Moltar, a member of the forums, recently said this in a thread he made:
Quote:
I just wrote a long post [...], but while I was writing it my session expired and I was logged out. So I lost everyt[h]ing. I don't feel like re-writing it (took me 25 minutes) [...]
Source: The Food Timing Diet |
Have you ever been in the same situation? You take your time to painstakingly type out something in a forum post window or some sort of text entry form only to lose it due to an issue with the internet browser, something accidental, a power failure, or something else that is mostly out of your control (such as a pet or young child turning off your computer at the power switch or having your computer/laptop power cord pulled out)?
Well, if you have, I certainly feel your pain. I frequently write lengthy posts (either here or on other forums), and I've lost my fair share of typing from some sort of external influence outside of my control, so I know how frustrating it can be. After it happened enough times, since I really dislike re-typing something that I've already written (as I often forget a lot of the good ideas or information I included typing it out a second time), I finally decided to do something about it and reclaim my lost time (or, at least, prevent wasting time having to re-type something in the first place).
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From posting in text-entry windows to Microsoft Word
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Now, instead of writing/typing out posts (and other documents) in a not-so-secure posting window, I write them in Microsoft Word (word processing software) and copy the work once I'm done and paste it wherever I need it. This generally stops things like session timeout, program instability, and accidentally closing a browser window from causing you to lose all of your work, and as an added advantage, you also get inbuilt spell-checking functionality (plus it's always nice being able see what you've typed in full screen so you can go through and edit it with ease instead of being forced to use a text entry window that’s less then a quarter of your monitor screen size).
Additionally, depending on the length of what I'm typing and whether or not the information in it is important to me or not, I may opt to save the work on my computer (either temporarily until you have posted/published the work or permanently for later reference). This is generally the safest option, since it prevents you from losing your work due to things such as power failures (although a
UPS can also help with that),
BSODs, computer freezes/crashes, and random meteor showers.
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Making use of a temporary document and saving work often
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Sometimes I save work in a new Word file, or I make use of a singular "
Temporary Writing" Word document that I use for the sole purpose of storing writing/typing temporarily. To be more specific, what I do with the
Temporary Writing document is use it to write out what I have, make use of the ability to save my progress (so I can always finish it off later if I get interrupted), and then when it's finished, I simply copy and paste it wherever I need it. Using this method I can also start something and finish it later, and I find it helpful to write out any ideas or information I wanted to include in point form at the bottom of the document so I don't forget anything when I finish it later.
When I want to type something else that is unrelated to what I was previously typing, I simply delete what was in the document, and start the process over again. This prevents you from cluttering up your hard drive with different documents (that you use for writing posts, etc.) that you don't necessarily want to keep, and while writing something, if you do decide you want to keep it you can always go to
"save as" in the
file menu and then you are free to use your Temporary document for other writing.
Since I've started doing this I very rarely lose anything I'm writing, although it is important to remember to save often. When it comes to writing in Word I don't think you can overuse the save shortcut (Ctrl + S), and I use it frequently. Usually I make it a habit to save every paragraph or so, or when I know I've written out information that I don't want to lose.
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What do you do if you don't have Microsoft Word? Is there a free alternative?
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If you don't have Microsoft Word and don't want to pay to get it, you can use the
freeware word processing software from
OpenOffice.org (which you can download free of charge and is available for both Mac and IBM-type PCs). The software is very similar to Microsoft Word and should serve your needs just fine. To quote their website:
Quote:
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OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
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If I didn't already have Microsoft Word and it's trusty companion,
NotePad, OpenOffice is what I'd be using.
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Share your own tips and tricks for preventing loss of data
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So, that's how I do it - how do you prevent losing what taken time to type out? Feel free to reply to this thread and share your methods, tips, tricks, and even word processing (or other) software that you've found to be useful in the process data loss pretension.