OK, my Abiword just "disappeared" all of my art essays and my former Friday Afternoon Challenges...

[CTyankee]

I think the document just got too big. A few chomped up pieces were left. I called my computer guy and he suggested I break up what was left and see if the old stuff reappeared. Nope.

So goodbye to all my research and work for several years now...

BUT. The good news is I created a new document and started over with an art essay on Artemisia Gentileschi to appear this Friday afternoon (barring another disaster).

I printed out a hard copy just in case.

[elleng]

1. OH NO, yank!

but wtf is Abiword???

[CTyankee]

2. It's my word processing system. I prolly should get a newer regular Word system...

[edhopper]

5. Try Kingsoft

Free and as good as MS Office.

Sorry you lost you art doc.

[CTyankee]

10. I have a folder with the art work itself that I uploaded to my art essays, but they are

broken up into each individual art essay. I got a load of them but they aren't all together, so that's a mercy. I use tinypic.com for that. Works fine but a little complicated.

I'll confer with my computer guy again about Kingsoft. I'm a little hesitant going with a brand that isn't Word.

Hope to see you Friday with Artemisia. Are you going to be around that day?

[edhopper]

13. then

or over the weekend.

[Gman]

3. At least use fee back up space like

Google Drive or something.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Try here

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=125038.0

You may still have it

[Hekate]

6. That really hurts, as I should know. Hopefully some good ideas will surface....

...along with the heartfelt sympathy.

[dieter]

7. If you plan on switching try LibreOffice.

It is free. It has all the same modules as MS-Office. A wordprocessor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database.

Looks and feels a lot like MS-Office.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

[enlightenment]

8. When I was a grad student

I worked in the grad student lounge, which was mostly a computer lab. One evening, about an hour before close, a woman rushed in waving a 3.5" disc - the metal sliding tab on the top was completely trashed. We tried everything, including trying to scavenge another metal tab from a different disc, but it was no good.

It was dead.

It was also the ONLY electronic copy she had of her completed except for final formatting dissertation. She did have a hard copy. We had a scanner. It was excruciating watching her slowly scan, with the not very sophisticated OCR imaging of the time, the entire document.

If I may make a suggestion. Regardless of which software you use, get in the habit of saving each day's work in a different file. Use the same name, except end each file name with the date. Example:
ArtEssay090115
ArtEssay090215

It will protect your work and give you an easy way to keep things in order.

Once a month, save all of that months' files onto a CD or thumbdrive or external drive.

I'm so sorry this happened. You have my absolute sympathy.

[CTyankee]

9. thanks for the info. I am computer stupid so I do only the basics...oh, well, time to

get with the future...I'll talk to my computer guy about a thumbdrive. It sounds like just the deal I need.

And thanks for the sympathy. But in a way, that was then and this is now. Altho I loved my old stuff just for re-checking some facts with my newer stuff, it's kind of a way to see the future...

I used to love 3.5" diskettes, btw. I still have a bunch of them I guess hope springs eternal they will come back, which is really weird...

[enlightenment]

11. I loved the 3.5"

easy to use, easy to store - not as easy to misplace as a thumb-drive. You might want to consider an external drive instead - holds more and is large enough not to lose under the desk or behind the radiator . . . or the many other places small things get lost.

They have come down in price, so not too much sticker shock. Seagate is an excellent brand for these. You just plug them in with an (included) USB cable and your computer says "oh, there's another drive" just like the old diskettes. Only these things will hold everything and then some.

I use mine for regular backups and archiving. I do use thumb-drives for files I need in the classroom (keep them on my keychain), but I wouldn't trust myself to store everything on them. I'm too much of an airhead!

Here's a link to Amazon - gives you an idea of price and size (mine is a little older and slightly larger than a deck of playing cards).

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-External-Hard-Drives/zgbs/electronics/595048/ref=s9_acss_bw_fb_MNTRBLKS_b4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-2&pf_rd_r=0V242EVHT08YTHR5HENH&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2107176822&pf_rd_i=595048

[justhanginon]

12. I will look forward to your essay on friday. If memory serves,

(at my age, iffy at best), my daughter did a paper on Artemisia in college and was very enthused about this artist. I will certainly pass it on to her.
Your art essays are truly a bright spot on this site and I think much appreciated.
Thank you!

[CTyankee]

14. why, thank you! I hope folks will be around and not gone for the long weekend...

I love the Baroque era...