Argh!!! $%^&ing word processor
Julia Jones
[insert string of rude words here]
And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
[insert further string of rude words here]
--
Julia Jones
"We are English of Borg. Your language will be assimilated."
Dorothy J Heydt
Julia Jones <julia...@jajones.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
>
>[insert string of rude words here]
>
>And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
>this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
>lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
>
>[insert further string of rude words here]
Ewwwwww. That is like when my computer died just as I was
attempting to write the last chapter of _TIL_ to disk, and I had
to restore it from memory (mine, not its) with pen and paper.
It came out essentially as well as before, though I've always
been haunted by the feeling that there was *one* neat turn of
phrase that I never managed to recover.
Good luck with yours.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Julia Jones
<djh...@kithrup.com> writes
I think I've reconstructed everything that got chomped, but yes, it's
that feeling of having lost a neat turn of phrase. :-(
Now for today's word count...
Carl Dershem
news:AQstLQBS...@sbcglobal.net:
> Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
>
> [insert string of rude words here]
>
> And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
> this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
> lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
>
> [insert further string of rude words here]
You have my sympathy. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would 'upgrade' to a
WP that is already buggy, and was changed for marketing purposes, but then
again, my WP was last upgraded in 1999, as a bug fix.
That said, I do *not* miss EDLIN.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
David Friedman
Julia Jones <julia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
>
> [insert string of rude words here]
>
> And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
> this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
> lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
>
> [insert further string of rude words here]
What word processor?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
Kevin J. Cheek
says...
> I think I've reconstructed everything that got chomped, but yes, it's
> that feeling of having lost a neat turn of phrase. :-(
What are you using? You can set up Word to save recovery information as
often as you desire, and the same option exists in WordPerfect.
--
-Kevin J. Cheek
Remove corn to send e-mail.
Julia Jones
Cheek <kev...@maize.planttel.net> writes
>In article <ShG5nGO5...@sbcglobal.net>, julia...@gmail.com
>says...
>> I think I've reconstructed everything that got chomped, but yes, it's
>> that feeling of having lost a neat turn of phrase. :-(
>
>What are you using? You can set up Word to save recovery information as
>often as you desire, and the same option exists in WordPerfect.
>
sort of bug that gets past the autosave - the file is somehow corrupted
by a glitch during a previous save, so that new stuff doesn't "take"
when saved, whether manually or on a timer. It's done this once or twice
before. No, I don't have plans to change software - this is far too rare
an occurrence to be worth swapping to a different and unknown set of
bugs. It's sufficiently rare that I had forgotten that this could be an
issue when that specific glitch happens.
Julia Jones
<der...@cox.net> writes
>Julia Jones <julia...@gmail.com> wrote in
>news:AQstLQBS...@sbcglobal.net:
>
>> Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
>>
>> [insert string of rude words here]
>>
>> And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
>> this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
>> lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
>>
>> [insert further string of rude words here]
>
>You have my sympathy. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would 'upgrade' to a
>WP that is already buggy, and was changed for marketing purposes, but then
>again, my WP was last upgraded in 1999, as a bug fix.
This is Lotus Word Pro Millennium, and I upgraded from the previous Word
Pro because it provided some genuinely useful new features. It is
normally very well behaved.
I may use the Spawn of Redmond OS, and their re-badged hardware is
pretty nice, but their word processor drives me to screaming incoherent
fury within ten minutes every time I'm forced to use it on someone
else's machine. And no, I'm not exaggerating for comedic effect. There
was marital discord when I discovered it installed behind my back on My
Machine.
Patricia C. Wrede
"Julia Jones" <julia...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:y1Cxivao...@sbcglobal.net...
Huh. I've been using LWP for getting on for 10 years, and I can't recall
anything like that ever happening to me. The only oddity was that once, for
a while when I had two users on the same computer, it wouldn't open a new
document from the file menu, only by using the keyboard shortcut. But that
fixed itself after a while. I wonder if the glitches have something to do
with the specific machine or software configuration?
Patricia C. Wrede
Julia Jones
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
That's my feeling. I've only seen it on this particular box, and this
really is only about the third time it's happened. And there have been a
couple of other weirdnesses I've only seen it do on this box.
I've been using the Smartsuite package since Ami Pro 3.1, on a variety
of machines. It's normally a very nice, well-behaved piece of software,
and very well suited to what I want to do with a word processor.
John F. Eldredge
In that case, I would suggest doing a manual "Save As" periodically,
saving under a succession of different file names, so that if this bug
corrupts the save process, you will have earlier uncorrupted versions
to go back to. I don't know if Lotus Word Pro has a macro-writing
capability, but, if not, you could set up some third-party macro
program so that it would automatically generate a different file name,
possibly based upon the date and time, each time the file is saved.
I recently lost about 20 minutes of work that I hadn't saved by
stretching my legs and accidentally pressing the power switch on the
surge-protector strip with my toe. CLICK. "Oh blast!".
