Forum Tip: Saving your posts.

[ShadowTiger]

I know that you can't really "save" on a forum, but sometimes there are occasional errors which cause your post to be lost. I know it's rare enough so that you don't have to care about it, but it can happen. .. Really, it can! I've seen it happen too many times to let it go.

I recommend that you fine folks make this a habit. I've never been sorry that I've done this. Just after you finish your post, or anything else you're typing, hit Ctrl+A and then immediately hit Ctrl+C. If something were to happen, you have your post saved. ;)


Here are a few examples of what could happen:

1) My 5th period computer graphics teacher used to come over by the computers, and anyone on the internet, she used to (manually) move the mouse, wherever our hands were at the time, over the the big red XP X in the corner, therefore closing it, and then proceeded to just walk away. It used to cost us a lot of work. But then I started doing this, and I just went right back on, with my entire post saved, ready to just paste in the box. Good stuff. ;)

2) Sometimes, the 'net would crash. Mozilla or IE would get that fatal error box or whatever, and we would have no choice but to crash to the desktop. Many more than several people were extremely frustrated by this, and stomped on the computer table, causing several people to slip with their mouse, creating much more frustration, classroom-wide. Yikes. If you had saved your work, you wouldn't have to cause all that frustration. ;)

Now why did I create a thread so long for such a silly exercise? .. Well.. you just read why. :rolleyes:

*Hits Ctrl+A --> Ctrl+C*

[Paradox]

Or if you lose your work, you could always retype it and make it less brief. Anything long enough to bother saving is sometimes long to read anyway, so being more concise helps. It also gives you typing practice, in case you can't type 90WPM yet :p

...or maybe you should just find other times during the day to post on forums.

[ShadowTiger]

Oh dear. It seems people do operate on social/intellectual cliques as I had feared. I don't want to "Dumb Down" my posts, because it offends dumb people. .. Do you want me to call you dumb? The LAST thing I want is to call you dumb, and to call you dumb would be completely illogical, as you're not dumb! I'm sorry if my long posts cause you read more, but in my present paranoid state, I'm afraid that it's more than possible that people could misconstrue my point, and turn the topic into a flamewar against me merely for typing out something which is instantly obvious, yet has relieved many people's aggression toward computers. It's happened before. And I'm quite paranoid.


EDIT: Yes, not enough information can get you to the 'n00b' status. Too MUCH information can lead to topics like this, and to be honest, it's very difficult to know what the perfect amount of information is, because everyone has different tastes! And someone is going to complain, so my only recourse is to not type this at all, or give what I feel might be a topped-off amount of information so no one can call me n00b. I'd rather be a smart hated person than a dumb one. ... Please excuse any attitude I appear to be showing. I'm starving, and am about to engage in a six hour economics course. Wish me luck. >_<

[AtmaWeapon]

Too long; didn't read. LOL

No this is a good strategy, I tend to type longer posts in notepad because it is less likely to mess up and sometimes I accidentally hit CTRL+C again later and end up losing the post anyway.

[Axel]

Next time that I'm really on a roll with a post I'll remember that. Usually its probably not worth worrying about my posts, but our next intent debate I'll remember this. I type out as I think so what you're reading is really the culmination of a train of thought, often derailed or forced to change tracks, and its impossible to rethink a train of thought, so I can lose everything if there's some kind of posting error.
Now where was I going with this?

[plith]

You could always... just... use the school computers for schoolwork. I personally find that using them to hang out on Internet message boards is a worse idea than typing short posts.

Read: concise != stupid
What makes you assume that short posts make you sound stupid, anyway?

Paradox: I think you meant more brief.

[TedHead]

Copy... paste... what a concept!

I'll have to tell the kids at school all about this one! ;)

[slothman]

I always do that. I type stuff in and then highlight it all and copy it. I've saved many a posts that would be lost otherwise.

[Rainman]

If I am typing a really long post, I sometimes copy it to Word or maybe just notepad and just save it to the hard drive.

[Samson007]

Only if im typing a long post, i will copy it before i hit submit. that way if something goes wrong, i can just paste it back in the box and try again.

[Drunken Tiger]

I dont post at school anymroe and when my computer does scrwe up i just give up... ^^

ctrl+a and then ctrl+c is just too much work for me.... :)

DT

[Archibaldo]

Hmmmm... I'll have to try that. It sure would help sice my computer is a piece of crap. And sometimes the forums freeze and I have to restart the computer.

[VEL]

I sometimes copy my posts, before I post them, and sometimes I save them as a text file. This computer has a problem where it shuts off if I type too fast, so just Ctrl+c doesn't help with that. I don't usually make long posts though.

[Master Ghaleon]

I usually just type the same exact thing right back up if one of my posts craps out

[Rainman]

I've had times where I was typing out a long post in the past when something happens and my post is lost. More often than not, I write out a shorter post that usually not as good.