FAQ - Paid Accounts
» How do I buy a Paid Account?
Buying a Paid Account is a great way to show your support for LiveJournal. Paid Accounts also offer a variety of additional features not available with Free Accounts.
The LiveJournal Payment Center is available at
http://www.livejournal.com/pay/. There, you can view pricing information, place an order to add paid time to your current account, or purchase a new account, using the option labeled "Email redemption code to." If you already have a paid account, purchasing additional paid time will extend its expiration date by the appropriate amount.
You can purchase a Paid Account either online with a credit card or PayPal, or through the mail with a check, money order, or cash. Simply add the service or item you would like to purchase to your order, then select your payment method from the drop-down menu.
If you are purchasing a Paid Account by check, money order, or cash, you will get a confirmation screen during the checkout process with the address you should send your payment to. Make sure to include either a print-out of that page or a note referencing your payment number. Make checks payable to "LiveJournal.com".
We do not recommend sending cash through the mail, as it can easily be stolen and there is absolutely no way to recover it. If the payment does arrive at our office, however, we will accept it.
We can only accept checks from the United States and Canada. If you reside in Canada and are sending a check, please make it out in United States funds. Your bank will do the exchange rate calculation if you write the payment amount followed by "US Funds".
International users should first try to pay by credit card or PayPal. If this is not possible, or if your credit card is not accepted, you should pay with an international money order in United States funds. Many postal services and banks offer these for a small fee.
Please note that, once purchased, you cannot transfer any Paid Account time to another LiveJournal account, nor can you receive a refund. This is stated in LiveJournal's Terms of Service.
FURTHER READING
What are the Paid Account benefits?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131
LiveJournal's Terms of Service
http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bmlLast Updated:
rho, 2004-08-06
» How do I buy a Paid Account for somebody else?
To purchase a Paid Account for another user, go to
http://www.livejournal.com/pay/, select "Gift for existing user" as the item you are purchasing, and type in the username of the recipient of your gift. Add this to your order, select your payment method, and click the button to check out.
If you would like to purchase a Paid Account for a Friend, but are unsure as to which Friend would most appreciate it, you can visit
http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/friends.bml. This page shows you which of your Friends have Free Accounts and which have Paid Accounts that are expiring soon, so you can choose the best recipient for your gift. On this page, Paid Accounts "expiring soon" are accounts that are expiring within 6 months.
Please see
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21 for information about the different payment options.
Last Updated:
janinedog, 2004-05-23
» What happens to my Paid Account when it expires?
Paid Account expiration has different effects on different users, depending on the status of their accounts before they became paid.
If you paid to create a new journal, or if you purchased paid time for a pre-existing free account, your account status will convert to "Free Account" after your paid time expires.
If your account status was "Early Adopter" before you paid for your account, it will revert back to the "Early Adopter" status once your paid time expires. You will still have the status provisions that you had before, as outlined in
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=38.
If you are using the S1 style system, and have created a style for your journal, you will still be able to use that style for your journal layout. You will also be able to switch back and forth between your custom style and the system styles. However, you won't be able to modify your custom style in any way. In order to further customize your journal, you would need to either purchase additional paid time for the account or use overrides. See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqcat=customize for information on customization.
If you are using the S2 style system, and have created your own S2 style, you will be able to continue to use that style, but you will not be able to edit it. You will also not be able to continue to use the custom EntryPage and ReplyPage layouts; your journal will revert to using system defaults for those two views.
If you have created a custom mood theme, you will still be able to use that mood theme, but you will no longer be able to edit it.
If you have uploaded more than 3 user pictures (or more than 6 if you are also an Early Adopter), they will remain visible in all old entries or comments that you made using that user picture. However, the database will tag your least-used icons as "inactive" -- you will not be able to choose to use those pictures in the future, on new comments or entries, until your account status changes again. Also, if you want to add a new picture, you will be required to delete some of the existing pictures in order to be at the correct number for your account status. See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=46 for more information.