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Julia Jones
Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> writes
>On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:26:00 -0700, Julia Jones
><julia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>In message <MPG.1ea8ba519...@nntp.planttel.net>, Kevin J.
>>Cheek <kev...@maize.planttel.net> writes
>>>In article <ShG5nGO5...@sbcglobal.net>, julia...@gmail.com
>>>says...
>>>> I think I've reconstructed everything that got chomped, but yes, it's
>>>> that feeling of having lost a neat turn of phrase. :-(
>>>
>>>What are you using? You can set up Word to save recovery information as
>>>often as you desire, and the same option exists in WordPerfect.
>>>
>>Lotus Word Pro, and it is set to save every ten minutes. This is some
>>sort of bug that gets past the autosave - the file is somehow corrupted
>>by a glitch during a previous save, so that new stuff doesn't "take"
>>when saved, whether manually or on a timer. It's done this once or twice
>>before. No, I don't have plans to change software - this is far too rare
>>an occurrence to be worth swapping to a different and unknown set of
>>bugs. It's sufficiently rare that I had forgotten that this could be an
>>issue when that specific glitch happens.
>
>In that case, I would suggest doing a manual "Save As" periodically,
>saving under a succession of different file names, so that if this bug
>corrupts the save process, you will have earlier uncorrupted versions
>to go back to.
>
the master document feature, and I'd gone back to add an extra scene in
the first chapter after doing some more research and thinking about
setup. That was the corrupted file -- the new text in chapter two from
earlier in the evening seemed to be fine.
Thinking about it, it's acting rather as if something internally marks
the file as Read-Only as it's saved, but doesn't trigger the "This is a
read-only file, any changes will be lost unless you save under a new
filename" warning the next time it's opened. Perhaps it thinks it's
opening a duplicate of an existing file that's already open, which when
you do it on purpose does in fact generate a read-only version and that
warning.
Catja Pafort
> Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
Commiserations!
> [insert string of rude words here]
$ &*^&! **()(&! @&*£)!
Will that do?
> And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
> this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
> lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
Bleh.
> [insert further string of rude words here]
Aren't you a little bit greedy? What are you going to _do_ with all them
words?
<checks identity of poster>
Oh.
<blushes>
Well, I hope you'll get your rude words back soon, along with the
others...
Catja
Catja Pafort
> I may use the Spawn of Redmond OS, and their re-badged hardware is
> pretty nice, but their word processor drives me to screaming incoherent
> fury within ten minutes every time I'm forced to use it on someone
> else's machine.
I'm quite fond of the Mac version usually, but the latest system crash
had a very nasty aftereffect - I can no longer use the fonts associated
with my classic system.
Which, unfortunately, includes two truetype fonts that are absolutely
VITAL for me and means that my revision has ground to a halt because
Word will no longer display my text in a form that I find readable.
> And no, I'm not exaggerating for comedic effect. There
> was marital discord when I discovered it installed behind my back on My
> Machine.
I can understand that feeling - no so much the 'I hate Word'ness as the
'keep your hands off my computer' part.
Catja
obilon
I feel your pain. There are times I forgot to save and lost work. I
always feel like something was lost as the "zone" that I was writing in
is lost and there was a little magic int he words that is just not the
same. I have since learned to save often and try to back up my writing
to CD every few weeks. CDs are relatively cheap when compared to lost
time and frustration.
Pat Bowne
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote
>
> Huh. I've been using LWP for getting on for 10 years, and I can't recall
> anything like that ever happening to me. The only oddity was that once,
> for a while when I had two users on the same computer, it wouldn't open a
> new document from the file menu, only by using the keyboard shortcut. But
> that fixed itself after a while.
What is going on when glitches fix themselves? I've had it happen to obvious
hardware problems like a loose jack, and to mysterious system problems like
refusing to open any programs.
Pat
Kevin J. Cheek
jo...@jfeldredge.com says...
> I recently lost about 20 minutes of work that I hadn't saved by
> stretching my legs and accidentally pressing the power switch on the
> surge-protector strip with my toe. CLICK. "Oh blast!".
Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I took a BASIC class, I got
into the habit of saving after every significant change. Which was a good
thing, for when I stretched my legs under the desk while doing the final
assignment, I accidently unplugged the computer. Fortunately I'd already
saved it.
As it is, when writing I hit [Ctrl]+[S] to save every few minutes. While
doing revisions, I save after every change.
Kevin J. Cheek
says...
> I may use the Spawn of Redmond OS, and their re-badged hardware is
> pretty nice, but their word processor drives me to screaming incoherent
> fury within ten minutes every time I'm forced to use it on someone
> else's machine. And no, I'm not exaggerating for comedic effect. There
> was marital discord when I discovered it installed behind my back on My
> Machine.
We have both Word and WordPerfect 8 on our machines. Unfortunately, WP 8
is so old that it has problems with some of our equipment. Rather than
abandon WP, we're looking at upgrading. But, this is "Chevy vs Ford"
territory, and to each his own.
