Fucking technology, protect me from my own incompetence!

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, I just lost a day’s worth of work.

I’ll readily admit that it was undoubtedly entirely my own fault. But what kinda torques me that this incredibly impressive tool, which is capable of doing all manner of things I will never ask it to do, doesn’t allocate a miniscule fraction of its resources to protecting a low-level user such as myself from what impresses me as a pretty predictable type of screw up.

I had one document open that I had been working on all day in WP. Then I opened another one that would require only a few minutes’ work. When I finished the shorter document I went to exit it. What I think happened is I clicked on the X to exit WP instead of just the program. Then when it asked if I wanted to save changes, I clicked no - because I didn’t need the changes on the shorter document.

I don’t remember clicking on 2 such messages, but I may have. So next thing I know, I’m out of WP. When I open it up again, the only document it shows me is what I started with first thing this morning.

So I went to tools, and found where timed backup files are sent, but the folder was empty. Apparently when you exit WP and say you don’t want to save changes, it assumes you want it to erase the backups.

Like I said, I screwed up. But I know I have screwed up in exactly this same manner occasionally in the past, as have others in our office. It seems that so much having to do with computers is aimed at the higher end users, and doesn’t make things useable for the less sophisticated users. When I open WP I see any number of icons that I have no idea what they do, and will never click on. How much resources would it take to have some kind of automatic backup system. If someone knew their way around their computer and didn’t want to allocate the space to such a file, they could disable it.

Aw hell - I’m rambling now, but it’s late on a Friday afternoon, I just lost most of a day’s work, and since I’m now sober I can’t even pound a few beers to make myself forget about it! Really makes me want to put my fist through one of these fucking flatscreens, tho!

Now all you IT folk come in here, tell me what a fucking idiot I am, and how having to deal with morons like me all day makes your job hell. I could get that from my IT person - that is if she were in work today!

2

Im not IT, but Id be glad to call you an idiot=)

Except I think anybody who has ever worked in office has deleted a project just like you just did, so I have to call an awful lot of people idiots … :smiley:

One thing I learned while telecommuting, is SAVE EVERYTHING MANUALLY every 15 minutes or so, because if you get kicked off the server, everything closes down and nothing is saved …

If you develop the habit of saving every now and then you wouldnt lose a days work =)

3

Anytime I make a semi-major edit to a document, I re-save it. Often, I re-save it with a new name, winding up with dozens of slightly different copies in a single folder, such as:

SDMB Post 2009 04-02.doc
SDMB Post 2009 04-03.doc
SDMB Post 2009 04-03a.doc

Yeah, my folders are strewn with too many files, but I haven’t lost a significant update to a file in years.

4

Yeah, I think I’ve done the frequent save at times in the past. But then when I’ve gone months without losing anything, I’ve gotten out of the habit. And I mistakenly thought that the autosave would give me some protection.

I’m probably wrong, but my understanding is that if the computer crashes or something, it will recover what you were working on. But if you just screw up it assumes you knew what you were doing and erases it.

And yeah, I assume there is some way to use some other program to try to recover it. But DAMN, it would be nice if the damn program would do it itself.

5

I had one in college where a team of us were working on a single document, each submitting individual updates. One guy put his update, a small portion of the whole, in a file that had the same exact name as the main file. I took his file, saved it to my hard drive, and overwrote the main file. That was a terribly sad day, no way to back out of that one.

6

At my old company there was a mystery folder where all word docs would go if I opened an email attachment and then saved it without doing save as. I couldn’t navigate to it in windows explorer unless I entered the exact location in the address window. Maybe try opening an email word doc attachment, find out the directory (if there is such an oddball directory at your organization), then see if your day’s work is there. There’s got to be some sort of autosave thing going on in the background. Just a random thought for your plight.

7

I’m calling you an idiot too but for a different reason. It’s Friday, all the real IT people are finishing up their day on the golf course and deciding which bar to go to. Didn’t you ever read about the BOFH?
:smiley:

8

If I may expound on my suggestion…

Once you open the email attachment doc, go to file -> properties -> general, and you can highlight the location, ctrl-c and paste it into you windows explorer address window.

9

This is why I tend to save to a level that seems obsessive. I’ve developed a habit where every ‘.’ is followed by ctrl + s. The program saves so fast that I never notice and it keeps me from loosing anything major.

10

Pushing the OCD envelope, I had that habit but went in for the harder stuff… I have a Logitech 610 with mappable buttons. Mouse crack, really. Copy/paste, mute, find, a couple custom macros, all insanely easy to get to. The left wheel rocker switch is set to save. Just a slight twitch of the finger, almost anytime I’m using the mouse and boom goes the savamite.

Anyone know if Word deletes temp/autosave files when it quits? I have mine set to 1 minute increments, but have had a few problems here and there finding files (found the directory, but not the files). If it does, will the recycle bin be a good place to look next? If not, any settings to change that around?

11

Way back in my pre-retirement days I was helping a new secretary (she was not a computer savvy person) learn how to use her computer for simple things such as letters, and so forth. During this process I told her that being saved on the computer was almost more important than being saved in Christianity - really trying to impress this concept from the start. That’s when I suddenly discovered that she was a Jehova’s Witness. Didn’t like the comparison at all.

