Updates
Some quick updates...

Permanent Accounts
We're selling another batch of permanent accounts:

http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/permanent.bml

We do this every 6 months or so, whenever people start mailing us a bunch asking when the next sale is. Read the page linked above for details.

Servers
Lately the site's kinda slow during peak hours because four servers we recently ordered were defective. One was physically bad, and the other three had a SCSI card, RAID card, and motherboard that weren't compatible with each other. When we get those back from the vendor fixed, we'll have more than enough database power for awhile. We're pretty disappointed that the vendor told us the machines went through testing, when they obviously didn't.

Once school starts everywhere, load will pick up a bunch. We'll be adding some new webservers ahead of time to be ready for that. (luckily, with hardware as simple as a webserver, it's hard for a vendor to mess up the configuration)

Photo Hosting
The last few months I've been working on a new project, fotobilder, which is yet another photo management site, but designed to be easily customizable, highly scalable, and integrate with other sites. It's mostly done now, but needs to be prettied-up before its release.

When that's done, LiveJournal users with paid accounts will get so much free disk space and bandwidth at pics.livejournal.com. (Details yet to be decided.) In addition to hosting full-sized pictures, you'll also be able to host more userpics. (more than the limit of 10)

If you're a web designer with free time and at least some experience doing OO-programming, you should join the fotobilder community and help us make pretty layouts.

And yes, I know we've talked about doing photo hosting for many years now. In the past I never did it because it was too large of a project to just cram into LiveJournal as some sub-feature. I didn't want the use of journalling or photo hosting to necessitate the use of the other. Making it an entirely separate site (picpix.com), but heavily integrated solves the problem.

More details on this as we get closer to a launch date.

(Post a new comment)

	velvetknife 2002-09-23 02:55 pm UTC (link)
	I hate to be a nay-sayer, but do you think it's wise to start up a picture hosting setup right now, when you're having severe issues with site performance? I mean, I've seen the posts every week or so, and you still don't have the new servers in yet, so ... (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bradfitz 2002-09-23 02:57 pm UTC (link)
	picpix.com will be running on entirely different servers. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - velvetknife, 2002-09-23 02:59 pm UTC (Expand)

	katsumi 2002-09-23 03:00 pm UTC (link)
	I've noticed that when a user deletes a userpic, it's not really deleted off the server, but remains there. Perhaps that would ease the load as well, or let users link to images offsite~ Kinda related to this post, kinda not. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bradfitz 2002-09-23 03:04 pm UTC (link)
	They're deleted, but not immediately. The problem with letting users host userpics off-site is we can't guarantee their type, dimensions, or file size. With PicPix.com, we could. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - timwi, 2002-09-24 08:21 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - bradfitz, 2002-09-24 12:55 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - goljerp, 2002-09-27 06:40 am UTC (Expand)

	quasigeek 2002-09-23 03:07 pm UTC (link)
	I always had the idea that paid users should be able to store pictures and stuff at LJ. Excellent idea. (Reply to this)

	liesalllies 2002-09-23 03:09 pm UTC (link)
	last time you sold the permanent account.. they let the remaining time on your paid account transfer to a friends account.. is this still true for the new sale? if so how does it work? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	tsutton 2002-09-23 03:12 pm UTC (link)
	It's already explained at http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/permanent.bml (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - liesalllies, 2002-09-23 03:15 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kibbles, 2002-09-23 03:23 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - patrick, 2002-09-23 03:33 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kibbles, 2002-09-23 05:18 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - cetan, 2002-09-23 07:48 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kibbles, 2002-09-24 04:42 am UTC (Expand)

sugargm 2002-09-23 03:21 pm UTC (link)

yay! i love reading news about livejournal. can we get it more, or is there a better place to get "news briefs" and stuff? what's the status of other livejournal projects, like s2, myLJ, and other things. as of late, i've been wondering if there was a better place than lj_dev to find things out because the to-do list doesn't really tell me anything. there's tons of questions in my mind, but i can't really formulate them into complete thoughts. oh well, i'm done rambling now. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bradfitz 2002-09-23 03:24 pm UTC (link)
	S2 is totally working and in use on FotoBilder. mart and I plan to bring it to LiveJournal soon here, now that it's been broken in and tested thoroughly on FotoBilder. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - sugargm, 2002-09-23 03:40 pm UTC (Expand)

so tell me..... - loveanddarkness, 2002-09-23 04:35 pm UTC (Expand)

Re: so tell me..... - mart, 2002-09-24 08:01 am UTC (Expand)

Re: so tell me..... - loveanddarkness, 2002-09-24 08:27 am UTC (Expand)

	scarlete 2002-09-23 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	We're selling another batch of permanent accounts. W00t! Thanks! (: (Reply to this)

	off topic dlbags 2002-09-23 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	What ever happened to Sema getting the spell checker for the official client? Also, can I have a free permamnant account? (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