David Friedman
"Pat Bowne" <pbo...@execpc.com> wrote:
Clear evidence for the existence of guardian angels. Who can program.
Julia Jones
Cheek <kev...@maize.planttel.net> writes
I never bought into the 'nix-fetishists' reasons for hating MS just
because it was aimed at the lusers.) And no, it's not because it's A
Different Program, either -- I've used a number of word processors over
the years. I like Wordpad as a quick-and-dirty rich text editor.
There's simply some basic incompatibility between my mindset and the
mindset of the Word designers. I suppose if I had to use it on my own
machine, I could eventually get it set up to remove some of the things
that annoy me (most software I have control over very rapidly gets some
defaults changed), but some of the things that drive me nuts are a basic
part of the implementation. Its attitude to stylesheets, for example.
Julia Jones
obilon <lc...@optonline.net> writes
>
>Julia Jones wrote:
>> Word processor has eaten last half of last night's word count.
>>
>> [insert string of rude words here]
>>
>> And I think the file is sufficiently corrupted that it will keep doing
>> this, so I need to cut-n-paste into a plaintext file, and back into a
>> lovely fresh word processor file, rebooting in between, to stop it.
>>
>> [insert further string of rude words here]
>
>always feel like something was lost as the "zone" that I was writing in
>is lost and there was a little magic int he words that is just not the
>same. I have since learned to save often and try to back up my writing
>to CD every few weeks. CDs are relatively cheap when compared to lost
>time and frustration.
>
frustrated if you're not just in that specific conversation.
I try to remember to burn CDs every so often, but I'm not as hot on that
now I have no off-site storage for them. I normally email a copy of the
WIP to my writing partner and to my archive gmail account every few days
-- not just useful for backup, but I can also easily retrieve a file if
I'm away from home and I've managed to forget to pack a file to use on
the laptop.
(Anyone still need a gmail invite code, or have we now reached the point
where those who want accounts have them?)
Patricia C. Wrede
news:1145036477.7...@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things that
plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still use CDs,
though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the main
computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on the
flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But I
may just be being a bit paranoid here...
Patricia C. Wrede
Rich Weyand
>I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things that
>plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still use CDs,
>though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the main
>computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on the
>flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
>first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But I
>may just be being a bit paranoid here...
Nah. Not when you put that much work into something.
I have two USB external hard drives. I back up the machines on one while the
other sits in the bank safe deposit box. When I go to the bank on other
business, I swap them.
Rich Weyand
Working title "Message Received" complete
WIP: untitled sequel
Joann Zimmerman
says...
Elaborate backup scheme involving complete Acronis images to two
separate external hard drives, "My Documents" to laptop, laptop Acronis
images to the same two external drives, WIP files to flash keychain.
(I do get a bit paranoid about hard drives. They have a habit of falling
out from under me about once every two years.)
--
"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Patricia C. Wrede
news:pg$n3wKc0...@sbcglobal.net...
> In my case it's not "it's MS, therefore it's Evil". (I'm a VMS girl, so I
> never bought into the 'nix-fetishists' reasons for hating MS just because
> it was aimed at the lusers.) And no, it's not because it's A Different
> Program, either -- I've used a number of word processors over the years. I
> like Wordpad as a quick-and-dirty rich text editor.
>
> There's simply some basic incompatibility between my mindset and the
> mindset of the Word designers. I suppose if I had to use it on my own
> machine, I could eventually get it set up to remove some of the things
> that annoy me (most software I have control over very rapidly gets some
> defaults changed), but some of the things that drive me nuts are a basic
> part of the implementation. Its attitude to stylesheets, for example.
Sister!
I have exactly the same problem. I'd *like* to be more comfortable with
MSWord, because practically everyone I need to send stuff to in the way of
business (publishers, libraries, students, etc.) either uses it as their
default, or *can* use it and therefore assumes it as the default for
exchanging important files. But it just doesn't think the same way I do.
Someday I'll have to take a class, in my copious free time...
Patricia C. Wrede
Julia Jones
Catja Pafort <use...@greenknight.org.uk.invalid> writes
>Julia Jones wrote:
>
>> [insert further string of rude words here]
>
>Aren't you a little bit greedy? What are you going to _do_ with all them
>words?
>
><checks identity of poster>
>
>Oh.
>
><blushes>
>
>Well, I hope you'll get your rude words back soon, along with the
>others...
[grin]
I'm going to have to learn to write something that does not involve use
of rude words. Or possibly just learn to write stuff with rude words
that will appeal to the straight male market as well as the female and
gay male market.
No rude words were in the lost section. I hadn't got that (realises
phrase she was about to use could be misconstrued, reconsiders)... I had
not finished setting up the basic plot, and while the reader who has
bought an erotic romance novella may have guessed by this point which
characters are going to provide the erotic romance, the POV character
hasn't.
That's about to change. :->
Julia Jones
<pwred...@aol.com> writes
It's a relief to know I'm not the only one who feels this way about it.