12

What is WP? Word Perfect? I didn’t know anyone used that anymore…

Anyway I am a OCD CTRL+S’er. I type CTRL+S literally after every sentence or paragraph I type. I’ve never lost any work.

13

don’t know about wp but ms word you can set autosave. you can also recover docs where you did just that.

I manual save a lot. use naming convention of docnam1 then docname2 etc. avoids trying to figure out which similar named doc is the right version.

14

Some thoughts:

Good ideas above: habitual saving, save periodically with a new name, etc. I have a system in which I save under a new name after each major pass through a document: original, ready to do step A, doing step A, step A done, doing step B, step B done, etc. At the end I delete all the “-ing” files (my working copies), leaving me with a progression of files named so that I know exactly what has been done for each.

I also have save commands built into many of my commonly used macros, but that won’t help the OP.

Speaking of which . . .

Well, that’s your bad, and you need to fix it. Know your tools! <insert incoherent rant about professional authors who refuse to learn to use more than the most basic Word tools here> Spend some time with a dummy document open, playing around with those mystery icons and menus. You’ll probably learn a lot.

And something I wanted to add for Word users: Under Tools > Options > Save, there’s a checkbox for “Allow fast saves.” Looks tempting, but don’t check it! The process it uses is also very good at corrupting and bloating files. Use “Allow background saves” instead.

Hm, I wouldn’t be surprised if the current incarnation of WordPerfect has a similar feature. (I haven’t used it in ages; my version is WP 8.) Let’s see: Tools > Settings > Files > Document tab. Lookee there: Backup folder is D:\MyFiles\Backup. The checkbox for “Timed document backup every [10] minutes” is checked. Might be worth a poke around, Dinsdale.

15

My work has switched back and forth from WP to Word at least 2 or 3 times over the years. I remember using WP with the function keys, when it automatically kept a bk! file of your work. Right now my employer’s official choice is Word, but at least 90% of my work is for another huge organization whose official product is WP. I really couldn’t care less which we use, and am probably equally (in)competent at both. But it seems that our current version of WP converts into Word better than the other way around, so that is what I generally use.

Well, I guess I could learn a lot about all of these icons and menus if I cared or needed to. But I have no interest in making lists, tables, adding clipart, and all the other wonderful things WP seems to think every user needs right in their face. All I do is write plain, boring text documents one after the other using the same format, font, etc. I use no macros or shortcuts, and am the fastest 2-fingered typist you’ve ever seen. Seriously, typing speed and computer shortcuts are not significant in the performance of my job. And I have no interest in expressing my creativity and individuality through the unique formatting of my work product.

One reason I have gotten to the point where I do not use shortcuts or anything fancy is it seems my office is always changing things that either erase my shortcuts, reset my settings, or require that I learn new formatting things. Either they do something to the server, load now software, or replace my personal box. Hell, I’d be perfectly happy using whatever word processing system we used 10-15 years ago. It was perfectly fine at creating the simple, unadorned documents I produce. The programs have gotten bigger, fancier, and “prettier” - but that has resulted in negligible if any improvement in my work process or product.

OTOH, what I would like is for my computer to add what impresses me as a simple backup that would protect me against my own screw-ups. But TPTB apparently think that is not important.

Yeah, been there, done that. And I assumed that that somehow kept backups that I could recover. But no. Apparently when you sign out as I did, the computer assumes you intended to sign out, and wipes out all back up files. They would have been saved there only in the event of unintended sign outs - if I had accidently turned my computer off or the system had crashed, but not if I accidently/stupidly sign out of a document. When you log out and back in, check your backup file. I think it will be empty. (This is my impression based on some seeking yesterday. I may well be incorrect. But I’ve asked several folk, and without an exception they thought that some back-up files were kept in the timed backup folder.)

16

You can set WP to save changes to the file (as well as backup) every X number of minutes, but you don’t want to do this. IIRC, you’re a lawyer- say you’re working on a motion, and you remember you did the same motion last month in another case. So you open that file, and just change the headers and stuff… and after ten minutes, WordPerfect saves over your original motion because you forgot to change the file name.

However, as you note, the automatic backups are deleted on a normal exit.

Yes. Most law firms use it, and frankly it’s a million times better than Word, at least for our purposes.

If you’re using Outlook, it saves attachments to something like WINDOWS > Temporary Files > Outlook > insert user name > OLK something something.

17

There is distressingly little information in this thread about the technology of fucking or how it can protect one from incompetence.

18

This is why the FIRST thing you do, when opening an old file to use as boilerplate, is save it with the new name.

Really, wetware is the best solution to this overall problem. Whether you set up a backup system or develop the habit of saving manually every 5 minutes or whatever, you have to have a plan and stick to it. This will work no matter what software you’re using.

19

Well, you could get a cheap laptop and load it with the program of your choice, create your documents there and transfer them via thumb drive to the work computer so they can be distributed to wherever they need to go …

20

Really? Not around here, anyway. And I know whereof I speak, I think. I’m the word processing manager for a fairly large firm (hundreds of lawyers, offices in a number of cities from coast to coast), and I’ve worked at a number of large law firms. I haven’t seen WP in use at a major firm in ages.

WP did have its advantages, and I do remember it fondly. But Word has its good points too. Although I admit I’m not exactly in love with Word 2007, and I dread the training process when we get around to upgrading. And what the heck is the point of the .docx file format? Why screw around with what’s become the standard?