	Re: off topic sugarxsin 2002-09-23 03:33 pm UTC (link)
	ooh, yeah. and while you get one, get me one too ok? ;) (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: off topic - tydel, 2002-09-23 03:44 pm UTC (Expand)

	lying salesweasels beegle 2002-09-23 03:34 pm UTC (link)
	We're pretty disappointed that the vendor told us the machines went through testing, when they obviously didn't. Awww. C'mon. Name names. I want to know who these bastards are. (Reply to this)

Fantastic! jinty 2002-09-23 03:40 pm UTC (link)

fotobilder... When that's done, LiveJournal users with paid accounts will get so much free disk space and bandwidth at pics.livejournal.com. (Details yet to be decided.) In addition to hosting full-sized pictures, you'll also be able to host more userpics. A big Woo HOO! to that! Fantastic! That's really great. Not so bothered about the number of userpics, but hosting other pics is something I've been wanting for a while. The news that S2 is genuinely nearly here is exciting too... (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Fantastic! midnightmadness 2002-09-23 05:10 pm UTC (link)
	Not so bothered about the number of userpics, but hosting other pics is something I've been wanting for a while. And I'm just the opposite. I've been waiting for a way to get some more userpics to use for different types of posts and comments (even a ways to have them offsite would be nice as I have my own server space). Glad they're addressing them both. :-) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	immorak 2002-09-23 03:42 pm UTC (link)
	I like the idea. Well done Brad. (Reply to this)

	henningz 2002-09-23 03:48 pm UTC (link)
	the picture hosting is a great idea for all those without their own webspace. and thx for announcing the permanent accounts. this time didn't come late :) (Reply to this)

	stinkybum 2002-09-23 03:58 pm UTC (link)
	great work :) keep it up! and once again, if $100 US wasnt equal to 2$ CA I would buy a perm. journal :/ (Reply to this) (Thread)

	shahrizai 2002-09-23 04:11 pm UTC (link)
	If that were true, my unemployed canehdian azz would have 5 purchased already...seeing as you say 100 US = 2 CAD... Mmmmmmm, typos... (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

Re: - stinkybum, 2002-09-23 04:13 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - justdigi, 2002-09-23 04:21 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - carmen, 2002-09-23 05:00 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - katsumi, 2002-09-24 05:54 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - angels_touch, 2002-09-24 01:06 am UTC (Expand)

kent 2002-09-23 04:08 pm UTC (link)

Hmmm. I've been waiting to find out when/if account name changes will be available. I'm not planning on changing more than probably once, once I think up a new name (or that kent guy finally gets his account deleted, pretty please!). If I were to purchase a Permanent Account now, would I still be able to change my username later and maintain Permanent Account status? If I don't, but renew my Paid Membership, will I be able to maintain Paid Member status on a changed username? (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

	delusionalangel 2002-09-23 04:26 pm UTC (link)
	I believe that when that option is available, everything goes with the account that is moved, including the status of the account. I am 99% sure that is how it will work anyway. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(no subject) - braindrain, 2002-09-23 05:21 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - halkeye, 2002-09-23 05:31 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - braindrain, 2002-09-23 05:36 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - halkeye, 2002-09-23 06:21 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - maltor, 2002-09-23 09:41 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - timwi, 2002-09-24 08:35 am UTC (Expand)

Re: - kent, 2002-09-23 06:27 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - alanj, 2002-09-24 12:51 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - braindrain, 2002-09-24 01:15 pm UTC (Expand)

piphil 2002-09-23 05:09 pm UTC (link)

Just a thought - I've created a lot of user icons for people, and have always struggled with the 40k limit for user icons. It's something I've nearly always been able to overcome, but, espeicially with animated icons, the quality suffers a bit. Would it be possible for paying users to choose to have a fewer number of larger-sized icons? Even increasing the limit to 100K for paid accounts would allow a lot more flexibility and creativity for icon makers. Is this possible? This is a really small point in what is otherwise a pretty good idea. It's always been a pain for me to find somewhere to upload pictures to display via LJ. Having the feature within the site itself will be a Godsend. Keep up the great work! :-) (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

	busychild424 2002-09-23 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	that's a really good question. I'm curious about that myself. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(no subject) - alexatrit, 2002-09-23 08:45 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - kaolinfire, 2002-09-24 02:11 am UTC (Expand)

Re: - piphil, 2002-09-24 10:16 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - timwi, 2002-09-24 08:40 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - ex_ruthless916, 2002-09-30 09:49 am UTC (Expand)

	kaoslord 2002-09-23 05:34 pm UTC (link)
	the idea i gave you about userpics was useful.. i feel useful.. good times (Reply to this)

	twon 2002-09-23 06:07 pm UTC (link)
	That IS very exciting news :) Any word on User Renaming Yet???? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	memememememe 2002-09-24 02:26 am UTC (link)
	That's a good question. I want to know about renaming as well. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	johno 2002-09-23 06:15 pm UTC (link)
	BTDTGCTPA Been There, Done That, Got chriso The Permanent Account (Reply to this)

jemauvais 2002-09-23 09:23 pm UTC (link)

