Technology . . . Love or hate it, we have to use it. I’m not talking about social media only here, but the hardware that we utilize as authors. We have laptops, desktops, iPads, smartphones, typewriters, Macs, and various apps. Not to mention Wifi being needed for research, especially on the fly. Even the advancement has amazed me at times because I remember the days of floppy discs and zip drives. Now we have on-line folders and thumb drives.
One has to wonder what comes next for authors and technology. That and if it will work for us personally. I know some authors who work off iPads and smartphones, which I can’t do. My love is desktops and laptops. For some reason, I need a specific size of screen and keyboard to be comfortable. Probably because I started in the 80’s with the bigger machines. Funny addition here is that I’ve only had two laptops because I didn’t see a point in having one until I moved to Florida. So I think every author has their own technology system with slight variations.
With this comes problems too. How many authors have lost work because of a computer crash? Ever save a file and then have no idea where it went? Those are common ones too, so you can imagine the ridiculous headaches. I once had a desktop computer that crashed and had to be rebuilt every two or three weeks. After a few months, I learned that it was given to me with a cracked hard drive. Once, I forgot the floppy disk with all of the Windemere information in a college computer lab. Never got it back and had to rewrite everything while studying for finals. My current ‘fun’ is that this laptop’s hard drive isn’t secured and will ejected itself from time to time. This resembles a computer crash like I had with the previous hard drive. A heart attack every time.
So, how well do you get along with technology? What’s the most humorous/embarrassing/frustrating thing that has ever happened to you with a machine?
Legends of Windemere 
Back in the floppy disk days, I had a book on a floppy disk that unfortunately corrupted. I didn’t have a backup. So I lost that book. I had a hard copy, but didn’t want to scan 360 pages.
I spent hours one day entering corrections on a book only to have the computer crash with the work unsaved.
Technology is a blessing and a curse.
Nowadays, I use my laptop. I prefer a laptop to using a phone or an iPad. Actually, I don’t own a tablet.
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Think every author from the floppy days has had that happen. My favorite was working all day, saving regularly, and then coming back the next day to find that the file is nowhere to be found. Where in the world did those things go?
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Had that happen to. Once, I discovered a version of the file in the Temporary folder. But 90 percent of the time, the file is gone forever.
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Another favorite was finding files that refused to be moved or deleted.
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As a rule, I’m paranoid when it comes to backups (thanks to my engineering *and* computer background). Which means having 3+1 drives with the exact same information. Two are on RAID (mirror mode); one is an external drive and I save critical files on Dropbox as well.
Even so, I managed to lose a lot of data when I last upgraded my PC. Which goes to show you; you just can’t win when technology’s out to get you.
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Upgrades scare me ever since I did one and it toasted my entire computer. Had to buy a new hard drive since I couldn’t access the old one.
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PS. You gotta love Eddie…
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That you do. 🙂
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My stuff is automatically backed up on iCloud, but it isn’t as simple as saying, “Go get it back.” If I ever really needed it I would have to restore my device somehow, or email it and save to thumb drive using my phone.
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Is nothing easy with technology? Thought life was supposed to be easy with machines. I feel so betrayed.
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I need something that will bring me back up to speed on my novel too. If it could write part of it that would be great too.
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Still getting your mojo back?
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Getting there. I have high hopes for this weekend.
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I’m hoping to make this a big week for writing. With any luck, I finish the new book by early December before the next release.
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That’s amazing to me. I have to chip away here and there. Somehow I still manage to be productive.
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I have Thanksgiving and a weekend trip against me. We’ll see what happens. This year has not been kind.
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Me either, but you’re facing bigger consequences than I am.
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Yeah. Why can’t I ever have a normal obstacle? Always has to be so stressful.
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Interesting question. I get along with technology very well up to a point. I have both a Mac and a PC. I use the PC for publishing books. It is so much easier to use while converting files. My Mac seems reluctant to do MOBI, PDF’s E-Pub etc. (I secretly know it is because I haven’t trained it or me how yet)
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Excellent system. Got me beat.
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I doubt it.:-)
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Ah, technology…I usually use a Mac. Writing is generally done in either Google Docs (which has gone weird on me a few times…usually in the form of making me wait for a long time for it to load, only to get an error message) or TextEdit (no real issues, but I do sort of like seeing what my word count is). Artwork tends to be done in Adobe Illustrator, which…oh, man, that one’s crashed on me mid-project a few times. Sometimes, there will be a character involved that I can blame for the display suddenly shifting to an extreme diagonal or becoming otherwise distorted (someone like, say, a reality warper or a wizard that holds a burning hatred for anything tech-related). When I was finishing things for book 4, I made a list of every tech issue I’d had. So yes…tech and I have a *fun* relationship sometimes…
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Wonder if you could publish to tech mishap list or add it as an addendum.
