IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: ClaireBear
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:39 PM

Spaw,

A slight thread creep about UK English and MS Word: You can set the dictionary in Word to UK English by highlighting your text, clicking on the review tab, and using the "set language" function you'll find there. Choose UK English. Word will then theoretically find on a spellcheck anything that doesn't look to it like UK English.

However, that's not going to get you anything that looks much like UK English, because Oxford (and more recently Chambers, and I don't know which other UK dictionaries) have all bought into an initiative called "global English" that promotes the use of one standard spelling for many words that are traditionally spelled differently in the U.S. than in the UK...and the spellings they've chosen are what we'd think of as the U.S. ones.

I spend much of my day translating technical marketing materials for a major tech firm from U.S. English to UK English, and I can thus attest that the spellcheck is perfectly bloody useless. It accepts these "global" spellings, whereas the native readers of UK English with whom I work deem them completely unacceptable. I am sure there are many UK residents who are ready or even eager to adopt "global English" spelling, but the ones I know are not.

So I built a lengthy conversion macro that I run, and then I do a lot of additional tedious work by hand, whenever I need to translate a document into UK English. In fact I'm working on one right now, snd I should get back to it...

Cheerio!
Claire

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 09:40 AM

I think those are good suggestions from Sandra and Geoff. I have used variations of both those methods along the way.

The email (I use gmail) save that Sandra suggests dumps the information into the draft file where it is both searchable and sendable, just in case I want to send it to someone later. This is an especially good method when repeatedly listening to a song while trying to decipher the lyrics. It is also quite easy to add the bold, italics and other html to see what it will look like in Mudcat. Of course, you have to add the actual html later, but still it helps you to see what things will look like before making your final copy.

I sometimes use Geoff's method of dumping a notepad work in progess on the desktop. As he does, I use it for other things as well, and change/add/subtract as needed.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 07:47 AM

Here's a trick that I have found useful when working on a Windoze computer for temporarily saving text until I have done somthing with it.
Open "Notepad", type a couple of carriage returns so you have a blank document then click "save" (or "save as"). When you get the "choose where to put it" box, select the "Desktop". Name the file "Mudcat Posting" and save it. This gives you an icon on your screen. If you double click, it opens a re-usable notepad ready for your mud-jottings.
You only need to do this once. When needed, just open it, if there is an old message there, click "Ctrl-a" then Delete, to remove the previous text and then write or paste your message. If it is just a temporary storage until you are certain the posting has arrived in the thread, there is no need to save what you have just typed, just close it when done.
If, on the other hand, you are composing a long reminiscence of important post you want to double check before sending, you can click "Save" and it will be there on your desktop where it is easily found, and waiting for your return. Double click the desktop icon and you have your Mudpost back.

I have on occasion found it useful to do the same for other purposes - "Jobs to do" lists, "Phone messages", "Random thoughts" and the like! - It is much quicker to open a pre-saved notepad on your desktop than it is to find the programme, open it up, and decide where to save the resulting file, then waste half an hour trying to find where you saved it to the following day.

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 03:49 AM

no-one has suggested my favourite way to write or save - in an email!

If I see a reply is taking forever to post, I run my curser over it & copy it & open an email & paste it.

sandra (Firefox user who has sometimes saved a missing post by hitting the arrow to go back a page)

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 10:20 PM

Good one, Rowan.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 09:42 PM

Fair suck of the sauce bottle, youse blokes! I can talk Strine just as well as Afferbeck Lauder, but I try not to inflict it on the uninitiated. Just because we call the thing above the basin (I nearly wrote "bason") a tap instead of a faucet doesn't mean we're unsophisticated. [Of course, youse all have heard about the tap dancer who broke his leg in the sink, haven't you?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:46 PM

Bison

What one says to a male offspring as he goes to summer camp.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:45 PM

Unless it's a bisontennial. But that was 33 years ago. 1976.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:21 PM

And a bison is a handwashing facility in a lavatory.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:12 PM

Yes...to add to Rowan's point, most spell-check programs DO have dictionaries you can download to specify YOUR preference. In better ones, you can have several and switch betewwn them...like when you need to write an article for publication in the UK.
Almost all of the programs allow you to add a word to your preferred dictionary, so that if you want it to quit warning you about 'Mudcat', you can tell it you approve. I have added 'Obama' and numerous other words to my regular follow-along-and-monitor-everything-I-type program.