I would also like to be more comfortable with it, for exactly the same
reason. And I have used it on occasion when I had to be able to read an
incoming .doc file in a later version than LWP can import. But I really
cannot deal with it as my primary word processor, for reasons that have
nothing to do with OS Holy Wars. I've stuck with Word Pro all these
years because it thinks the same way I do.
Fortunately my editor at Loose Id works with rtf files, and her Word and
my LWP can read each other's rtf output, even unto the "mark up edits"
features.
Zeborah
> I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things that
> plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD.
Those are cool. (I call them thumb drives, at work we call them pen
drives.) When I'm smart, I back up onto one of those. I also email
scenes as completed to my betareader and to my gmail account, but as I
do a lot of going back to old chapters to fix a word for continuity,
they don't have the most up-to-date version.
>I still use CDs,
> though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the main
> computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on the
> flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
> first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But I
> may just be being a bit paranoid here...
When I was working on my final research report for the MLIS, my computer
crashed twice in three months. Okay, the second time was just the
battery crashing(1) but it frightened me. I backed everything up onto
CD and kept it at work and the computer behaved perfectly thereafter. I
figure, backing up isn't just insurance, it's a preventative measure.
Zeborah
(1) I was in the library, running off the battery, it claimed it had an
hour or two left, and suddenly it just turned off and wouldn't turn on
again. Turned out to be something about the battery's memory.
<grumble> Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
memories.
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
Zeborah
> (Anyone still need a gmail invite code, or have we now reached the point
> where those who want accounts have them?)
Dunno, but I've stopped receiving requests for invitations from complete
strangers.
(Also, I've given up on checking my spam for false catches: there are
over 2000 there for the last 30 days.)
Zeborah
David Friedman
"Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things that
> plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still use CDs,
> though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the main
> computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on the
> flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
> first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But I
> may just be being a bit paranoid here...
>
Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
you could probably reconstruct it.
Alma Hromic Deckert
>Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
>memories.
<g> sorry, I just wanted to admire that once more.
A.
Patricia C. Wrede
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote in message
news:ddfr-6AB48E.1...@news.isp.giganews.com...
> In article <123vsrc...@corp.supernews.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things
>> that
>> plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still use
>> CDs,
>> though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the
>> main
>> computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on
>> the
>> flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
>> first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But
>> I
>> may just be being a bit paranoid here...
>>
>
> Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
> you could probably reconstruct it.
Depends on the cat. Merlin used to shred things regularly; I had to put
weights on loose papers and even on paperbacks, so that they couldn't be
made to lift into a position where he could get his fangs into them. He was
as good as a paper-shredder, except that he shredded *everything*, not just
the stuff I wanted shredded.
Patricia C. Wrede
Carl Dershem
Friend!!!
That's also the WP I use, and I"ve used it since AmiPro, and never had a
problem at all. Sorry to hear it's been glitching on you. :(
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
Carl Dershem
AGreed. I detest the "you must do it our way!" mindset of Word, and the
"jump through hoops because we find it amusing" mindset of WP, but I have
them both installed because both are needed for my day job.
But even using LWP 97, there are things that are very easy and simple to
do that I have *never* been able to convince the other two programs to
do. Too bad IBM screwed up Lotus so bad. :(
SAMK
The one other thing I like a lot about Lotus Word Pro is it will read
Word docs and save as Word docs just fine. I can make Lotus sing, when
I'm doing advertising for the business. I can't stand Word. Same with
the spreadsheet programs.
SAMK
Zeborah
> I feel your pain. There are times I forgot to save and lost work. I
> always feel like something was lost as the "zone" that I was writing in
> is lost and there was a little magic int he words that is just not the
> same. I have since learned to save often and try to back up my writing
> to CD every few weeks. CDs are relatively cheap when compared to lost
> time and frustration.
My current word processor is great because it autosaves a certain number
of the most recent versions in a separate folder - wonderful for those
times when you make a large change (global search/replace, or deleting a
large scene that you don't need to save to the snippets file because
you're just never going to need it again...) and then a day or two later
think, "Argh, I shouldn't have done that!"
David Friedman
GraphicsConverter is a Mac program that I, and I gather lots of other
people, like for working with graphics and handling a huge variety of
formats. Its producer, Lemke Software, has now brought out a works
program, Papyrus, and an Office suite. The works program is free,
although they ask for a 35 Euro donation if you use it a lot; the office
program costs 99 Euros. I haven't used either, although I've taken a
brief look at Papyrus, but they might be worth considering for Mac users
who don't like Word.
http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/featuredsw_4.htm
obilon
Rich Weyand wrote:
>
> I have two USB external hard drives. I back up the machines on one while the
> other sits in the bank safe deposit box. When I go to the bank on other
> business, I swap them.