You will no longer be able to create new syndicated accounts, but you will still be able to add existing ones to your Friends list. See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=137 for more information.
Any phone posts that you made will remain in your journal for at least six months after your Paid Account expires. However, after this period of time is over, the audio files may be deleted from your account. See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=183 for more information.
To see when your Paid Account time expires, log in (
http://www.livejournal.com/login.bml), and then visit
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml or
http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/status.bml.
Last Updated:
janinedog, 2004-05-23
» What are the Paid Account benefits?
Last Updated:
burr86, 2004-12-07
» How do I read and manage my LiveJournal e-mail?
As an added benefit for our Paid Account holders, LiveJournal offers a simple-to-use e-mail alias system. When you have a Paid Account, people can send mail to your @livejournal.com e-mail address, which is in the form of exampleusername@livejournal.com, replacing "exampleusername" with your username.
The @livejournal.com e-mail address is not an actual e-mail service from which you can send e-mail. It is a forwarding service only. Any mail sent to your exampleusername@livejournal.com address will be forwarded to whatever e-mail address you have listed on your Edit Personal Information page (
http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml). There is no additional mailbox to check, no POP3 server to connect to, and no extra hassle of setting up another e-mail account.
As an added security measure, you can select the level of visibility of your e-mail addresses, as seen on your User Info page (
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml). On the Edit Personal Information page (
http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml), look for the option labelled "Show your contact information on your LiveJournal?", and select your desired privacy settings.
*
You can completely disable your @livejournal e-mail alias by logging in (
http://www.livejournal.com/login.bml), going to the Admin Console (
http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/), and executing the following command:
set no_mail_alias 1
You can re-enable your @livejournal e-mail alias by executing the following command:
set no_mail_alias 0
Last Updated:
burr86, 2004-05-23
» How do I add a poll to a journal entry?
In order to create a poll, you must have a Paid Account. For information on how to purchase a Paid Account, see
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21; for information on the benefits of Paid Accounts, see
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131.
Paid users can create polls in their own journals, as well as in any community journals (whether free or paid) that they have posting access to. Free users may only vote in polls. The one exception to this rule is if a free user is the maintainer of a paid community. In this situation, the free user is able to post polls only in the paid community that they maintain. This is the only situation in which a free user can create and post a poll.
Each LiveJournal user is allowed one vote in a poll. After you've voted in a poll, you can change your answer by clicking on the poll number, and then clicking the [ Fill out Poll ] link at the top of the page. Note that it is not possible to vote in a poll anonymously, which means that people without LiveJournal accounts cannot vote in polls. If you know someone who does not have a LiveJournal account but would like to vote in a poll, you may wish to encourage him or her to create a LiveJournal account. The FAQ
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=104 provides information on how to create a LiveJournal account.
There are two ways to create a poll. To create a poll easily, you can use the Poll Creator:
http://www.livejournal.com/poll/create.bml. The poll creator will generate your poll's code for you, based on your specifications. It will allow you to preview your poll and create a journal entry containing the poll code. You can also simply copy and paste the code into a brand new journal entry. You can also create a poll by writing the code without the Poll Creator. This is explained under "CREATING A POLL BY WRITING THE CODE".
THINGS TO REMEMBER
You can only create a poll when you first create an entry. You cannot edit an old entry and include a new poll, or change an old poll when you edit the entry that contains it.
You cannot edit a poll once it has been made.
Polls may only be embedded into journal entries, not comments.
If you delete an entry that contains a poll, the poll will become inaccessible. You cannot create a new entry to restore an inaccessible poll; you must create a new poll. See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=2 for information on deleting an entry.
Polls cannot contain most of the HTML tags that are allowed in journal entries and comments. Polls can contain the following HTML tags: <a>, <b>, <em>, <i>, <img>, <strong>, <u>. They can also contain the <lj user> tag for linking to other journals. (See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=75 for more information about this LiveJournal-specific tag.)