(sometimes I type 'thru' instead of through...and I don't want it beeping.)

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:07 PM

Well geez Rowan, can you blame them? Y'all are a pretty screwed up bunch down there what with snowfall in July and walking around upside down and all.............And ya' gotta' admit that "Strine" is a pretty weird dialect.........(;<))


Spaw

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:01 PM

Thanks, Bill, for bringing the topic up; I have used all three of Joe's scenarios (but never have run foul of Spaw's...yet).

Spaw, there are dictionaries that you can use for nonUS versions of English. I remember some posts of JohninKansas dealing with how to get them and also make sure your keyboard uses the same versions. His comments were useful but, even so, I found out the Word's version of English for Australians came up with US spellings; apparently Micro$oft reckons we're an unacknowledged extra territory of the US. I've found the only way to get correct Oz spelling, using Office, is to use the English UK dictionary as provided. Even so, it affects only some of Office's applications but not the spellings used by the operating system or other applications.

Have fun.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:51 PM

Won wood 'ope sew.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:35 PM

That brings up something........I never use a spell check program so let me find out from those who do........

Is there a UK and an American version that takes into account all those errors normally made by the Brits? You know.......like flavour or colour where they should be flavor and color............


Spaw

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:27 PM

Firefox will do spell check for you also... and I believe the newest Opera has it as an option.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 05:11 PM

Another thing: making do with an old pentium 2 (please pardon the poetry), I use the Google Chrome browser, which underlines in red any spelling mistakes it finds - including the "Google" I just typed!

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 04:45 PM

Spaw, having done hat about 437 times myself, and because I don't want you feeling all alone in assholedom, etc.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:41 PM

I like the idea there are drifts of lost Mudcat posts floating round cyberspace like so much space junk...

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:35 PM

Probably not worth mentioning................. and I would never suggest that this might happen to anyone but a complete idiot.......but since I qualify in that group, may I offer this?

If you use the Preview function, you just might, upon occasion, every now and then, and only if you're an idiot, click on the Preview and Submit, then read your post. Maybe you make the odd correction, maybe you don't, but you finally sit back, satisfied with the sheer beauty and poetry of your work AND knowing it is thought for the ages which shall provide a light, a shining beacon of truth for the world. Yes, at this point you sigh in satisfaction and then, for reasons unknown, you decide to click off Mudcat for awhile and come back later to bask in the glory that you know will be showered upon you.

Problem is that when you return, your post is missing. That's because you read the thing in Preview and clicked off without ever posting it to the forum. Now if you had saved it..............But again, I wouldn't begin to suggest anyone else out there is that friggin' stupid but for an assshole like myself, I know this has happened.

On the other hand, if you think you ARE an asshole..............


Spaw

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:22 PM

Art...don't type for 3-4 hours. Type for 15 minutes, save it, and add to it later.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:13 PM

Best:
The safest way is to type the message up in Word, spellcheck it, and save it. Then, highlight [CTRL-A] it and copy [CTRL-C] it. Then go to the Mudcat message box on your browser, and paste [CTRL-V] it into the box and "Submit."
Of course, I rarely bother to do that.

---

Next-best:
Now, a much easier precaution is to type your message in the mudcat box. Then, just before posting, highlight [CTRL-A] it and copy [CTRL-C] it. Then submit the Mudcat message and check to make sure it "took. If by chance it didn't, paste [CTRL-V] it into the box and "Submit" until it takes. And if you can't get it to take, paste it into a word processor document and save it for a while, then try again.
When I take that precaution, I rarely have a problem. It's like the rule that it never rains when you take an umbrella along.

