Dear helpful software bots

[pbray]

*AHEM*

I HAVE LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS LEFT TO FINISH THIS NOVEL. I WILL NOT BE INSTALLING NEW SOFTWARE ON THIS PC. I DON'T CARE HOW MANY TIMES YOU REMIND ME OF THE UPGRADES, NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTHING WILL CHANGE ON THIS SYSTEM UNTIL THE BOOK HAS BEEN PRINTED AND MAILED.

THANK YOU.

Thus speaks a writer who has suffered two severe crashes during end-book stage. The first time it happened, installing unrelated software caused a computer crash that cost me several days worth of work--I had hardcopies of the relevant chapters that had to be rekeyed in.

The second time, the computer experienced catastrophic hard drive failure the morning I powered it on to input final revisions. In this case luckily everything was backed up, but I wound up buying a whole new system before noon then completing the revisions on that new system later that day.

This time I'm not messing around. I've petted the hard drive, backed up the relevant files, and made offerings to the gods of technology. So please, for the love of Mike, Adobe, AutoSpyware, and all your friends, please stop harassing me, okay? I promise I'll spend hours downloading and installing anything you want, once the book is done.

Love, thanks, bye.

Comments

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

The best backup is offsite backup. One easy way is to email your work files to someone for safe keeping. I shall step into the breach and volunteer to serve as a backup repository.
...
...

What? It's a good suggestion!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's an excellent suggestion. And if I wasn't already emailing the files to myself, I might take you up on it. (hee!)

Though you'd have to wear full hazmat gear to shield yourself from the crappy stages of the book.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That works a lot better as an instantaneous solution if you write on a computer with an internet connection, which I do not. By the time I get as far as saving files to memory stick and then my other computer, I usually figure that's enough... :)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And it helps that I generally email my chapters to my critique partner, so at least the initial drafts are saved.

Every now and then I get organized and burn a CD that's stored off site, in case of disaster, but that's something I ought to do more often.

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

Good luck! I had a computer meltdown when I was finishing my thesis. Fortunately I'd made backup copies and only lost 5-6 hours of work...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Phew! There's nothing like knowing you have a backup when that awful realization sinks in that your computer is toast.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I had a prof (Library Science/Info Studies) who did a study on how humanities folks did research - in her study she ended up tripping over the tendency they had not to upgrade ANYTHING until a project was done. Not even the computer itself. And since sometimes a project could last 10-20 years and run concurrently with other projects, she would often walk into some small little office and fine 2-3 computers, all working, representing a range of computer tech, all with different projects on them.

Thank god novels tend to be quicker to write.

Except of course, the Great American Novel(TM), which is done always in longhand on a series of legal size notepads.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Longhand, eek!

Of course, change is inherently evil. You should have heard me grumble when I had to switch from my old wordprocessor to Microsoft Word. It was quite the trauma.

Somewhat amusing to realize I'm a programmer by training, and I/T technical professional in the day job :-)

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

To me, it makes sense - the more change and stuff you deal with at work, why want to deal with it at home?

I seldom ever go online at home cuz I am on it all day work....

(and I just use open office at home so that way i dont have to deal with upgrades!)

[janni.livejournal.com]

I hate it when programs insist I upgrade Right Now, and keep reminding me. I'd happily upgrade if I didn't know you would then insist I reboot my computer Right Now, and then start blocking things I don't want blocked as my reward for said dilegence ...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Precisely! AOL spyware is insisting that I upgrade right now, and reminding me about once an hour. I could take it when it was once a day, but frankly this is ridiculous. And I haven't figured out how to shut off the damn software.

I'm ignoring it, because an AOL spyware upgrade last year wiped out my mail files, internet favorites, etc, and required hours of work to recover from backups.

And let's not get into Acrobat Reader--whenever someone sends me a PDF file I whimper since I know it kicks off an endless "You must upgrade" loop, which doesn't really help since I did download the latest & greatest Acrobat Reader but somehow the system isn't recognizing it.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

And let's not get into Acrobat Reader--whenever someone sends me a PDF file I whimper since I know it kicks off an endless "You must upgrade" loop, which doesn't really help since I did download the latest & greatest Acrobat Reader but somehow the system isn't recognizing it.

It's comforting, somehow, to know that it isn't just me this happens to ...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

:-)

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Open the AOL Security System (I forget the official name of it) and disable Spyware Protection. It will glare at you quietly from the corner, blinking its little yellow "Your security status is only FAIR" light, but it does so QUIETLY, and you can safely ignore it until the book is done.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

You are wise grasshopper!