CREATING A POLL BY WRITING THE CODE
If you would prefer not to use the Poll Creator, you can create a poll by writing the code yourself. If you would like to create a poll this way, or learn more about how the poll code works, read the rest of this FAQ.
*
When writing a journal entry, you can tell the LiveJournal servers that you want to start a poll by inserting the <lj-poll> tag. When the server parses this tag, it knows to display a poll based on the questions (<lj-pq>; "poll questions") and possible answers (<lj-pi>; "poll items") you provide.
When creating a poll, you must be very careful to provide a closing tag for every opening tag you insert, or the poll will not function correctly.
A very basic poll would look like this:
<lj-poll>
<lj-pq type="radio">
What is your name?
<lj-pi>Sir Lancelot of Camelot</lj-pi>
<lj-pi>Sir Robin of Camelot</lj-pi>
<lj-pi>Arthur, King of the Britons</lj-pi>
</lj-pq>
</lj-poll>
Some poll tags have attributes that you can use to provide more information. For example, a poll can be named by including the "name" attribute in the lj-poll tag, like this:
<lj-poll name="My First Poll">
TAGS AND THEIR ATTRIBUTES
<lj-poll> (beginning poll tag)
name="..."
Labels the poll with a descriptive name
whovote="all,friends"
Specifies who is allowed to vote in your poll. Options include any LiveJournal user (all), or just the people listed as friends (for personal journals) or members (for community journals) of the journal in which the poll is posted (friends). The default is all.
whoview="all,friends,none"
Specifies who is allowed to see which user chose which answer for the poll. Options include any LiveJournal user (all), which is the default; just the people listed as friends (for personal journals) or members (for community journals) of the journal in which the poll is posted (friends); or no one except the journal owner of the journal in which the poll was posted (none). Any user who can see the entry that the poll resides in can see the aggregate statistical data (percentages and bar graphs).
Here is an example of a complex <lj-poll> tag:
<lj-poll name="The Bridge of Death" whovote="friends" whoview="all">
(This starts a poll named the "The Bridge of Death", where only the people on your friends list can vote. Anyone can see the raw data.)
<lj-pq> (poll question)
type="check,drop,radio,scale,text"
type="radio"
Each item listed as a possible answer will have a radio button next to it, which means that people can only select one possible answer. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified for each "radio" question.
type="check"
Each item listed as a possible answer will have a check box next to it, which means that multiple choices may be selected. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified for each "check" question.
type="drop"
Each item listed as a possible answer will be displayed in a drop-down selection box, so that only one answer can be chosen. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified for each "drop" question.
type="text"
Displays a box that allows a person to freely type in a string of text as their answer. When a text input question is declared, there are no possible choices to be displayed (<lj-pi>).
If a question is of type text, two additional attributes are possible, "size" and "maxlength". Example, size="30" will display a 30 character wide input box, while maxlength="50" will limit the voters' answers to 50 characters each.
The limit for the "size" is 100. The limit for "maxlength" is 255.
type="scale"
Displays separate numeric options based on the information specified. Voters are typically expected to be ranking or rating something, based on a number scale given.
If absolutely no attributes (discussed below) are specified, the poll will display a scale of choices from 1 to 10.
If a question is of type scale, three additional attributes are possible: "from", "to", and "by", which define the range of the question. "from" is the beginning number, "to" is the finishing number (which must be greater than the "from"), and "by" is the number of units in between each choice; this value must be 1 or greater.
For example, if you want to make one of your questions "How old is old?" and wanted to include choices between 40 - 100, but only want choices in increments of 5 (eg 40, 45, 50, etc), you would enter <lj-pq type="scale" from="40" to="100" by="5">.
Scale type questions must be limited to 20 possible choices per question. For example, a scale from 1 to 100 by increments of 5 is permitted; a scale from 1 to 100 by increments of 1 is not.
If you use the scale option, the LiveJournal server is able to compute interesting numerical statistics on the way people have voted, such as the median and the average.
THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN WRITING POLL CODE
Each tag needs an appropriate closing tag.
Each <lj-pq> requires a "type" attribute.
The question text must follow immediately after the <lj-pq> tag.
<lj-pi> tags are for radio, check, and drop questions only. All possible answers are wrapped in <lj-pi> tags </lj-pi>. They are to be inserted after the question's text, but before the question's closing </lj-pq> tag.
Poll tags need to be nested correctly in order to work. For example, you must close each answer or question before you start a new one.
If you insert a line break inside a poll tag, it will not be automatically converted to an HTML line break (<br>), and the line break (<br>) and paragraph (<p>) tags are not allowed in polls.
Last Updated:
rho, 2004-07-31
» How do I create a custom mood theme?
The ability to create custom mood themes is limited to Paid or Permanent Accounts. Submissions for new public mood themes are currently not being accepted, due to the increase in bandwidth caused by adding mood themes; however, you can create a new mood theme for your own use if you have a Paid or Permanent Account.
Images used in custom mood themes must be hosted by a webspace provider that allows remote loading.
You can create, edit, use, and delete a custom mood theme using the Custom Mood Theme Editor:
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/moodthemes.bml. If you do not wish to use the interactive editor, the lower portion of this FAQ explains how to create a mood theme manually using console commands.
Once created, you can preview your mood theme at
http://www.livejournal.com/moodlist.bml?moodtheme=<themeid>&ownerid=<ownerid>, replacing <themeid> with the ID number of your mood theme and <ownerid> with your user ID number. Your user ID number is found on the User Info page (
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml) right next to your username in parentheses.
CREATING A MOOD THEME MANUALLY
Instructions on how to create a custom mood theme manually can be found at
http://www.livejournal.com/doc/guide/moodicons.bml. You can view a particular mood theme along with the mood theme IDs by appending &mode=tree to the mood theme URL:
http://www.livejournal.com/moodlist.bml?moodtheme=<themeID>&mode=tree. Note that custom mood themes cannot be deleted from the Admin Console. If you wish to delete a mood theme you have created, you will need to use the custom mood theme editor.
It is possible to edit your mood theme later, using the same moodtheme_setpic command that you used to initially define the mood theme.
To edit an existing custom mood theme, you need to know the ID number of your theme. If you have forgotten the ID number, you can recover it using the Admin Console (
http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/) by executing the following command:
moodtheme_list
This will list all public mood themes, followed by any mood themes that you own.
To see which moods are defined for your mood theme, execute the following command:
moodtheme_list <themeid>
You will need to replace <themeid> with the ID number of your mood theme. Do not enter the < or > symbols; these are only for reference purposes.
FURTHER READING
How do I buy a Paid Account?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21
Why are my images not displaying? What is remote loading?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=130Last Updated:
janinedog, 2004-08-05
» What is the Directory? How do I use this feature?
The Directory (
http://www.livejournal.com/directorysearch.bml) is a tool that helps users to find other users according to specific search criteria. Through the Directory, it is possible to find other users by location, age, interests, and several other criteria.
To use the Directory, you must be logged in with a Paid, Permanent, or Early Adopter Account. (See
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131 for information on Paid Account benefits and how to purchase one.) Free users can not use the Directory, but can use some of the alternate search methods listed in:
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=202
All LiveJournal users, however, can list themselves so that users with access to the Directory can find them. You will not be able to find your listing in the Directory if you have a Free Account, because Free Users do not have access to it. If you wish to remove yourself from the Directory, go to
http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml and uncheck the "Show location & birthday?" option. You will then not appear in any Directory searches pertaining to location or age.
Last Updated:
rho, 2004-09-26
» What is the text messaging feature? How do I use it?
LiveJournal's text messaging feature allows people to send text messages to users' cellphones or pagers by following a link on the user info page. This lets users receive text messages without having to publicly share their phone numbers. Paid and Permanent Account holders can set up their text messaging options and receive text messages. All account types, as well as users without accounts, can send text messages to these users.
