Website Downloaders

Gary North

Sept. 16, 2010

I did something really stupid last week. Actually, I didn't do something that would have been really smart. I failed to download a website. Now it's gone.

It was a site that had an entire book posted on it. This was illegal, of course. I knew that. But I am writing a series of chapters/articles against the book. I will post them as an entire department (free) on my site on October 15. It's a really bad book. It is also dangerous.

The site was perfect. I could extract paragraphs from the book, word-for-word perfect, with cut & paste. This was fast and easy. I wrote 31 short articles this way. It's a long book.

Then I went back to the site. Gone.

The author obviously had found out and had ordered it taken down. The author is a lawyer.

The site is not on the Archive.org Way Back Machine.

I knew this could happen. But, like a dolt, I did nothing about it. I could have saved the entire site on my hard drive. I even have a software product that does this: HT Track. But I did not remember that I had it.

Now I ask my wife to type in the quotations. This is extra work for her. I must go over every quotation with her, word for word. As I said, the author is a lawyer.

There are free programs out there that let you download a site and save it. Here are reviews of lots of them:

//www.garynorth.com/snip/1009.htm

Don't assume that a site will be there forever. Assume that it won't be there tomorrow. Then decide if something is worth copying and saving on your hard drive.

For 250+ more tips, click here:

//www.garynorth.com/public/department54.cfm