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Ask Slashdot: Facebook Archiving?

Posted by timothy on from the get-a-really-really-big-disk dept.

Stenchwarrior writes "I was in the car with my wife and 15-year-old daughter this morning talking about the future of Facebook and how it's likely that they will not be around forever (or at least not at the same capacity as now) and my daughter asked 'Well, what's going to happen to all of my pictures?' It never occurred to her to that Facebook might not be around someday and all of those thousands of photos that she's uploaded might someday be gone. So this is what I ask the good people at Slashdot: What's a good way to preserve all of those memories? Many devices nowadays have direct access to the Internet and even to Facebook and once the images are uploaded they are eventually deleted to make room for more. How do we make sure we can access or backup those files in case Zuckerberg decides to sell out to Google or Microsoft and they do away with everyone's profiles?"

9 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. Download Your Profile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The simple answer to your question would be this.

    1. Re:Download Your Profile by MrMarket · · Score: 5, Informative

      Furthermore, the comments from friends are not on your computer with the source file. While most are probably banal, I'm sure some of the jokes, banter, memories, etc. in the pics' comments have some archival value to the owner of the account.

    2. Re:Download Your Profile by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pictures: Anyone who does not keep a local copy is an idiot and probably deserves to lose em!

      Yeah submitter, that's right, your 15-year old daughter who grew up in the internet age is an idiot who deserves to lose her memories. Thankfully, we have people like Carrot007 to help point this out.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    3. Re:Download Your Profile by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh AmicusNYCL, you hopelessly naive liberal do-gooder, you. Don't you realize that every single time a bad thing happens to someone else, they deserve it? Conversely, all good things that happen to me are deserved as well. This philosophy has helped me feel good about myself while not caring about anyone else, and it can help you too! Blame the victim, I always say. It's just easier.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    4. Re:Download Your Profile by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If she grew up in the internet age, she has no excuse not to understand the technology.

      That's completely ridiculous. You think that every kid that owns an iPhone understands things like HTTP, iOS, Bluetooth, and the 802.11 specs? Do they also understand database clusters, content delivery networks, event-based user interfaces and load balancing? Should all Facebook users be expected to understand how memcached works?

      The point of a device like the iPhone, or a service like Facebook, is explicitly that you do not need to understand how the technology works in order to use it. This is the "black-box" approach to abstract programming that you learn about in year 1 of computer science classes. It's the same reason I can hit a button on a toaster and get toast without needing to know exactly how the coils heat up or the timer works.

      I wouldn't say she "deserves" to lose her data, but she really should know better.

      No, there is in fact no reason why she should know better. In fact, it's up to the designers of the technology to consider users like her and make their services easier to use and more suited to the needs of users that don't understand how it works. Apple understands this concept. You do not. You may be the guy who designs software and interfaces with the expectation that the kids using the service understand all of the terminology you're using and all of the ramifications involved. That's how you alienate your prospective user base. Facebook makes it easy to upload pictures, they should also make it easy to download them. It would be nice if you could download the original version, but that's asking a bit much for a social networking site instead of an image dump.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  2. Back them up.... by dakkon1024 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Back them up on MySpace

  3. "15-year-old daughter" by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    No panic, all her better pictures are archived on 4chan.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  4. Re:Export? Its already there! by coolmadsi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Facebook already has a export feature. Just export and store

    Indeed, its fairly easy to find. Account (drop down) -> Account Settings -> Download your information

  5. In my day... by turgid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In my day, we had our own websites, and we were happy.

    We had our own writing, our own art and our own photographs (and source code etc.) and we kept a backup on our own PCs. And we owned the copyright on the stuff that we had created ourselves. We put links to other peoples' web sites that we liked.

    These young people today don't know know how easy they have it. And I'll tell you another thing, it's so easy for them, they've never had to think for themselves. And they've never had to take any responsibility.

    When it all goes horribly wrong, they'll have nothing left and they won't know what to do, and when someone say, "Well, just restore from your backup." They'll say, "What's a backup?"

    And you'll say, "The spare copies of everything that you kept for safe-keeping."

    And there will be a look of bewilderment on their faces and they'll say, "I didn't know you could do that..."

    --
    Stick Men