LiveJournal does not charge for sending or receiving messages. However, your cellphone or pager service provider may charge for each text message you receive. Please check with your service provider for information on text messaging fees.
SENDING TEXT MESSAGES
If a user has text messaging enabled and you are authorized to send them messages, a section labeled "Text Message" will appear in their user info. You can click the link there to reach a form where you type in the text message. If you are logged into a LiveJournal account, the "From" field will automatically be filled in with your username. Otherwise you should fill in this field with a name to identify yourself. You can then type your message in the "Message" field and click the "Send Message!" button.
SETTING TEXT MESSAGING OPTIONS
If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can set your text messaging options at
http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml, at the bottom of the "Personal Information" section. To enable text messaging, you must check the appropriate box, select your cellphone provider from the dropdown menu, and enter your full phone number. A list of currently supported providers is available at
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/textmessage.bml?mode=details.
You can also select a security level to determine who can use LiveJournal to send you text messages. The security levels are: Anybody (all visitors, even if not logged into LiveJournal), Registered Users (only people who are logged into LiveJournal), and Friends only (only people you put on your Friends list).
REPORTING PROBLEMS AND REQUESTING ADDITIONS
Any problems you experience with using the text messaging feature should be reported to the lj_textmessage community (
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lj_textmessage). If your text messaging provider isn't supported by LiveJournal, you can post to lj_textmessage and request that it be added.
The text message development team will be happy to add your service if you provide the necessary information listed below. You also will need to help with testing, which typically involves receiving one or more text messages and providing feedback.
If you receive text messages via e-mail, you must include:
* The name of the service (be specific)
* The e-mail address which is used to send messages
* Any limit on the length of the name of the sender, the subject, and the message
* Any other information you may have
If you receive text messages via a web page, you must include:
* The name of the service (be specific)
* The URL of the page, preferably of the receiving script
* The format used to address the recipient (for instance, phone number or username)
* Any limit on the length of the name of the sender, the subject, and the message
* Any extra fields that need to be submitted
* Any other information you may have
Further information can be found on the lj_textmessage user info page, and any questions about these guidelines should be posted in the community.
FURTHER READING
How do I buy a Paid Account?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21
What are the Paid Account benefits?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131
How do I manage my Friends list?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=61Last Updated:
rho, 2004-08-25
» How do I forward my domain to my LiveJournal?
This feature is available to members with Paid or Permanent Accounts. While logged in, go to
http://www.livejournal.com/modify.bml and scroll down until you see "Domain Aliasing." Enter your domain name in the text box.
For this to work, you'll need to arrange to have your domain name's DNS point to LiveJournal's IP address, which is 66.150.15.150. If you do not have the ability to change this yourself, your web hosting company should be able to make this change for you.
LiveJournal does not provide DNS services. You will need to obtain DNS services from your web hosting company or your domain registrar.
If you are familiar with DNS and how it works, you could also set up a CNAME record pointing to livejournal.com, rather than an A record pointing to 66.150.15.150.
*
If you do not currently have a domain registered, Domain Monger (
http://www.domainmonger.com/) allows you to register domains fairly inexpensively. If you use Domain Monger, you will be supporting LiveJournal, as LiveJournal receives a small referral fee from Domain Monger. However, LiveJournal does not require that Domain Monger be used. Instructions for setting up a domain registered with Domain Monger are below. If you use a different site to register your domain, their technical support staff should be able to set up the alias for you.
1. Go to:
http://www.domainmonger.com/login_manage.shtml
2. Enter domain name, user name, and password. Click "Manage Domain" button.
3. Click "DNS Plus" link (In the navigation bar labeled "Manage Your Domain").
4. Click "IP Addresses" link.
5. Enter the IP Address "66.150.15.150" in the box labeled "Numeric IP" and click the "Add New IP Address link". (Leave box labeled "Name" blank.)