>
Seems like a lot of work to do that. I prefer just backing up to a
media that I can carry with me or stash at work which avoids the
loosing everything in a fire scenerio unless your home and your
business burn up! Of course you might work from home, and in that case
mail one ot your mother or girlfriend. I also send them to myslef in
email so I might have a backup in cyberspace if it's an ongoing or
current project. The last and most so last century backup scheme: print
out a hard copy. Atvleast then you's have some version available.
Zeborah
I'm too stingy to print anything out unless it's actually going in the
post to an editor. I do all my writing and revision and editing and
critting of other people's writing on-screen. Works for me so far,
though I know a lot of people can't read comfortably from a screen.
If I backup on physical stuff I mostly forget to take it to work; I keep
my USB pen drive in my bag, but then half the time it's at home so
that's not terribly fire-resistant. So email's the best backup
mechanism for me.
Rich Weyand
Some of the things I back up are for my work doing forensic analysis. If they
leave my immediate possession and control, they must be locked up at a bonded
and insured location. Since I have to do it anyway, it also serves my writing
backup needs.
Kevin J. Cheek
says...
> I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things that
> plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still use CDs,
> though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes sour--the main
> computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and the copy on the
> flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent all my various
> first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the hard copy. But I
> may just be being a bit paranoid here...
Something to keep in mind about CDs is to make sure they're not exposed
to UV. I've had sunlight UV do a number on CDs twice. Fortunately neither
was a disaster, but I've been careful about exposing CDs to sunlight ever
since.
obilon
> my USB pen drive in my bag, but then half the time it's at home so
> that's not terribly fire-resistant. So email's the best backup
> mechanism for me.
>
> Zeborah
I am thinking about getting a USB flash drive myself. Seems more cost
effective. But you have to take it out or else risk loosing all your
work.
obilon
> leave my immediate possession and control, they must be locked up at a bonded
> and insured location. Since I have to do it anyway, it also serves my writing
> backup needs.
Yes, that's a different story.
David Friedman
"obilon" <lc...@optonline.net> wrote:
With one of my USB drives--one I got for free from a speaker who was
handing them out with his article on them, the way people used to do
with floppies-leaving it in is particularly risky. At some point the
computer seems to lose track of it. It's still on the screen, but if you
try to copy something to it the process takes forever, and there doesn't
seem to be any way of removing it without damaging its contents short of
shutting down the computer.
Have other people observed that problem? I'm using a Mac.
Carl Dershem
@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
I"ve found mine extremely useful, as many of the files I use it for are all
but infinitely transportable, and readable on almost all modern computers.
And it's more space efficient than CD's.
obilon
David Friedman wrote:
> I'm using a Mac.
I do too. What is the capacity of your USB flash drive? More than a CD?
Irina Rempt
> My current word processor is great because it autosaves a certain number
> of the most recent versions in a separate folder - wonderful for those
> times when you make a large change (global search/replace, or deleting a
> large scene that you don't need to save to the snippets file because
> you're just never going to need it again...) and then a day or two later
> think, "Argh, I shouldn't have done that!"
I use CVS for that; it's also an external backup since the CVS tree is on
the server and not on my laptop. I also keep full and partial backups on
two separate continents other than my own.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 31-Mar-2005
Catja Pafort
> Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I took a BASIC class, I got
> into the habit of saving after every significant change. Which was a good
> thing, for when I stretched my legs under the desk while doing the final
> assignment, I accidently unplugged the computer. Fortunately I'd already
> saved it.
>
> As it is, when writing I hit [Ctrl]+[S] to save every few minutes. While
> doing revisions, I save after every change.
I have an application that saves my keystrokes to a file. It's not
overly useful when you're editing and jumping around a lot, but for
straightforward prose-production I can usually reconstuct it. And it
works for things like MacSoup and Eudora, too.
Since using it (eight years?) I've lost very little work at all, the odd
half page at most, and I've had spectacular crashes.
Catja
Carl Dershem
@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
>> I'm using a Mac.
>
> I do too. What is the capacity of your USB flash drive? More than a CD?
You can get 1GB drives for relatively little any more.
David Friedman
"obilon" <lc...@optonline.net> wrote:
The one I am describing is much less than a CD. My other two are Lexar
Jumpdrives. They are designed so you can plug flash memory of various
sorts into them--memory stick, SD, etc. That both means that you can use
flash memory that is no longer needed for its original purpose as a
flash drive, and that you can use the Jumpdrive to transfer stuff from
your computer to your pda or digital camera via its flash memory. A very
useful gadget.
I think my biggest flash card is a gig, so that's the flash drive
capacity when that card is in it.
Michelle Bottorff
> Seems like a lot of work to do that. I prefer just backing up to a
> media that I can carry with me or stash at work which avoids the
> loosing everything in a fire scenerio unless your home and your
> business burn up!
I just copy mine to my webserver (in a non-public access folder).
If some disaaster manages to take out Ohio and Texas at the same time, I
probably won't be in any condition to care that my stories are lost.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Kevin J. Cheek
says...
