€69 The Price of Being a Boob

Yesterday, I plugged in my external hard drive into the computer. The drive is E:
The intent was to format it, so I started the process. I hit format. It took a great deal of time to start, which is abnormal, so I clicked it again.

I received the usual message that the drive was busy with another operation. Did I want to stop the operation that was in process and continue?
I clicked “Yes”.
It formatted.
Then I realized, to my complete and utter horror, I had just formatted my F: drive. The F: drive had all of my documents and over 600 movies along with 7,000 + photos.

Having had computers crash multiple times in the past, I knew having a nervous breakdown would just take up more precious time. Using my critical thinking skills, I stopped to assess how much of this has been backed up on other drives. Quite a bit, but as it generally happens, I had that nagging feeling that I was due for another back-up, but I never really wanted to take the time when the thoughts occurred.

I bought a disk recovery software program. It took 26 hours to collect what was close to 2 TB of data; TB mind you, not GB.

It finally finished, so I am restoring it part by part. The worst part is that the program gives you up to twenty copies of one document or graphic and you have to sort through to find which one is a good copy. For some, it was number 2, while others held out until number eighteen. The graphic and PDF files are the easiest as they show a preview, but there is a still a great proportion of deleting the extraneous copies. The problem with Word is that you have to try opening each and every copy until you find a good one. They are not showing in the preview section. 

The software has been fairly impressive so far, but it is not looking great for video files and it is ultra time-consuming.

I did want to do some housecleaning in this drive, but this is not the way I had intended to do it.

€69 that could have been spent on better causes. My only excuse is lack of sleep. Ron and I went to a bar Friday night to do a review for the Frommer’s nightlife section. We didn’t get home until 2:30 am and then had to get up to see a guest off at 7:30 am. Sleep after she left was elusive, so I didn’t bother. I paid the price.

Related articles

• Using an External Hard Drive
• Backup Drive for External Hard Drive

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Árpád had this comment and question:

"This is interesting, but I am curious how Google Docs deals with MS Word’s headers. When I upload a file that contains the standard MLA page numbers in the header, Google Docs only displays the last number (at the very beginning of the document) because a Docs document is one continuous page. Have you found a solution for this problem?"

Google has been aware of this issue being a problem, but since there is no license between Google and Microsoft, the choices are limited. If you want to save a document that no longer needs editing, you can save it in Word as a PDF file and upload it to Docs that way. It will keep all of its formatting. When I edit student work where I want them to see the changes, but I don't want them to be able to click on "Accept all changes", I put it in PDF format before e-mailing it back to them.

If you want to collaborate on a document, it has to be in Google Docs format. In this way, collaborate on the document, complete it, download it, and then format it as needed. Save one copy as a PDF and upload it for safe storage. There are programs that will convert from PDF back to Word.

If you are not planning on collaborating on a document, supposedly, by not converting it to Google Docs format it is supposed to keep its Word style. You have to uncheck the box shown here where is states "Convert documents...to the corresponding Google Docs formats".

According to their website, OffiSync Premium for a $30 Lifetime license for 1-50 computers, does keep Office formating for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I have not purchased a license, so I cannot tell you if it works. This morning, I did try to download a Google Doc directly into Word, but received an error message. I sent a bug report to OffiSync to see why. I am also have trouble installing the program on a different computer with Win 7 Home Premium on it. We will see what they have to say.

Side note: I have been using the pre-release Beta MS Office 2010 and am loving it. I do miss the start up icon where there is now just "File", but otherwise I cannot wait to get the full real program coming out this summer.

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Timing is Everything

After getting 10-15 page essays from my group of 25 students, I resent them out to different students to be the 'editor' of that paper. They had a week to edit it, then sent it back to the original writer and to me. The student then had one week to do a final revision of the essay and send it back to me for a final grade. My Inbox was splitting its sides with the now 50 essays in both edited and final draft form waiting to be graded, though with the mess on moving the campus, I fell behind in my work. Yesterday, i started the process and just as I opened the first one, there was a message for me from MS Office 2007 Beta. It had expired and needed to be uninstalled. Okay, fine! I loved the program and plan on purchasing the full version, but for now, I needed to grade papers. I went to uninstall it with Add/Remove programs. This attempt gave me a "Sorry, no can do" message. It would not uninstall. I tried through the Program Files and it was a no go there too. I could not access my real copy of Office 2003 either until 2007 was uninstalled. Essays glaring at me and I cannot open them...what to do, what to do? I burned them on a DVD R/W disc and graded them on my laptop. At the same time, I put the call out for some computer help. My TA Balazs came to the rescue with a friend of his who does computer work for a living. He spent three hours trying to fix the problem or at least fix my corrupted Windows Installer program. Trying to download the program again only resulted in the message that the version I had was newer than the one I had downloaded from Microsoft. The final conclusion was that I would have to reformat the computer. This is not a task I enjoy and will hold off until the semester is over. There are too many necessary programs to reinstall, making it too time consuming otherwise. This computer man also clearly recognized that my fan sounded like a lawnmower. He offered to replace it and it is so quiet now, I need to see the lights on the front to make sure it is still on. We are leaving for Amsterdam on Wednesday and I am determined to have all of the grading completed before I leave.

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