6. Click "Yes" to "Both 'yourdomain.com' and 'www.yourdomain.com' will have the IP 66.150.15.150"
Last Updated:
gooner, 2003-11-12
» How do I post via email?
In order to post to your journal or to a community by email, you must have a Paid Account.
To post by email, first go to
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/emailpost.bml and set at least one allowed sender address. Most users will then want to create a PIN for authentication, but it is also possible to authenticate your email posts using your PGP or GPG public key.
If you create a PIN, you will then be able to post by sending email to exampleusername@post.livejournal.com with the PIN in the subject or the body of the message, or by sending email to exampleusername+PIN@post.livejournal.com. Replace "exampleusername" with your username, and "PIN" with your PIN.
Your email should be sent in plain text format (instead of rich text or HTML format) in order for it to post correctly. There is no way to turn on the "Don't auto-format" feature when posting by email. If you would like to keep your entry from being automatically formatted, you can use the <lj-raw> tag in your email entry.
Detailed instructions about posting by email can be found at
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/emailpost.bml?mode=help. These instructions include how to post to a community via email, how to specify a current mood and music, and how to add image attachments. You can also find other methods of providing your PIN in an email post. If you are logged in when you visit this page, the examples will be customized for your account.
If you would like to use your PGP or GPG public key for authentication, you will need to upload it to LiveJournal and configure your email client to support the sending of emails which have been digitally "signed" to prove the identity of the sender. If you would like to create a key, or need more information about PGP and GPG public keys, please see
http://www.pgp.com/ for PGP information, and
http://www.gnupg.org/ for GnuPG (GPG) information.
Once your email client has been configured to support digitally-signed email (please see your client's documentation for more details), you can use your public key as a means of identification, and you will not need to use a PIN. You can paste your public key into the field provided on
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/pubkey.bml; once you have clicked the "Save Settings" button, this key can be accessed via the yellow key icon on your User Information Page (
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml).
Instructions on how to post by email using PGP/GPG message signing can be found at
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/emailpost.bml?mode=help&type=advanced.
FURTHER READING
How do I buy a Paid Account?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21
What are the Paid Account benefits?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131
What does the "Don't auto-format" option do?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=26
How do I use an lj-cut? What are the other LiveJournal-specific tags?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=75Last Updated:
rahaeli, 2004-12-27
» How do I record a phone post to my journal?
Paid users have the ability to call a special telephone number and record an audio file that will then post to your LiveJournal. You can make up to 15 phone posts per calendar month, and use up to 50 megabytes of disk space. Each post can be up to five minutes long. Depending on your geographic location and phone service provider, you may be charged long-distance or international rates to access these numbers. For more details, please contact your phone service provider.
SETTING UP PHONE POSTING
To set up the ability to post to your LiveJournal via phone, and to receive instructions, visit
http://www.livejournal.com/phonepost/. Choose "Post by Phone Settings" to set up your account to enable phone posting. Select a Personal Identification Number -- this is not the same PIN that is used for posting via e-mail. You must also specify your phone number. This is used to authorize you; we will never use this number for marketing purposes. If there are multiple people in your household who share a phone number and intend to use this feature, make sure that you choose different PINs.
Here you can also decide who can transcribe your posts: all of your friends, just you, or any of your defined Friends groups. You can also select a file format for your phone posts -- either WAV files or Ogg Vorbis (
http://www.livejournal.com/phonepost/ogg.bml).
MAKING A PHONE POST
A list of telephone numbers to call can be found at
http://www.livejournal.com/phonepost/numbers.bml.
When you call the Post by Phone access number, the system has caller ID that can automatically detect the phone number you are using. If this is your designated phone post number, you can identify yourself through this caller ID; if you are calling from a different phone number, you can choose to manually enter the authorized phone post number. You will also be asked for your PIN. Once you have logged in, you can record your message. Press pound (#) when you are done. Do not hang up; hanging up will cause your entry to be posted privately.
