshooting
The import info says that it will let you "Import posts, comments, images, video, and categories from a Posterous export file" - attached files seem to show up as an absolute link, pointing to files.posterous (though some point to files.wordpress or something like that).

I'd not be surprised if file links might break once Posterous disappears, however you have all the atttachments in the various folders of your zip and can navigate to them and manually upload if necessary. I've got over 800 to do for ScicommJobs so not overly enthusiastic about that ;)

How to back up or download your blog that is hosted on free sites eg Blogger

Short version: get hold of a copy of the XML file for your blog. This contains all of the information (posts, site hierarchy, comments) in one convenient web file that can be used to relaunch your blog in case of disaster.

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This post is for people like me, who have their blog hosted on sites like Blogger, Wordpress.com or Posterous. I've no idea about setting up, or backing up, a self-hosted blog (where you interact with a server). If someone who knows more about that fancies contributing a few lines for me to add here... that would be nice.

Things you can do now while your blog is still up and running
Remember, backing up your blog isn't a one-time thing but something you might want to do every few days or weeks (depending on how frequently you blog). Probably there's some way to automate this process but if there is, I don't know it.

1. Backing up your blog

Blogger (Google)
To download blog, click on the 'Design' icon at the top of your blog (being logged in) and then click on the Settings | Other menu, then click "Export Blog" and choose the Download option. You will then be saving an .xml file which you can keep safe until you need to import it into another blog host.
From http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97416

Posterous
http://posterous.com/#backup - then click on the Request Backup button for your blog(s).

WordPress
Go to your blog(s)' site admin area (stick /wp-admin/ after the end of your blog's address).
In the menu on the left click on Tools | Export and choose the free option which gives you an xml file
 
Tumblr
I am less familiar with this one so have taken advice from Google but it seems that the following option may help:
• HTTrack (this will back up any website to be honest, I use it for other purposes)
• See also all Tumblr posts tagged with Tumblr backup

2. Mirroring your blog while it's still up and running

I have a copy of this very blog at Blogger.com over at Wordpress.com though it's private as it's confusing to have two copies of the same information, I also have the xml files of blogs I'd be annoyed to lose.

You can mirror your blog in two ways I think.
(1) Authorise the two blog hosts to talk to each other and let the software do the importing for you
(2) Import a blog using your xml file (obviously this ought to work whether or not your original blog is up and running or suspended).

Importing into Wordpress from another site
• Create account and new blog to house your content
• Stick /wp-admin/import.php on the end of your blog's address to go to the admin / import site (or use Tools | Import) - you can choose to import from several different blogging platforms including Blogger, Posterous or Tumblr.
• You'll then be asked to authorise Wordpress to interact with your original blog and you can then import the posts.

Importing into Blogger from another site (not sure if this will work)
Not sure if this will work using the xml setting as it says 'import from a Blogger xml' rather than just any old xml - I can't see how one xml differs from any other but 'more research needed'. Apparently there is a Wordpress to Blogger conversion tool if your 'another site' is Wordpress.

• Create an account and set up a new blog at http://www.blogger.com/home.
• If doing so takes you to a different page, go back to the link above (home)
• To the right of your new blog is an orange pencil symbol (create new post) a couple of other icons and a 'view blog' icon. Click on the small down arrow between them to bring up the options, choose Settings | Other and then Import blog from the options along the top
• Upload your xml file and hope for the best.

See also Blogger's own advice on importing and exporting blogs (also mentioned above).

Recovering your posts when it's a bit late for the above
1. Stick your blog's URL into Google and capture what you can from Google's cache. You can also remove the http:// bit and replace it with cache: to do this.

The result will be pages of search results and so will involve quite a bit of labour in capturing them all, you can use 'File / Save page as...' to save them to your hard drive.

Edit: Alan Heness has suggested the following, accessed by using a Web Cache extension for the Chrome browser. Some of these I confess I've never heard of :)

Google's cache

Yahoo's cache

Bing's cache

CoralCDN

WebCite

GigaBlast

Wayback Machine

2. Once on a cached page make note of any table of contents or archives for each month. Google will return your blog's posts in no particular order making it difficult to know if you've got everything. It's much easier to know what you're searching for and you can also get hold of a cached copy of your month by month archives - the purpose of this is to bring up a page with the title and links of your posts for that month. The links themselves won't work if your blog is down but, again, stick cache: in front of them to see if you can grab a cached copy from Google.

