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Rely Not Upon The Auto-Save

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  • Rely Not Upon The Auto-Save

    So, my last call yesterday was from a luser whose word-type-y application had crashed. She wanted to know if there was some way to recover her work. Not an unusual request, and within reason, there are some thing we can try to help.

    So I remote into her workstation. She has the app up, and it has its auto-recovery menu up, with a selection of documents she had been working on. I ask which one she was having issues with. She says, the one that's open.

    Which is titled "Document2." Anyone who's familiar with these kinds of applications may know this is a default name, when it hasn't been saved under a proper name by the user.

    Now, I appreciate there may be ways to recover non-saved docs by the savvy technician, but I am constrained by security restrictions at The Client.

    I patiently explained to the luser that I can't restore a document that hadn't been saved. I told her the auto-save function works to a degree, but if the document hadn't been saved BY HER, under a proper name, to a proper location, I could not recover the document.

    She thought it was positively ARCHAIC that she had to manually save her document, and wasn't happy that I couldn't do anything to help her. I get it, having to re-create lost work sucks.

    I wasn't that sympathetic, however, when she told me that Document2, at the time of the crash, had been a page and a half long. Especially given I've gotten calls from lusers who have lost four hours worth of work that amount to upwards of 15 pages.
    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

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  • #2
    Ya see, this is why I always give a file a name right away when I create it >_> ...Even if it's a placeholder filename, it's something for the autosave/history to look to.
    "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
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    • #3
      Some people just don't learn. I had a coworker at My Last Newspaper who used to work for two or three hours without ever saving. Then, of course, when the system crashed, it was all gone. He'd stomp around cursing and swearing and generally being a PITA -- because we'd all told him repeatedly to SAVE YOUR DAMN WORK -- at least every half hour, if not more often. Needless to say, it got to the point where, when it happened, nobody would say a thing to him by way of sympathy or empathy. "TFB, you idiot" was what most of us were thinking.

      I should add that these crashes didn't happen very frequently -- I don't think it was a major glitch in the system. Nevertheless, I took to saving my work every 5 or 10 minutes.
      Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
      ~ Mr Hero

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      • #4
        Don't do any more work without saving than you can stand to do over again. Sometimes seems like I type ^S more often than <TAB>...
        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
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        • #5
          People need to learn that "Save early, save often" is not just a gaming mantra.
          I AM the evil bastard!
          A+ Certified IT Technician

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          • #6
            Quoth lordlundar View Post
            People need to learn that "Save early, save often" is not just a gaming mantra.
            See, for me, it was a writing mantra long before it was a gaming mantra.
            PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

            There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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            • #7
              I remember about twenty years ago, when I was in grade school, the computer teacher used to remind us, about every five minutes to save our work. It's a habit she enforced in me, that I continue to this day.

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              • #8
                I tested this with a document that I had not saved with an official name, closed Word with task manager, and when I opened Word again it had autosaved "Document1" successfully. Your settings must be different, that it needs to be given a name and manually saved? But she said she had the document she was working on open... So she HAD recovered the document, but some of the work hadn't been autosaved, is that right? I guess it just seems like she needs to set her autosave to a shorter amount of time, like every 5 minutes or something.

                (I was just trying to work out what happened, of course the lady was sucky, it's her job to make sure her file is saved!)
                Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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                • #9
                  It probably wasn't a case of OP being UNABLE to recover the file, but that they were NOT ALLOWED to. With a named file, the tech desk can check if the user has read/write permissions to the file, and if they do, can go ahead and recover it. With a default name, they don't have a way of checking to see if the file was one the caller had actually been working on, or if it was one that someone else with access to material the caller isn't cleared on had created the file. Could easily be a case of someone wanting to undelete a file they weren't cleared to see.
                  Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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                  • #10
                    Ah... BIG difference!

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                    • #11
                      We use excel at work daily, I save my excel like no ones business, after I type one ting I save it. Its a pain to have to put anything back in with what I use it for.

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                      • #12
                        I make a habit of regularly saving my code. I don't want to have to re-write an entire class or method (especially a longer or more complex one) because I didn't hit ^S.

                        Sometimes if I want to try to re-write a method I will comment the whole thing out first, save, then start on the new method, saving along the way. Then delete the commented out code at the end.
                        Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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                        • #13
                          I took a class on Microsoft office if its one thing I learned I will never ever use access in my life and if I do I will hide lol but that is the class that made me learn to save like a mad woman I hated have to redo the entire project

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