Looking To The Future

Background

This week I finally sorted out an issue with the new administrator of one of my occupational pensions. I wanted confirmation that my wife was the sole beneficiary. They repeatedly sent blank forms for me to nominate her, but I did this years ago and they should have record of it.

The customer support was patchy. After yet another form arrived, and the person on the phone could only say "the computer says no", I raised a formal complaint which was sorted in five days; in my favour and to my satisfaction.

What's this got to do with this august blog. Well, it set me thinking. I'm not getting any younger and what can I do to save this blog for posterity? After all I've put a lot of work into it, especially this year.

Read on if you'd like to know what I've done.

Public archive

In February this year I wrote about creating self-contained copies of web sites with the Zimit website. The copies can read with the Kiwix desktop application without access to the Internet. I created a zim archive in March for personal use and in future I plan to do one at the beginning of each year.

It occurred to me to make these available in a permanent public archive that didn't require Google, or my involvement, once uploaded.

The solution, of course, is to use the Internet Archive. Setting up an account and uploading the zim file was the work of minutes, and the first of my annual site archives (03 March 2026) is now available from my Internet Archive account page; as will all future archives.

Browse Google free

The Internet Archive also offers to hold multiple timed snapshots of web pages. Its calendar view can show how a page has changed (developed?) over time. I decided to use this facility to fill the gaps between the annual zim archive uploads.

Given the size of this blog (480 plus pages) some form of automation was required. Not least because I didn't want to manually save a page to the Internet Archive every time I wrote a new page or edited an old one.

With a bit of help (claude.ai of course) I now have an automation script that, when run weekly, will save new, and edited, pages to the Internet Archive. There was a bit of work required to ensure that all pages were complete when saved (not trivial for blogs that use a template like mine) and to capture every page dating back to 2007.

The work is complete, and as of today, this blog has been copied to the Internet Archive and the copy will be updated on a regular basis.

Using the Internet Archive

One word of caution the Internet Archive can be a bit "flaky" to use at times. To prove my point it's currently (temporarily) offline. It's doing an incredible job; no wonder it gets a bit tired sometimes.

Closing remarks

All this means, whatever happens to yours truly and Blogger, this site will remain available for posterity. Oh the vanity!