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I get along with technology reasonably well *ducks* – however, that could be because my Dad worked at Apple in the early days, so we always had computers at home. I even worked there myself one summer. So I feel quite comfortable around tech. However, the connectedness of everything is something else – I’m still wandering around various forms of social media, unsure exactly where I fit in. It’s as though I’m at some huge party on the edge of the crowd, trying to work up the courage to go in. Guess I’d just better get on with it! 😀
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That has to be one of the best descriptions of social media ever. Also, a lot of people in the crowd are angry and/or obsessed with cats.
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haha, thanks Charles! Yes, you’re so right – it’s tough to know where to go to avoid the angry cat-people 🙂
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I think Myspace. If it still exists.
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Oh yes 😀 I have a profile on there, or rather, I did. Guess it’s floating around in cyberspace somewhere now…
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Same here. I have no idea how to get into that thing. Same with my Livejournal and AOL Instant Messenger. May they find peace in the cyber-graveyard.
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Yes, along with my old yahoo email addresses- almost forgotten now. May they rest undisturbed 😀
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I still have that one for spam receiving. Hotmail is a classic though.
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I don’t think I ever had a hotmail account. I remember being invited to join gmail years ago (you had to be invited back then by another user), and that was that – Yahoo fell by the wayside!
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I once heard either Barbara Hambly or C. J. Cherryh tell a convention audience that they had a complete novel finished and the hard drive crashed. “The novel is still in there. It makes a great doorstop.”
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Not surprising. I remember just losing 4 chapters to a dead hard drive. A whole novel would have broken me.
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Reading this gives me the shivers. And I don’t mean glorious shivers, I mean frightening-me-to-death shivers. I don’t want to jinx anything to say I haven’t lost a great amount of stories – I try to ‘save’ every 5 minutes or so, and I try to save everything on a separate hard drive every once in a while. In fact, you scared me so much, I’m going to do that this afternoon!!!!
That said, I don’t understand technology, and technology doesn’t understand me. So we have a kind of ‘stand off’ with each other. I do what I’m told if it doesn’t mess with me.
If it tries to mess with me – it better look out!
:-0
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I used to do the separate hard drive, but that habit got replaced by Dropbox. One of my previous computers loved to try and format my portable hard drive, which would erase everything and I’d have to upload all the files. Got very frustrating and I don’t know what caused it.
Love the deal you have with technology. 🙂
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Hmmm, Dropbox might be the way to go, if I ever understand where the box is, and how I drop it in. :-0
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I barely understand it myself. Think it’s like the infamous Cloud.
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Yeah, my cloud is stormy right now. ;-(
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Seems like a fickle piece of technology to me too. Always hearing about people getting into the clouds of others.
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I’ve been through lost books when I was trying to shift folders around like advised (to save space). I lost 3 books. I’m trying to write one of them from scratch now, lol. I have three backups now and shudder to think of any more losses.
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The fear of starting from scratch always looms over me. Keep fearing that I’ll save a book and then it’ll vanish.
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This version is quite a bit different than what I originally had. Different state, different time period, but same basic idea. Different characters too. I think the fear is what kept me from working on it so much during Nano, but the story snapped in place yesterday though I fear too late for Nano.
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Always forget about Nano. Probably due to my plans rarely working out the way I planned.
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Mine didn’t work out the way I wanted either but at least, I found the momentum I was lacking in the story finally, even if it is too late.
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I’m seeing a lot of people not making it this year. Just another sign that 2016 is a wash for most people.
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My first computer was a dial up & from there they got better of course but using that one was an all day affair it seemed. I too am partial to my lap tops but have been forcing myself to utilize my mobile devices more, such as now. However, my embarrassing story was about 9 years ago. Was trying to print something but the printer was not working. Spent like an hour trying to figure it out & finally got a programmer to come over & show me that the printer was out of paper. So, it was at that moment I decided not to be”that guy” again & spent e last 8 years in college earning my degrees.
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I remember the dial up days. The joy of getting a phone call that knocks you out of whatever you’re doing. Printers and I are a whole other story. My first one in college was a cheap thing that made it a year. Had to print out a bunch of research papers and short stories, but it was giving me trouble. I had a habit of going caveman on things when I wasn’t working on much sleep. One smack to the side caused the printer to spark and get a little . . . fiery. My girlfriend got a good laugh, which lasted the entire drive to Walmart for a new printer.
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Reminds me of the movie Office space.
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This did happen the same year the movie came out. Don’t think either of us made a reference though, but I don’t think I saw the movie until it was out on VHS. I am feeling so old all of a sudden.
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Great post!
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Thanks
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haha, i love the title! but technology doesn’t have to be scary, it just takes a bit of time getting used to. As far as loosing files go – I have spilled coffee over too many drawings to know that the real world is not the safest place for my creations either. And digital copies are far easier to make…
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I’ve had soda take out a notebook or two. It’s a pain no matter what medium gets hit. As an author, I kind of trust that whatever I don’t remember is in my notes. Those go away and I’m in trouble. My only wish is that technology not make it look like it’s out to get me. At least the printers. Current one refuses to acknowledge the the computer’s existence unless I do a system check. Still not as bad as the one that kind of burst into flames.
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Oh printers, they can smell it when you’re in a rush and will refuse to work for sure…
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Every time. Wonder how they’re programmed like that.
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