Rachel Johnson writes about finishing a novel and hitting Save, at which point
…my screen went blank.
Then this long rectangular box came up on the dead grey screen with a big red cross shouting “Warning”. I peered at it, alarmed at the prospect that a year’s work had been irrevocably lost or corrupted.
Reading this, my inner schoolmarm began banging on the door, demanding to be let out. A year’s worth of work could have been lost? Good grief, has Johnson never heard of backing up along the way - to another drive, or even by emailing the document to herself? I back up to a flash drive every day, to another computer every week, and I send an electronic copy of any manuscript to a server on another continent when it’s done. Hell, I’ve backed up this blog post five times already.
Having vented, my inner schoolmarm felt better, so I sent her to get a cup of tea and clap erasers together. Reading on, I saw that Johnson was writing tongue-in-cheek. The warning on her computer said:
“This document contains too many spelling and grammatical errors to continue displaying them”.
Ha. That’s why I turn off “Check spelling and grammar as you type” in my word processor. Johnson continues:
I would like to point out in my defence that I wrote the book using Microsoft Word and I think this software assumes that something called American English is right and English English is wrong.
And I realized - she doesn’t know that Microsoft Word allows you to set grammar to “Casual” and spelling to US, UK or Australian usage. And she also doesn’t know the difference between and software and operating systems.
I can’t see groovy Steve Jobs popping up to tell Mac users their work sucks, dude. But I can very easily see grey Bill Gates telling me that my book is riddled with errors – as, let’s face it, he just did.
My Mac is so groovy, it makes me lattes and gives me a high five whenever I write a witty line of dialogue. It’s so groovy, it wants time off to go to Burning Man. But it also runs Microsoft Word.
Speaking of which, it’s back to work.
8 responses so far ↓
Patti // August 6, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Well, the combination of IBM and Microsoft makes for a decidedly un-groovy laptop. It might even be rendered stodgier by the fact that I’m a die-hard Wordperfect user. I have Word on the machine but try to ignore it. In all word processors, though, spelling and grammar as-you-go are turned off because they can’t cope with the vagaries of medieval and early modern English and spit up so many little red lines that I start to panic and production goes from a trickle to nothing at all.
I’ve become much less cavalier about saving after my boy knocked my cup of coffee over into my poor laptop and I stood there helplessly watching the screen go black and the little lights go out. The hard drive was fine, and I had earlier versions of my documents to work with, but since then I immediately obey the prescient little voice that says it would be a good idea to back up now.
Snart // August 6, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Flash drives = no excuse for laziness.
I have experienced the blood-curling sound of a computer dying, mid-sentence. Even to lose a day’s work is frightening. I can’t imagine losing a newly started book or series of articles, as did my boss last year.
Backup, people! It’s so easy. (Ooops, according to Microsoft Word, that should be “its so easy!” Grrr.
I’m a few months away from a new computer. This time, it will be a Mac! I’m sick of the Rube Goldberg approach of PCs.
Meg // August 6, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Coffee. Oh dear. Was it black? An IBMer told me that most computers can handle black coffee - it’s the milk that makes them shriek and die. Which is what mine did about 18 months ago. Coca Cola will also fry a keyboard, which is why my son now knows how to install a new keyboard in a laptop.
jon // August 6, 2007 at 6:49 pm
You can always try xdrive for a free, reasonably sized, off-site backup solution. Fortunately, modern PCs are pretty resilient and data recovery professionals can salvage hard disks even in a pretty poor condition. Of course Coke destroys most things it comes into contact with.
Bill Gates is currently phasing himself into retirement. When that happens you’ll have to worry about Steve Ballmer being the head of MS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
It’s enough to make you want to install Linux and Open Office.
Patti // August 6, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Of course the coffee had milk in it…and the computer was on. Pretty much everything but the hard drive had to be replaced. Kiddo, who knocked the cup over in the middle of a big snit, went off to school carrying a world of guilt on his shoulders and went 5 weeks without his computer while mine was being fixed. Cups of coffee now live on the opposite corner of the desk, far away from flailing children and expensive pieces of technology.
susan // August 7, 2007 at 2:09 am
The Grammar checker. Yikes. I use it (Word’s version) only when I want an excuse for not writing (and I can’t bear the thought of cleaning the bathroom again or organising my photographs) and I can still sit at the computer and pretend to be working. I turn on the grammar checker just to see what ridiculous suggestions it can come up with. And of course, I’ve already set it to ignore nearly everything that makes my voice me.
Its smug little recommendations include:
Change “He pulled himself out of the water” to “He pulled him out of the water.”
Change: “…while you’re at it.” to “…while you’re at It.”
Add a comma after “more” in “The two of them slipped onto the dance floor, which was growing more crowded as the evening wore on.”
Change “go” to “goes” in “DJ felt himself go cold with fury.”
So what’s it thinking with? I can stand only so much of this before I turn it off in disgust, because I don’t even know where they’re coming from.
But it makes me feel superior, knowing that in a showdown between woman and software, I’d win hands down.
susan // August 7, 2007 at 2:11 am
Okay, okay, I have to admit it. While I was running a quick grammar check on a chapter to come up with some typical examples, above, it actually found a Period that should have been a Comma. So, I wonder if I have to put the whole MS (and myself) through this form of torture to find the odd typo?
prospectus // August 9, 2007 at 5:09 pm
The trouble I have with the language selection on Word is that, while I know how to change it, it also seems to know how to periodically change it back of its own accord.
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