This week, we’ve talked about how to create copies of your work so that the actual loss of a file or even a computer doesn’t derail your whole career. But what about other acts of stupidity, like accidentally deleting a big section of text from your work in progress without noticing it? What if you […]
A good backup system creates multiple copies of everything to prepare for whatever circumstances may arise while remaining convenient (which means you’ll actually use your system). Here is a good, solid, and fairly easy backup system to make sure you have a reasonably recent copy of all your work whenever you need it.
In addition to local, immediately available backups, you also want to keep a backup somewhere off-site, in case of fire, flooding, earthquake, or other traumatic events that could destroy your home. One option is to store a set of backup CDs or DVDs at a friend or family member’s house, in a safe deposit box, […]
The most common danger facing your electronic documents is the loss of a file from your hard drive. Data loss can be caused by several factors: human error (accidentally deleting a file, saving over an existing file), hardware failure (hard drive failure, file corruption, the death of a computer), even malicious intent (a virus or […]
At the climax of Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys (and the film adaptation with Michael Douglas) the protagonist sees his novel manuscript, several thousand pages of typescript, blown into the river — lost forever. Though in the novel, the loss of his manuscript frees the author from years of stagnation and paralyzation, any writer can’t help but cringe […]
Although I’m a fan of all-in-one writing programs like yWriter4 and Liquid Story Binder XE, I like the decidedly low-tech Work In Progress Notebook from romance novelist Jeannie Ruesch quite a bit, indeed. Available as either a wire-bound notebook ($14.50 US) or a downloadable Word file you can print and bind yourself ($6.95 US), the […]
Though blogs and RSS feeds are the hot thing right now, there are still lots of people who prefer good old-fashioned email newsletter. Newsletters have a number of qualities that make them preferable to blogging for some purposes, such as:
They’re “push” technology: Instead of waiting for a reader to visit your blog, or check their […]
When I launched this site in late March, I had a few ideas about who I thought would be interested in the kind of material I post here. But to be honest, the site’s readership ahs grown a lot faster than I’d expected — we touched 600 RSS/Email subscribers yesterday, and a couple hundred people also visit […]
Angela Booth, a writing coach and author of numerous books, ebooks, and blogs for writers, selected The Writer’s Technology Companion as the first Writing Blog of the Day today. Here’s what she was kind enough to write about the WTC:
Dustin covers all those techy things which you should know as a writer, but were too […]
Enso Words is a free program for Windows XP and Vista that puts the tools writers need the most — spell check, word count, dictionary, and thesaurus — a few keystrokes away no matter what application you happen to be writing in. It’s an ingenious little program that deserves a place on every writer’s hard drive.
Enso Words lives […]
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