When you are finished recording your message and have pressed pound, you will hear the posting options. They are as follows:
(1) Re-plays your message.
(2) Re-records your message.
(3) Posts your message publicly.
(4) Posts your message Friends-Only.
(5) Posts your message privately.
Choose your posting option. When you hear the confirmation, you can hang up. Your post will appear in your journal within a few minutes.
VIEWING YOUR PHONE POSTS
A list of all of your phone posts can be found at the File Manager:
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/files.bml?showtype=phonepost. Please note that if you delete an entry with a phone post in it, the audio file link will also disappear from the File Manager.
TRANSCRIBING YOUR PHONE POSTS
The users authorized to transcribe your posts will have the option to transcribe your phone post and give the post a title by hitting the "Transcribe" link. Once someone has transcribed the entry, their transcription will appear in the phone post journal entry, with a "Transcribed" link at the bottom. No HTML is allowed in transcriptions. Clicking this link takes you to the transcription page, where it is possible to review previous transcriptions and enter a new transcription. Only the most recent transcription will appear in the journal entry. Each friend can only transcribe a post once; they will be unable to edit a transcript once it has been posted. Once you have provided your own transcription, your friends will no longer be able to transcribe the entry, though you can continue to update the transcription as often as you like. Note that there is a limit of 10 transcripts for each phone post, the last of which is reserved for you. If the limit of 10 is reached, you will still be able to provide new transcripts, but each new transcript will replace the one previously saved as the tenth.
FURTHER READING
What are custom friends groups? How do I use them?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=102
What is Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)? How can I play Ogg Vorbis files?
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=184Last Updated:
burr86, 2004-10-16
» How do I play a phone post? What are Ogg Vorbis files (.ogg)?
LiveJournal uses two file formats for its Post by Phone feature (
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=183): WAV files and Ogg Vorbis files. While WAV files can be played with a variety of programs, listening to Ogg Vorbis files may require new software, or changes to your current software.
A list of programs that have native Ogg Vorbis support, along with information on why LiveJournal uses Ogg Vorbis, can be found here:
http://www.livejournal.com/phonepost/ogg.bml
The following programs don't have Ogg Vorbis support naturally, but you can download third-party extensions that will add support. (Please note that this is third-party software, and LiveJournal cannot be responsible for any possible damage to your system if you choose to install and use this software. These links and instructions are provided as a courtesy only.)
We intend to keep updating this list as we find methods to play Ogg Vorbis files with other popular media players, so if you have information or want to contribute a set of instructions for a specific player, please e-mail denisep@livejournal.com.
Windows Media Player (Windows):
http://tobias.everwicked.com/: Tobias' DirectShow(TM) Filter (
http://tobias.everwicked.com/oggds.htm)
Once you install this, you will need to manually tell Windows to open .ogg files in Windows Media Player; the installer doesn't automatically associate file types for you (though you can tell it to).
iTunes or QuickTime (Windows):
Go to:
http://qtcomponents.sourceforge.net/
Click: Download
Pick: Windows
Install into: c:\winnt\system32\quicktime
Reboot your system
Once you install this, you will need to manually tell Windows to open .ogg files in iTunes or QuickTime.
iTunes or QuickTime (Macintosh):
Go to:
http://qtcomponents.sourceforge.net/
Click: Download
Pick: OS9 or OSX (based on your operating system)
Install into: System Folder/Extensions/Quick Time Extensions (if you use OS9) or /Library/Quicktime (if you use OSX)
Reboot your system
You should now download an Ogg Vorbis file -- your browser will probably download it for you. Control-click on the file in the Finder and select "Open With". You can assign it to either QuickTime or iTunes. OSX users can also choose to play the file through Preview directly in the Finder.
If you're using Mac OS 10.2 and QuickTime 6.2 or greater, you may wish to try the plugin located at
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/ as an alternate method.
Last Updated:
burr86, 2004-10-16
Back to
the FAQ.
Back to
the support area.