Also, some of the limits on things are slightly higher, as a little extra bonus. Erm... is it possible to let us know what exactly are the limits (and the other little extra perm account bonuses) you're referring to? The only one I can think of is userpics (which you're already increasing for paid users). Other than that, a permanent account is seriously exactly that: a paid account that never expires. (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

scripty 2002-09-23 10:49 pm UTC (link)

Yeah. Same as (^^). But, generally, I think the Permanent Account thing is great, what with the impending photo storage capacity. I'll buy, if not this next few weeks, then definitely the next time this option is offered. My opinion of LJ has elevated -- substantially -- since first joining, so, again, great new features that you indicate are soon to be available for the Permanent Accounts. As an aside, however, I was wondering about that Friends' View comment from earlier (here). Is there someway for those of us with Paid and/or Permanent Accounts to use our LJ pages any way that we care to, as with other blog sites? Having to use the "lj cut" thing is sometimes not within the motivations of the journaler, and it's annoying with certain content. Still, people complain when it's not employed, while the actual journal is not THEIRS, among other issues like it being somewhat tactless to complain about how someone else uses their own journal space. It would be nice to maintain a "View" that was automatically "cut" for the "Friends'" View, but not so in the Recent View for respective journals/journalers. As to the new features and whatever, I'll help with some logo design work, if LJ wants it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(no subject) - hapgood, 2002-09-23 10:54 pm UTC (Expand)

	I was gonna ask for a free one... unknownj 2002-09-24 03:20 am UTC (link)
	.. on account of making a public style, and buying you all them DVDs (okay, not that many, but still...). Then I figured I like giving money to LJ (scary, really), so.... Finally get some more invite codes, hooray :o) (Reply to this)

moneypenny 2002-09-24 04:45 am UTC (link)

This is mostly directed to anyone reading the comments, as I'm sure it's fairly simple to answer: Where is the list of perks for having a Permanent Account? Most of what I know is anecdotal evidence; I know you get 15 user icons and more invite moves, but where are the data? And as long as I'm here, my thanks to Brad and the crew once again. You guys are great. Cheers, Emily (Reply to this) (Thread)(Expand)

	Account types hedgee 2002-09-24 07:20 am UTC (link)
	FAQ 38 probably has the best answer to that question, for LiveJournal. Some other journal servers actually have this information in a nice readable tabulated form, but those numbers don't apply to LiveJournal. (I mentioned that last sentence as a attempt to nudge LiveJournal into implementing that kind of stuff as well. :-)) (Reply to this) (Parent)

(no subject) - fidelity_astro, 2002-09-24 03:58 pm UTC (Expand)

	phie 2002-09-24 11:40 am UTC (link)
	How many permanent accounts are left as of today (24th)? Missed out on the last batch, sadly. I hope that I'll be able to buy me one this time ^__^ (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bradfitz 2002-09-24 05:17 pm UTC (link)
	We'll keep it going at least one week. (Reply to this) (Parent)

ambi 2002-09-25 12:53 pm UTC (link)

If I had the money, I would buy a permanant account. I don't have the money needed but I do have a question. I read that you can trasnfer remaining paid time from one account to another. I would like to do this. I no longer want to use ambi as much and a friend of mine just gave me a paid year as a gift. I would be made a happy girl if my remaining paid time from ambi could be transferred over to misusedmuse. If this can't be done...well, I don't know. I'll just be sad and that's about all. Sorry if this is inappropriate commenting, I didn't know where else to take my question. Have a splendid day, Ambi (Reply to this) (Thread)

	mart 2002-09-25 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	The Accounts Department are most qualified to answer your question. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - ambi, 2002-09-25 08:06 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - mart, 2002-09-28 11:55 am UTC (Expand)

	jillybean956424 2002-09-25 10:51 pm UTC (link)
	will you be having the username rename thing anytime soon? i want to change my username but still keep this journal... (Reply to this)

	Yikes! thotvortex 2002-09-26 01:36 pm UTC (link)
	However, if you plan on using your journal for more than 4 years and want to always have the latest features and highest limits, this may actually be a worthwhile investment. Uhm... I havent read the fine print on lJ, so does the above statement mean hat accounts older than 4 years are automatically deleted?? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Yikes! pengolodh_sc 2002-09-26 02:54 pm UTC (link)
	No. He means that if you intend to have the LJ for more than four years, and to have it as a paid account all the time, buying a permanent account (USD 100) will be more eceonomical than buying consecutive 12-month paid accounts (USD 25 per 12 months), since when you pay for the fifth year, you'll be on more than USD 100. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	damnitnicole 2002-09-27 02:49 am UTC (link)
	Huzzah for bradfitz! When this is done, I'll definetly be keeping up better with paying for my account. (Reply to this)

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