3. Use the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to find older posts if Google cache doesn't have them. Note also that Google Cache might not have very recently published posts.

Background
This post arose after a few posts and entire blogs I enjoy reading were apparently taken down including the Retraction Watch website (see also ArsTechnica on the story), the 21st Floor and Josephine Jones' blog (the latter turned out to be a glitch, I've done it myself when importing my blog to Wordpress - I triggered their spam warning and had to ask them to restore it, which they did within a couple of hours although it looks like someone is keen to see it taken down [copy]).

In the case of Retraction Watch (RW) a seemingly mistaken DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) 'takedown' request was made to the organisation hosting RW's blog (Wordpress) stating that RW had posted material that belonged to someone else. Nonsense as this may be it seems that the effect of DMCA takedowns are more like 'shoot first, ask questions later'. Similarly blogs can be terminated for violation of terms of service.

Sometimes blogs get it wrong and post stuff that isn't theirs to post, so fair enough, other times it's just a blunt tool to remove perfectly valid but perhaps inconvenient information.

Chilling Effects is a site where people can upload their DMCA notices - the site is collecting and commenting on them (not all are unreasonable). They also have an online DMCA counter claim if you believe your material has been removed in error.

Be careful about putting in a claim or counter-claim - you may be committing a crime if you're wrong.

If you spot any mistakes or omissions in methods listed above please let me know, thanks.

How can I fix this (can I fix this?)?: Posterous is duplicating my posts

Note that Posterous is shutting down on 30 April 2013

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I use Posterous to host the blog / database where I post information about job vacancies in science communication.

It goes like this - I email a post with an attachment (the job description), it publishes itself at http://scicommjobs.posterous.com and sends a tweet to @ScicommJobs. It's been doing this without incident for just over three years.

Today I realised that for the last couple of days it's been publishing duplicate posts - and sending double tweets as well. I first noticed a problem when I started receiving two 'your post has been published' emails although I didn't think much about it, assuming it to be an email glitch which has happened before.

I've sent a tweet to @Posterous and tried, and failed, to use their online contact form to submit a bug report ('Sorry, we couldn't submit your request' - not sure why).

Googling for info about duplicate Posterous posts isn't particularly illuminating and the problems people have outlined refer to something else entirely.

Is anyone else noticing this with their Posterous blog(s)?

It could well be some setting I've altered in the global 'Spaces' admin bit, although why on earth anyone would want a setting letting them duplicate their posts to the same blog I don't know.

It's also happened on another of my Posterous blogs - http://jodiepedia.posterous.com where I post audio / sound-related information and events.

If anyone has a solution that would be marvellous :)  Thanks!

Blackbird Pie is a tool to let you embed a tweet in a blogpost while maintaining active links

Shortened link for this post is http://is.gd/COZKWP

EDIT: In my enthusiasm to share this new tool I forgot to mention where I found the info from - which was Mashable, and they knew about it over a year ago!

I'm trying out the Blackbird Pie twitter media tool which lets you take the URL of a single tweet and 'bake it' into an embeddable version which should appear below. The links are maintained.

Original tweet: https://twitter.com/#!/JoBrodie/status/104834066351783936

Blackbird Pie 'baked tweet':

Some of you use one or more tools to embed tweets in blog posts, making tweets look nice. What are these tools please? Thank you :)

less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply
Jo Brodie
JoBrodie

So what other tools are available that do something like this? This one is quite interesting as you can edit the various bits of it - I've moved things to sit on separate lines for aesthetics but here's how it is when unedited:

Some of you use one or more tools to embed tweets in blog posts, making tweets look nice. What are these tools please? Thank you :)less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyJo Brodie
JoBrodie

A few more example of these kinds of tools and I'll have something to add to the currently emptyish B3.3 section on my list of tools for finding or capturing tweets.