---

Worst-case scenario:
But if you're like me and forget to copy the message before you submit, you might be able to retrieve it by using the "back" button on your browser or going back by using the "backspace" key on your keyboard. Sometimes that works, and usually it doesn't - there are no guarantees. This is usually an act of desperation, and usually what happens is that you're screwed, and you've lost the message forever and you'll live the rest of your life regretting that you took no precautionary effort to save the message before you lost it.

-Joe-

---

But Art, please type your memories up for us again. And this time, use "proper precautions." Wasn't there a famous (infamous?) Art Thieme condom thread a long, long time ago?

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:07 PM

I've used Word and saved onto desktop to copy and re-post later, but may try the same with NotePad or WordPad next time.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: open mike
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:03 PM

or use notepad...it usually opens quickly
without the rig-a-ma-roll that it takes to
open MS Office Word...the title is even
easier...esp. if it is for temporary use.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Tootler
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 03:01 PM

On Ubuntu Linux, gedit is the notepad equivalent.

Another helpful suggestion. When you are ready to post check the "Preview" box before hitting submit. It gives you a chance to review what you have written before finally submitting. I forgot to do that yesterday and as a result posted some garbage - well alright you might think the post was garbage anyway, but the way it was expressed made it even more garbage

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:51 PM

As far as I know, every operating system gives you..free... some program that can be used to save text... and usually the related HTML also. I have WORD available, but I use smaller, simpler programs for little tasks..... (suggestions on request)

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:51 PM

Don't blame me Bruce. It was my Mom!

No no ... The Devil made me do it.

Maeve - Brilliant!

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: maeve
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:28 PM

VT- Besides that, Jesus works on a Mac.

m

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:17 PM

Uhhh, that says it better than a truckload of advice! Thanks!

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:17 PM

VT, THAt was baaad.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:13 PM

yep very frustrating to lose your work.

I try to remember to that if I want to do a long post or respond to several posters, to start in notepad. I shrink the mudcat (browser) window, so I can scroll through and read on the left side of screen and type into note pad on the right side.

That way, if mudcat fumbles I have original to post later when it returns.

Reminds me of a joke my mom told me.

God was really stressed and tired with managing the universe for aeons and wanted to take a weekend break. So he called Jesus and Satan to a meeting and told them "Which ever you provides me with a sufficiently convincing essay as to why you should be in charge, will get to rule the universe while I am away."

So Jesus went into his giant super executive office with views of the heavens and Satan into his stuffy, dirty little cubicle in hell and both started click click clicketing away on their PCs. They worked for about 6 hours, when all of a sudden the power went out all over the universe.

For a moment there was absolute silence and the power came back on.

The clicking resumed in Jesus' office. But all hell broke loose in hell with all manner of profanity and crashing of objects and explosions.


Know why?













Because Jesus saves!


I'll just get me horns.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:12 PM

I read those stories as well, but did not want to clutter up such an important thread with advice on what to do. Thanks, Bill, for bringing it up here. I know I'm only repeating what's already been said, but here is my version to help emphasize the point.

If I have ANYTHING to say that is more than a paragraph or two, then I go to Word and type what I want to say there, saving periodically. When I am done, I copy and paste my message into Mudcat or one of the other sites that I frequent. If by some chance Mudcat is acting up or I manage to hit the wrong buttons, then the post is not lost, I just go back and try again. If the post takes, then fine, I just delete the Word file and my words of wisdom are saved forever, thanks to Max and Mudcat.

Right now I am reaching the point at which I would do that very thing, but since I am about done and what I am saying isn't all that deathless anyhow, I'll just finish by mentioning that if you are saying something that you consider important and you would have difficulty reconstructing it if you were to lose it, then make sure you have a safety net, whether it be Word, Works, Notepad, Wordpad, whatever. It doesn't take that much longer.

