And Another Post Bites The Dust>>>>

[Tim C.]

>>WTF?, It's not that I can't deal with the rigors of wrapping out a thought so deserved of gracing the forums of the great CC using my lowly small knuckle, of my right quad hand, it's JUST that I go nuts from losing a nearly completed post should I need to pause by (a) minimizing the CC window, then to maximize it, only to see my now wordless page, or (b) occaisional signoff by my ISP, resulting in the same blank page. @#!*^!!
Even an email, interrupted under same conditions always remains in place so that I may pick up where I left off.
Could it be conspiratorial?
Am I missing something?
This is my first post in this forum, is it the right place for it?

[mattblan]

I hate that.

[teyrn]

If I am going to write something out that is going to be more then a paragraph or so I do it in Word. Word will keep a backup of what you are working on so if you suffer a crash or something your document can be brought back to life. Also since Word isn't dependant on your internet connection you don't lose any thing should you get dissed by your ISP. Now you can just copy and paste what you typed out and have a record of it as well should a glitch of some kind causes your post to disapear and not get posted. I am assuming you are using dialup if your ISP is dropping you deliberatly after a period of time. Also if you are idle and not sending or recieving data over your internet connection the ISP's server severs the connection thinking you are no longer using it. Cable or DSL would lessen the amount of times you get cut off from the internet. I don't think there is a conspiracy or someting is being missed by you. This is just one of the joys of using the computer and being online. You are going to have hickups and errors and get dissed from time to time. It is just the way things are I guess. As for your posting in the right place or not, your good. :)

[bob clark]

Hi Tim C,

This forum's software has been very reliable as far as freezing up and losing the stuff already written. Alienware of all places has the worst forum software that's forever freezing or just losing your posts. But sometimes in my haste I'll accidentally hit the window "Close" box instead of the window "minimize" box. Ouch!

And with dialup you have added trouble of losing a connection etc. Although broadband goes out once in awhile too. But usually, if you realize in time that the connection is down, you can copy and paste what you've already written that remains in the window but is frozen on the screen. Sometimes....

I kinda do it the opposite of Teyrn in that I keep a notepad text file (not Word... text opens faster) on my Desktop and I usually create a new one every month and name it by the month and year. Although I'm still using February 2006's. It's gotta lot of stuff on it... time to create April's! They come in handy for all sorts of stuff that I copy and paste off the Intenet.... just an all around "notepad" to jot things like URLs and info etc down on. There's only so much practical room in the "Favorites" list for URLs! And if I die unexpectedly my family will have dozens of these crazy unfinished copy and paste filled notepad files to remember me by. Oh joy. Hahahaha.

If I get into a post here that appears to be getting rather long (who, me?) and involved, every once in awhile I'll right click on the post and choose "Select All" and copy and paste it into my notepad text document just in case the power goes out here or for some reason I think there's a chance it may get lost. It's a good habit to get into.

It's so frustrating to spend a lot of time and thought on something just to lose it to the Internet ether. I hate when that happens!

I keep my taskbar on auto-hide so I have larger viewing area. To easily find my handy notepad text file that's on my Desktop, I have the Desktop Toolbar checked off for easy access to my list of notepads or other info that I keep on my Desktop. You can also use the "Show Desktop" icon (same as using the Window's Logo key and D key simultaneously) that's located on the lower left on the Quick Launch bar but I prefer the Desktop List that I get using the Desktop Toolbar feature. The "Show Desktop" icon makes you completely leave your current window whereas the Desktop Toolbar feature just pops up a list of all the icons and files on your Desktop that you can select from and open by just clicking on one of them.

To activate the Desktop Toolbar feature just right click on the Taskbar then left click on "Toolbars" and put a checkmark next to "Desktop". (Make sure your Toolbar is "Unlocked" first.) It comes in quite handy if you get into the habit of saving portions of or unproofread/unedited long, time-consuming posts. It can save you some time and lots of frustration.

And it must be all the more frustrating when you need to type by just using a knuckle to hit the keys. Damn, I feel for ya Tim. Would it be easier for you to use a program like Dragon NaturallySpeaking? MS offers a free "word to text" and "text to word" software that works in a similar manner.... I think it works mainly for Word documents or Rich Text documents.... and like Teyrn, you could just copy and paste your post into the forum software here. I didn't know that Word documents automatically made backup copies of themselves. That's great.

And haven't you been having extra pain problems lately? When are you gonna get a break?

[LaoziSailor]

Hey Tim C.,

I'm with Teyrn, I use Notepad (six of one, half dozen of the other) and write my posts that way (using Word is probably smarter because you can use the spellchecker) -- plenty of saves, you can take your time, add ideas as they come, restructure easily, etc.

It is only when they are one liners that I do it live.

Cheers!

[Patonb]

Hey Tim C.,

I'm with Teyrn, I use Notepad (six of one, half dozen of the other) and write my posts that way (using Word is probably smarter because you can use the spellchecker) -- plenty of saves, you can take your time, add ideas as they come, restructure easily, etc.

It is only when they are one liners that I do it live.

Cheers!


Word actually backs up for crashes...... very good for slow typers