I always liked the romantic ideals around keeping a diary, being able to read them back in 10 years time and cringe when you read about your crush for that day. In practice though it was a lot harder and by about the 5th January I'd usually give up.
When I stumbled across LiveJournal I thought ... Read review
Advantages: Quick sign help, helpful support, vast range of communities Disadvantages: limited customisation, occassional database problems
I always liked the romantic ideals around keeping a diary, being able to read them back in 10 years time and cringe when you read about your crush for that day. In practice though it was a lot harder and by about the 5th January I'd usually give up.
When I stumbled across LiveJournal I thought I'd have a go at keeping a diary again, I was older (apparently wiser too) and in this technological age had friends scattered across the world ... ...felt having an online dairy would be a better way of keeping in touch.
Creating a Journal
When I signed up with LiveJournal it was either 'invite only' (where a LiveJournal user would give you an invite code to allow you to sign up for free) or Purchase a Paid Account straight off, (but more on paid accounts later).
However, now the process is a lot simpler and you can pick either a free account or a paid account ... more
I always liked the romantic ideals around keeping a diary, being able to read them back in 10 years time and cringe when you read about your crush for that day. In practice though it was a lot harder and by about the 5th January I'd usually give up.
When I stumbled across LiveJournal I thought I'd have a go at keeping a diary again, I was older (apparently wiser too) and in this technological age had friends scattered across the world or on the end of an internet connection so I felt having an online dairy would be a better way of keeping in touch.
Creating a Journal When I signed up with LiveJournal it was either 'invite only' (where a LiveJournal user would give you an invite code to allow you to sign up for free) or Purchase a Paid Account straight off, (but more on paid accounts later).
However, now the process is a lot simpler and you can pick either a free account or a paid account when you sign up. The sign up itself is quite simple although there are occassional problems when you get to the section where you have to input the digits from a security image. Usually the sign up will take you less than five minutes and you are ready to go.
Paid Accounts vs. Free Accounts There has always been a lot of debate between the advantages of Free Accounts and Paid Accounts.
Personally I think it's better to try LiveJournal on a Free Account to start off with before spending money to upgrade your account.
If you only want a basic set up to update your personal journal then a Free Account will be best for you.
However, if you want to get more involved with your journal, customise you layout, insert polls or post by email then a Paid Account would be a much better option.Free Accounts let you:
Post to your journal either through Livejournal itself or using a 'client'.
Join communities and post in them
Create communities
Add people as 'friends'
Customise your journal using overrides in S1 (see below for more information)
Post comments to communities and journals
Create bookmarks of memorable posts
Set security levels on your posts - you only
Have 3 user pictures (Icons)
Paid Accounts let you do everything you can do with a Free Account plus:
Create custom styles for your journal (advisable to have knowledge of HTML or CSS to do this)
Create polls you your journal or for communities
Post by email to your account without having to log into your journal
Post by phone to your journal. (Makes an .ogg sound file other users can listen too).
Have 15 user pictures (icons)
A Paid Account costs: $5/£2.67 for 2 months $15/£8.00 for 6 months $25/£13.35 for 12 monthsWith a Paid Account you can also purchase extra User Pictures (Icons) $2/£1.06 for 2 months $6/£3.20 for 6 months $10/£5.34 for 12 months
You can pay by credit card, paypal or cheque.
Full information on LiveJournal's features for each account type can be found via their front page.
One of the good things about LiveJournal is that you're not forced into buying a Paid Account, there is a lot you can do as a Free Account user. I've only recently bought a Paid Account and that was to help support the site rather than use a lot of the Paid Account benefits.
Getting Started You can either update your journal through the LiveJournal website or you can download a desktop client (a little programme that will post to your journal for you)
You can use the search options to look for communities or users with similar interests to you. And there are a number of FAQ's to help you use your journal.
Privacy As recent news stories have illustrated keeping an online diary could get you into trouble particularly if you spend time complaining about work/school or friends.
LiveJournal lets you protect your posts so only the people you want to read your posts can see them Public Posts: Can be read by anyone Friends Only Posts: Only users you define as a 'friend' can read your posts Custom Friends only Posts: You can set your friends into sub groups so only certain sections of your friends can read your posts. Private Posts: the only person who can read your posts is you. You can also edit and delete posts you have made and delete any comments you have posted.
You have full control over who reads your posts and who can comment to your posts.
Friends System The Friends system is a nice way to stay in touch with people on LiveJournal. When you define a friend/join a community their posts will appear on your Journal's Friends Page, saving you from visiting each journal in turn. You can also read your friends Friends Pages.
Customisation LiveJournal works on two different 'Style Systems'; S1 and S2.
S1 is html based and on a free account can be customised using HTML overrides. There is a tutorial journal as part of LiveJournal to help you get started with overrides and lists the common customisations users tend to make.
With a Paid Account you can make a custom style from scratch although a working knowledge of HTML is required. S1 is open source code.
S2 works using CSS and is a closed source code. Again there are a number of tutorial journals for each S2 style to help you customise your journal. S2 has disadvantages in that you can only carry out basic customisations with a free account and creating a custom style (with a Paid Account) can be very difficult.
Online Support LiveJournal's support is excellent. Run mainly by Support Volunteers most straightforward requests (e.g. how do I post? how do I join a community? etc.) are answered within a couple of hours and harder requests tend to be answered within a few days at the very longest.
Volunteers are trained by employed LiveJournal staff and they are very polite, helpful and informative.
Also available are a huge number of FAQ pages covering most issues that users encounter from posting in their journal, to embedding in your AIM profile and everything inbetween.