> My current word processor is great because it autosaves a certain number
> of the most recent versions in a separate folder - wonderful for those
> times when you make a large change (global search/replace, or deleting a
> large scene that you don't need to save to the snippets file because
> you're just never going to need it again...) and then a day or two later
> think, "Argh, I shouldn't have done that!"
For this reason I archive several versions. So far I haven't gone back to
an older one, but there's still that option. Instead of multiple
folders, I've started compressing the archive files in the manuscript
folder and naming them by date.
Pat Bowne
"Rich Weyand" <wey...@rcn.com> wrote
>
> I have two USB external hard drives. I back up the machines on one while
> the
> other sits in the bank safe deposit box. When I go to the bank on other
> business, I swap them.
>
That sounds so organized and professional - but not only have I not gone to
my bank on any business for the past eight years, the branch that contained
my safe deposit box has long since closed and I have no idea where the box
is, with its pitiful floppy now only readable on a discontinued version of
the Mac platform.
I now do the keychain drive thing and e-mail the MS to myself at work.
Pat
David Langford
in a general discussion of backups:
>I now do the keychain drive thing and e-mail the MS to myself at work.
A Gmail account is also handy for that. It was simple enough to arrange the
Gmail settings so that messages which come from my usual address and have
attachments are tidily filed away under the label "Backup". Many iterations
of the current (nonfiction) WIP have failed to make much dent in that 2.7Gb
or whatever it is today.
Also: daily local backups to another computer's hard drive, to an external
USB HDD, to elderly Zip disks in rotation, and to a pen drive. CD-R of
=all= my documents every ten days.
Dave
--
David Langford | http://ansible.co.uk/
Latest nonfiction: =The SEX Column and other misprints= (Cosmos, 2005)
Latest fiction: =Different Kinds of Darkness= (Cosmos, 2004)
Kai Henningsen
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote
> >
> > Huh. I've been using LWP for getting on for 10 years, and I can't recall
> > anything like that ever happening to me. The only oddity was that once,
> > for a while when I had two users on the same computer, it wouldn't open a
> > new document from the file menu, only by using the keyboard shortcut. But
> > that fixed itself after a while.
>
> What is going on when glitches fix themselves? I've had it happen to obvious
> hardware problems like a loose jack, and to mysterious system problems like
> refusing to open any programs.
There are a lot of possibilities - it all depends on what the actual
problem is. But they fall into three main categories: either something
happens that actually fixes the problem, or something else changes so you
no longer hit the problem, or else the problem occurs irregularly and you
just hit a long string of doesn't-happen ... just wait for it to pop up
again.
For example, a break in a cable could weld itself together again, or you
might reposition something so that part of the cable stops being bent, or
else it might need to be bent just right to interrupt, and the random
chance of doing that isn't all that large ...
The same stuff happens with software - it's usually just a lot harder to
explain, or often even to figure out in the first place, even for an
expert. We all love easily reproducible bugs!
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Kai Henningsen
> In article <123vsrc...@corp.supernews.com>,
> "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things
> > that plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still
> > use CDs, though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes
> > sour--the main computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and
> > the copy on the flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent
> > all my various first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the
> > hard copy. But I may just be being a bit paranoid here...
> >
>
> Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
> you could probably reconstruct it.
You have been lucky.
I've certainly seen cats reduce paper to a heap of fairly small flakes.
David Friedman
kaih=9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
> dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com (David Friedman) wrote on 14.04.06 in
> <ddfr-6AB48E.1...@news.isp.giganews.com>:
>
> > In article <123vsrc...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things
> > > that plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still
> > > use CDs, though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes
> > > sour--the main computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and
> > > the copy on the flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent
> > > all my various first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the
> > > hard copy. But I may just be being a bit paranoid here...
> > >
> >
> > Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
> > you could probably reconstruct it.
>
> You have been lucky.
>
> I've certainly seen cats reduce paper to a heap of fairly small flakes.
By eating it?
David Friedman
> The same stuff happens with software - it's usually just a lot harder to
> explain, or often even to figure out in the first place, even for an
> expert. We all love easily reproducible bugs!
A friend of mine is in the business of breaking software--testing
software to try to find the bugs. I gather it's a fairly difficult job.
John F. Eldredge
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de>,
> kaih=9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>
>> dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com (David Friedman) wrote on 14.04.06 in
>> <ddfr-6AB48E.1...@news.isp.giganews.com>:
>>
>> > In article <123vsrc...@corp.supernews.com>,
>> > "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things
>> > > that plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I still
>> > > use CDs, though, every month or so, just in case everything else goes
>> > > sour--the main computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is corrupt and
>> > > the copy on the flash drive got erased somehow and all the copies I sent
>> > > all my various first-readers got lost in the ether and the cats ate the
>> > > hard copy. But I may just be being a bit paranoid here...
>> > >
>> >
>> > Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
>> > you could probably reconstruct it.
>>
>> You have been lucky.
>>
>> I've certainly seen cats reduce paper to a heap of fairly small flakes.
>
>By eating it?
