Comments on: Am I Weird?

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:46:07 +0000

I do something similar. I’ve set up a plugin for Google Desktop search called Kongulo (http://desktop.google.com/plugins/kongulo.html). It’s a very basic web-crawler, so I have it crawl my blog and my livejournal account once a week and it’s made my life so much easier. I mean, how many times do you think “damn I just wrote about that a few months ago, now where the hell is it?” :-)

By: Cary Miller

Cary Miller — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:57:58 +0000

Rachel, thanks for the tip!

By: Vix

Vix — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:05:13 +0000

I use notepad to store all my thoughts and draft posts but I simply write over once I’ve posted to my blog.

I’m not too worried about losing my blog data because I’m pretty religious about backing up my MySQL files.

By: theaardvark

theaardvark — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:57:09 +0000

I used to cut & paste my posts into Word to run a spelling & grammar check. However I now use IeSpell (http://www.iespell.com/) to spell check my entries within my web browser or Spellbound for Firefox(http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/) on my home system.

By: Quick Online Tips

Quick Online Tips — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:17:43 +0000

I also get all my Blogger posts sent to my email when they are published. That way if all is lost, I have my posts safe.

By: Quick Online Tips

Quick Online Tips — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:15:54 +0000

With all the blogger errors daily, I have some tips to back up and recover a blog.

By: duncan

duncan — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 01:24:14 +0000

yes, you are weird, but I must admit I cut and paste my posts into word to spell check them prior to posting, although I never paste them back into WP, I just use it to highlight any errors.

By: Stewart Vardaman

Stewart Vardaman — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:43:45 +0000

I type everything in Metapad:

http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/

Sometimes if I’m not confident I’ll paste into a word processor for spelling and grammar. I then paste it into the web interface, which stores everything in MySQL. My laptop runs SQL, and every night it backs up the website.

By: David

David — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:02:20 +0000

I totally agree with what you say, though I can’t be bothered to have something like Word open all the time. I use Crimson Editor now and then, but mostly I just save often.

Everytime I come up with a good idea for a post, I save it as I go through it, that way I am sure the blogging software will not lose the entirety of my good idea if Firefox crashes.

By: HART

HART — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:06:33 +0000

After my blog entry is published, I go into the article once again, by way of the Permanent link, and VIEW SOURCE. Then FILE / SAVE-AS the source as the same file name of the permanent link filename. I place it on my computer in my c:\backup\blog\ directory. This way, if something crashes I have the total post including html and stylesheet stuff.

I’m using blogspot though and there is no feature to backup our blog data – so I have to do something, right?

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:50:52 +0000

Cary, I’ve had that happen to me too – so I set Firefox to open links from emails in a new tab always :)

I wouldn’t recommend copying and pasting from Word because of some of the symbols Word uses but I often copy long posts/comments before hitting submit like someone else mentioned so I have the post in my clipboard.

I recommend backing up databases weekly.

By: NightWriter

NightWriter — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:51:36 +0000

No, not wierd in the least. Most sensible if you ask me. Whether its just a couple of minutes writing a comment, or an hour creating an article, it is still time spent and the most annoying thing in the world is your work being lost in the void. I too copy, paste and save everything, ever since the day I lost 30,000 words of a first draft of a novel I had worked on. Sure, I had a printed hard-copy, but that was it. Took almost a year to be bothered to type it all out again.
Everything on my site is backed up to the hilt. Being fiction, it is harder to replace should it all fall off the back of the server one day!

By: Cary Miller

Cary Miller — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:51:55 +0000

You’re all a bunch of weirdos ; )

That said, I lost twenty minutes worth of writing today when I absent-mindedly clicked a link in an e-mail and Firefox jumped to the new page…erasing my hard work in an instant : (

Maybe I’ll take your advice…

By: JSLogan

JSLogan — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:45:57 +0000

Chris,

You’re right, but for the wrong reason. I am weird…but Word has nothing to do with it :-)

BTW…I didn’t write this comment in Word before I published it :-)

Cheers!

By: Chris Abraham

Chris Abraham — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:30:11 +0000

Do You Save Everything Your Write Online?

Jim Logan admitted that, “for every single post I write, including this one, I write it first in MS Word and save a copy in a common folder on my computer.”…

By: Chris Abraham

Chris Abraham — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:24:38 +0000

You are weird. That said, I oftentimes do something similar using TextPad (that you use Word is what I find weird). Why? Well, because I am used to the world of the message board, the online community, and so forth. In the old days the latency might have been bad enough that the entire post that I crafted might be gone when I hit submit and the latency timed-out the post. Happened all the time on the Well and TMN when Web Interfaced replace Text Caucus v2 (the good old days with Superscoop, etc).

At the very least, I hit cmd-a, cmd-c, before I click Add Comment or Post — just to make sure it is at least in my clipboard first.

I leave a “scratchpad” open all day… the biggest reasons are to do some quick regex grepping or some reformatting (to get rid of the ugly MS Word metadata) or to reformat a bit of text to get rid of hard returns.

I highly recommend TextPad but Ultra32 is great as well.

By: Grant Griffiths

Grant Griffiths — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:06:21 +0000

I have not been doing this. However, I am going to start. This is a great idea and I appreciate you bringing this weird idea of yours up.

By: Jon Gales

Jon Gales — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:05:14 +0000

I write most everything inside the web interface. Call me crazy (I was weened on a web browser I suppose) but it feels most natual. I also tend to write in hypertext, even when out of a browser. I can’t get used to using something like Etco–I like staying in one application. I also use Bloglines for just that reason.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:42:50 +0000

I do the same, although for a slightly different reason. As a security measure, when I wrote the software that powers my site I built in a timeout function (mainly in case I’m in a public place/office etc) – after 20 minutes, if I haven’t clicked anything in the admin, it logs out automatically. I started to find that long posts (or posts that require research as I write) would take longer than 20 minutes, and therefore I would spend x-time writing it – only to find it disappear when I clicked send because it had logged me out.

So, now I write everything up in notepad first, then publish it. As with Tim though, I backup the databases daily aswell.

By: Josue

Josue — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:39:54 +0000

Watch MS Word. It inserts some coding ( ) that feed validators don’t like. Check http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?t=593 to see what I mean.