Communities The Communities are a huge part of LiveJournal. Most of the Friends on my Friends list I've met through the different communities.
There are literally communities for everything, from jewellery making to Lord of the Rings to Ghost stories to support groups to college communities to fiction groups with everything in between.
The communities fall into three different sections: Open communities: where you can join and post straight away; Moderated communities: posts are screened by a community moderator before they are posted; Closed Communities: Generally you apply to these communities and it is up to the community owner whether or not you're allowed to join.
The communities tend to be set out like your journal, with the most recent post at the top and can have friends only posts (where only community members can read them).
In conclusion Having used Livejournal for over 18 months now I cannot complain about the service. Whenever I've needed help from the Support Team they've been speedy and helpful.
Admittedly, there has been problems recently with the site going down, but these events are rare and the Staff work very hard to keep the site up and running.
There are currently over 3 million users using LiveJournal, the majority of them are Free Account users.
LiveJournal has just been bought by SixApart (the company who created the MoveableType Blogging system) and users have been promised increased support, more customisable layouts and more features for both Paid and Free Account users.
The future looks rosy for LiveJournal.
If you are looking to create a 'social' journal, meet new people and want to join communities then LiveJournal is the site for you.
Advantages: Easy to use, communities feature, better than myspace! Disadvantages: Hard to find good, useable layouts
...**What is it?**
LiveJournal.com is, in essence, a blogging site. LiveJournal was founded in 1999, and so you could say it is the original blogging website. There's a lot you can do on LiveJournal, but I will cover each feature in its own section. In the past, you had to be given an invite code from a current user of the site, but now it is open for anyone to sign up, and still attracts members in their droves.
**What can I do?**
On LiveJournal, ... ...you have signed up, you get your own page, which you can customize how you wish, and post to whenever you want.
At its heart, this is the basis of LiveJournal, but there are a lot of social-networking aspects as well.
**Friends and the 'Flist'**
Every LiveJournal member has the opportunity to add other's to their friends list, which is more commonly known as 'flist'. There's no limit to the number of friends you can add, and there are several ...
amytheduck 25.05.2007 (08.11.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of livejournal.com
Advantages: Easy way to write down your thoughts and keep in touch with people Disadvantages: Careful who's reading them...
www.livejournal.com is a service I used ages ago, lost interest and have some back to fairly recently. The basic idea is very simple, it's an online diary, you write your thoughts, feelings etc and post them on your journal or you comment on other people's diary entries.
Creating an account
Creating an account is very simple, on first going on to the site at the top left there is a link stating 'create an account'. Click on said link and you will ... ...know is username, email address, password, and birthdate. Apparently it used to be invite or paid account only but it isn't now. You are then given the choice of account you want.
Account type
Live journal has 5 account types:
Basic: The very basic features for free, up to 6 userpics, no scrapbook, can't post via a mobile, styles limited, no use of advanced search features.
Early Adopter: These are the accounts that were created before Sept 2000, ...
Secre 10.10.2006 (12.10.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of livejournal.com
Advantages: Well designed site, easy to use, non profit making, innovative. Disadvantages: A bit of a hassle to join, the worry that someone unwanted may read your private thoughts.
I kept a diary from the age of 10 up till I was 17. I used to write in it nearly every night, and used it to sort out the feelings and thoughts rushing through my mind. I always felt better after writing it and like to read back on them when time has passed to see how I had changed. I'm 20 now and not used to writing my feelings down, but am eager to do so because I enjoy it, and it is good for my writing skills.
I belong to an online community ... ...talking about their 'livejournal'. I wandered over to the site, at www.livejournal.com to have a look. I like the simple design and it's easy to find out what it is all about. Livejournal is an online diary site, or 'journal' as the Americans like to call it. Part of me thinks this is strange, why would anyone want to make their most personal thoughts available to anyone who comes across them on the internet? I browse though some of the journals, ...
MissDirect 22.10.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of livejournal.com
Advantages: Large userbase, genuine community feel Disadvantages: Uneven speed
LiveJournal (hereafter generally abbreviated to LJ) is the biggest and probably the best known of the slew of "online diary" sites that pepper the web. Mind you, its name might not be thought terribly promising. "LiveJournal." For one thing, what is "Live" supposed to mean? That it's regularly updated? Well, isn't that the point of a diary in any case? Neither does that internal capitalisation help matters. But still, these are minor quibbles. Let's ... ...to most of us, which is to say money. LJ tries hard to get its users to subscribe to a "paid account", which costs US$25 a year. (You can also pay for shorter periods - two months will set you back $5, while six months costs $15.) Payment - which is processed promptly - can be made by credit card, PayPal or even - although it's discouraged - cash through the post. No cheques or postal orders, though, at least not British ones.
The good news is that ...
davidbuttery 09.02.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of livejournal.com
Advantages: excellent service, styles to suit you, make friends, Disadvantages: slow and unreliable service at peak times
...a paid account:
*A LiveJournal.com email address. All mail to this address will be forwarded to your ordinary email address. This lets you get emails from other users, without revealing your personal email address.
*A shorter URL to your journal. URLs for Free Users are usually livejournal.com/users/username. With a paid account, your journal is located at http://username.livejournal.com/
*Faster servers. Paid users surf the site on faster, more ... ...your own journal styles to customize your journal even more - perfect for making your journal look like part of your website.
*Text messaging. Users will be able to send you a text message online - without you revealing your number.
*More user pictures. Paid users are allowed to upload up to 10 user pictures, compared with the 3 that Free Users are allowed.
*Access to the poll creation page. You will be given access to a page which allows you ...
Simmer 20.04.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of livejournal.com
