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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. They should have a record of this.
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 I began to wonder whether I should 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 be read with the Kiwix desktop application without access to the Internet.
I created a zim archive in March for my own use and I plan to prepare one every year from now on. It occurred to me that if I could make them publicly available it would be good way to archive the blog for posterity.
What I needed was a free public service that wasn't tied to a personal account. I couldn't use a Google service or my own web hosting accounts. Google close inactive accounts after six months and my web hosting requires monthly payments. These options wouldn't survive my demise.
The solution, of course, is to use the Internet Archive. Setting up a free 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. 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!
3 comments :
Another interesting tech tool to consider. What happens if Kiwix is obsolete and unavailable in the future? What is your backup plan to read this file?
Asking the hard questions now are we? Seriously, that's a good question.
Firstly, I suspect zim readers will be around for a while yet. Secondly, if all else fails there's zim-tools (Linux) which can output a single url or everything to a folder (zimdump). This gives standard hmtl files readable in any browser.
From experience, Linux tools like this tend to have a very long life and still work even if they aren't maintained (updated).
I really love Internet Archive!
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