My cat likes to shred papers with her claws.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Kai Henningsen
> In article <9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de>,
> kaih=9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>
> > dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com (David Friedman) wrote on 14.04.06 in
> > <ddfr-6AB48E.1...@news.isp.giganews.com>:
> >
> > > In article <123vsrc...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > > "Patricia C. Wrede" <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I used to do that, and then I found those flash-memory keychain things
> > > > that plug into a USB outlet. Even faster and easier than a CD. I
> > > > still use CDs, though, every month or so, just in case everything else
> > > > goes sour--the main computer crashes and the copy on the laptop is
> > > > corrupt and the copy on the flash drive got erased somehow and all the
> > > > copies I sent all my various first-readers got lost in the ether and
> > > > the cats ate the hard copy. But I may just be being a bit paranoid
> > > > here...
> > > >
> > >
> > > Just a bit. Cats aren't that fond of paper. Might mess it up a bit, but
> > > you could probably reconstruct it.
> >
> > You have been lucky.
> >
> > I've certainly seen cats reduce paper to a heap of fairly small flakes.
>
> By eating it?
Nope, by converting it into prime nesting material. Or maybe it's fighting
the uppity stuff. Using both teeth and claws, though.
The cat would suddenly get irritated, and then you'd hear ripping sounds.
When not interrupted, for quite a while.
Cyli
<jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
(Snipped)
>>>
>>> I've certainly seen cats reduce paper to a heap of fairly small flakes.
>>
>>By eating it?
>
>My cat likes to shred papers with her claws.
My remaining cat does a wonderful job on the newspapers my husband
saves for recycling. All done by claw. Shreds like a charm. Luckily,
the cat only does newspaper, as my husband tends to leave all the
financial stuff and his golf organizational stuff lying around on the
floor, too.
--
r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.
Really.
Kai Henningsen
> again. Turned out to be something about the battery's memory.
> <grumble> Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
> memories.
While it's not my area of expertise, I'm pretty sure any rechargeable
battery ever made had that.
It's not memory as in computer, it's consequences of how it's charged and
discharged that leave effects in the general state of the thing, and which
the people whose area of expertise it is call "memory".
Just like tired metal doesn't actually need more sleep.
It probably has something to do with hysteresis, though I only know that
word from a slightly different context.
Kai Henningsen
> obilon <lc...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> > I feel your pain. There are times I forgot to save and lost work. I
> > always feel like something was lost as the "zone" that I was writing in
> > is lost and there was a little magic int he words that is just not the
> > same. I have since learned to save often and try to back up my writing
> > to CD every few weeks. CDs are relatively cheap when compared to lost
> > time and frustration.
>
> My current word processor is great because it autosaves a certain number
> of the most recent versions in a separate folder - wonderful for those
> times when you make a large change (global search/replace, or deleting a
> large scene that you don't need to save to the snippets file because
> you're just never going to need it again...) and then a day or two later
> think, "Argh, I shouldn't have done that!"
That's whatrevision control systems were made for. And they work best with
text ...
Zeborah
> zeb...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote on 15.04.06 in
<1hdtxp8.1vaz6rc1a7u2t5N%zeb...@gmail.com>:
>
> > again. Turned out to be something about the battery's memory.
> > <grumble> Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
> > memories.
>
> While it's not my area of expertise, I'm pretty sure any rechargeable
> battery ever made had that.
Oh, I know. Of course back in my day (y'know: when I was about 5 years
old) batteries weren't rechargeable. I'm just grumbling.
Wilson Heydt
Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Kai Henningsen <kaih=9s2WJ...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>
>> zeb...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote on 15.04.06 in
><1hdtxp8.1vaz6rc1a7u2t5N%zeb...@gmail.com>:
>>
>> > again. Turned out to be something about the battery's memory.
>> > <grumble> Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
>> > memories.
>>
>> While it's not my area of expertise, I'm pretty sure any rechargeable
>> battery ever made had that.
>
>Oh, I know. Of course back in my day (y'know: when I was about 5 years
>old) batteries weren't rechargeable. I'm just grumbling.
NiCads are a lot older than you think.
--
Hal Heydt
Albany, CA
My dime, my opinions.
John F. Eldredge
wrote:
And lead-acid batteries go a lot further back than that.
Zeborah
> In article <1hdzjf6.1rq6nw1bhvuh9N%zeb...@gmail.com>,
> Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> >Oh, I know. Of course back in my day (y'know: when I was about 5 years
> >old) batteries weren't rechargeable. I'm just grumbling.
>
> NiCads are a lot older than you think.
Does narrowing it to cheap batteries for everyday people for everyday
purposes work?
Wilson Heydt
>wrote:
>
>>In article <1hdzjf6.1rq6nw1bhvuh9N%zeb...@gmail.com>,
>>Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>Kai Henningsen <kaih=9s2WJ...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> zeb...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote on 15.04.06 in
>>><1hdtxp8.1vaz6rc1a7u2t5N%zeb...@gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> > again. Turned out to be something about the battery's memory.