Oh, and if I need to add any html, that goes into my Word document as well. After pasting the message into Mudcat, I check my html by clicking on the Preview button. If there are ANY errors in html, I fix them and Preview the message again. No exceptions to that rule. I don't just assume that I put the correct html in the correct place.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:04 PM

Did I just have a post go missing? It was a joke........

Spaw

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:03 PM

That BillD guy ain't just another pretty face.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: maeve
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 02:00 PM

By the way, that last post didn't take the first time, but because I had used the Copy command, I could just paste it and submit it again.

m

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: maeve
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:57 PM

We want to read that post, Art. Please, please, pretty please...Will you try to write another one? The whole thing is wandering around in your subconscious. We need your thoughts and words, especially now.

maeve

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:54 PM

Alas, I have never been upset the next day whenever I've lost a post. But this morning, after trying to post a long and extremely timely post to Sandy's sad thread, today, yes I'm really upset about it. 'Nuf said. Damn, damn, damn!

Art

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:45 PM

You'll be OK. Just stay away from the purple ones.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:42 PM

NO way. I will NOT open those things. I had a stoned friend who did and he's all effed up now, crying and shit like that. HE opened something on his computer and he's like to need psychiatrick/sykeyatrick/sighceeatric/ medical help real soon.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:40 PM

It's a text program on Windows. Go to Start menu, All Programs, Accessories, then Notebook.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:29 PM

I just wanna see the pictures.

Jeri, wtf is a notebook?

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:27 PM

I've done similar to Bill, but what I can't understand is why a thread I just started called "Swimsuits - what's the fuss?" (BS) was attached to my "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" (BS) thread...there was some WAV in it but the main point was the controversy re. swimsuits at the World Championships, which some here may have been interested in..?

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:20 PM

Peace, you can C + P into notepad which is less complicated.
You can also C and the P on the thread later... IN the thread... inTO the... oh, you know!

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:13 PM

I don't know what you just said, but I will take your word for it.

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 01:10 PM

That may indeed be part of the problem, but it would be hard to test. Maybe it is required that there be 2.40 nanoseconds delay between posts...*shrug*

The important thing is to LOOK at your post to be sure it worked, and not accuse Mudcat of deleting it....well, unless you were doing something naughty in your post...*grin*

Subject: RE: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 12:59 PM

Bill, as you know, I'm no computer guy. However, having 'lost' about four posts in the past while something I did notice is that when I was trying to submit at the same time as another poster--well, one of us went by-by. That's happened four times and always, another poster and I had posts that seemed to be struggling for the Mudcat. Does that make sense?

Of course, your idea is a good one. C and p from word or something. One day I'll remember than and actually DO it.

Subject: IMPORTANT--about lost posts-to save them
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 12:56 PM

Sadly, several people were upset last night as they composed long posts, then discovered Mudcat was down when they tried to 'submit'.

I was also composing one for the 'Global Warming' theead in the BS section. I tried for 30 minutes to send it, and then had to do to bed.....so, I opened a new text file, highlighted it (Ctrl-A), copied it (Ctrl-C), pasted it in my little file in "Metapad" (you probably use Wordpad or something) and saved it with a name I wouldn't forget.
This morning, I just copied it out of that file, went to the thread, pasted it back in and ZOOM!.....

To add a bit....sometimes, even when Mudcat is not 'down', a post will not 'take' for some reason. No one has ever quite explained exactly why this happens, but all you usually need to do is save the post, then go to the menu and hit "reload"...NOT 'refresh' in the Mudcat page!! (in some browsers, even saving is not necessary, as text is remembered until the browser is closed, or you 'reload' the page.)

"Reload" puts an entirely new copy of the current Mudcat page in your browser's cache
Now you can paste the post back in, or simply use the 'back' button to where the post may still be 'remembered', and go ahead and hit 'submit' again.

These tricks really, really work....it's unfortunate that we have to use them, but technology doesn't always play fair....