>>>> > <grumble> Back in my day batteries weren't clever enough to have
>>>> > memories.
>>>>
>>>> While it's not my area of expertise, I'm pretty sure any rechargeable
>>>> battery ever made had that.
>>>
>>>Oh, I know. Of course back in my day (y'know: when I was about 5 years
>>>old) batteries weren't rechargeable. I'm just grumbling.
>>
>>NiCads are a lot older than you think.
>
>And lead-acid batteries go a lot further back than that.
Lead acids are particulary noted for charge memory, though.
Wilson Heydt
Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Wilson Heydt <whh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <1hdzjf6.1rq6nw1bhvuh9N%zeb...@gmail.com>,
>> Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
><snip>
>> >Oh, I know. Of course back in my day (y'know: when I was about 5 years
>> >old) batteries weren't rechargeable. I'm just grumbling.
>>
>> NiCads are a lot older than you think.
>
>Does narrowing it to cheap batteries for everyday people for everyday
>purposes work?
The only readily available batteries that are (a) rechargeable, and (b) could
be considered cheap are lead acid.
Brooks Moses
> The only readily available batteries that are (a) rechargeable, and (b) could
> be considered cheap are lead acid.
Hmm? At Frys, a pack of rechargeable AAs are only about two or three
times as much as a pack of the regular alkalines, I think. Certainly
under $10, anyway. That seems pretty cheap to me.
Now, if you're talking batteries for serious power applications like
cars, that's a different story -- but it's also a distinct narrowing of
the field of discussion.
- Brooks
--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.
Wilson Heydt
Brooks Moses <bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote:
>Wilson Heydt wrote:
>> The only readily available batteries that are (a) rechargeable, and (b) could
>> be considered cheap are lead acid.
>
>Hmm? At Frys, a pack of rechargeable AAs are only about two or three
>times as much as a pack of the regular alkalines, I think. Certainly
>under $10, anyway. That seems pretty cheap to me.
>
>Now, if you're talking batteries for serious power applications like
>cars, that's a different story -- but it's also a distinct narrowing of
>the field of discussion.
The narrowing I was thinking of would be, say, 20 years ago.
On the other hand, I'd love to be able to get off-the-shelf UPS
batteries in something other than lead acid for a reasonable price.
Jonathan L Cunningham
> In article <9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de>,
> kaih=9rz-u...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>
> > The same stuff happens with software - it's usually just a lot harder to
> > explain, or often even to figure out in the first place, even for an
> > expert. We all love easily reproducible bugs!
>
> A friend of mine is in the business of breaking software--testing
> software to try to find the bugs. I gather it's a fairly difficult job.
Not for some people - they just have to be in the same room for the
software to break ...
Of course, the *really* talented only have to be in the same city.
Jonathan
Neil Barnes
> Not for some people - they just have to be in the same room for the
> software to break ...
>
> Of course, the *really* talented only have to be in the same city.
Of which, bloody plug'n'pray... got a new network card last night for the
laptop - a linksys wpc54g v5. Took two hours to get it working under
windows, and still haven't managed it for linux/kubuntu. Damn thing
enables and the turns itself off a second later; all the tools complain
tha it's not configured in spite of running the configure tool. Damn...
Neil
--
'Onion oil! I couldn't imagine anything worse than a daily bath in onion oil.'
(from Miss Snark, the literary agent)
Jonathan L Cunningham
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:29:24 +0100, Jonathan L Cunningham wrote:
>
> > Not for some people - they just have to be in the same room for the
> > software to break ...
> >
> > Of course, the *really* talented only have to be in the same city.
>
> Of which, bloody plug'n'pray... got a new network card last night for the
> laptop - a linksys wpc54g v5. Took two hours to get it working under
> windows, and still haven't managed it for linux/kubuntu. Damn thing
> enables and the turns itself off a second later; all the tools complain
> tha it's not configured in spite of running the configure tool. Damn...
Plug'n'pray, like all that other "helpful" assistant software, only
works properly if you have have a telepathy module installed. 'Cos if
something's gonna go around undoing what you just did, because
it knows what you really wanted, it has to be *right* that it knows what
you really wanted.
Unfortunately, the market for software which doesn't try to second guess
the user is quite small - the vast unwashed herds of humanity probably
are better off with stuff that works some of the time. And even for
those of us who bathe regularly, often it's less effort just to
live with the thing's deficiencies.
That's part of the price of progress: imagine a future in which we'd
finally reached the limits of Moore's Law, and the only real difference
between this year's piece of junk and next year's super new model was
the colour of the box. In this future, you also have a life expectancy
measured in hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Then, but only then,
it becomes worthwhile to go away and write one's own OS, wordprocessor,
spreadsheet software, device drivers etc. etc.
Doing such a thing today can only be justified as a hobby activity: fun
in itself. Otherwise, a better use of time would be to earn the money
to pay some other poor b**** to fix the thing for you! :-)
Jonathan
(So you enjoy it really <g>)