Writing marches forward+

19 January

Handwriting vs typing, which is best would you think? No matter what I said yesterday, I can’t make up my mind on this one. I did spend a fair amount of time hand writing day before yesterday, but as I said, I will need to type it up later too. I suppose really, what I am wondering is when is it the best time start typing. Is it wait until the work is completely finished, or type it up as soon as you finish that’s day’s work. The fear of losing work is a worry for many writers. There have been a few times that I have thought I’ve lost a whole days’ work. Luckily, I have found it soon after.

What I have lost though is over 100,000 words from this blog. The word count was reading 940,000+ words when I had finished for the day. I closed down the doc and saved it as normal, but the next day when I came to open it, I had to search for it. When I eventually found and opened it, the word count was down to 830,00+ words, and over three months of work had gone. I still haven’t found it either, not fun, but in reality it’s not all that a worry, the blogs concerned are on-line anyway. Now I have copies saved to three different sources as well as the cloud, hopefully that will work.

But I wonder about that too.  Apparently there some computers manufacturers who have stopped adding USB ports to their machines. In such cases the users will have no choice but to save the to the cloud, and pay for the privilege too. So, when we will our USB devices become redundant? I’m thinking of our cameras and how they connect to the lappy, but there again, as long as there is a SD card port, that should be a problem. Printers will need to be wi-fi machines too; I know ours are but we’ve never bother trying to set them up that way. Perhaps we should really?

And so the pace of technology races ahead. I wonder if that SecDef in Washington thought about just how far his decision would go when he was faced with three different systems to contacting the three US armed forces. Alan Turing and his code breakers using their Colossus machine would have not thought that the computing power in an average wrist watch these days would be greater than the power of their big beastie. There’s a law in computer that goes something like this, the power of computing chips will double every 18 months, while their size and cost will reduce at the same rate. I can’t remember who said that now, but at least the first clause is right, and maybe the second one is too when you compare what you can get today with what you got two years ago for the same cost.

Software changes at a similar rate. I current use Photoshop 12 for my photo editing; every so often I get an email arrive telling my P/shop 15 is better and faster. Oh really? It’s only faster when the user able to use that extra built in speed. No, I think I shall keep using 12 until I buy a new camera, and that day is a long way off. The Office 2016 I use is working OK for now, but the change to it has caused a few upsets along the way. I have a feeling the change from 2010 to 2016 is what caused me to lose all those blogs entries. Windows 10 has been out and in use for around 18 months now, I wonder when the next one will come out. Yes, I know they said there won’t be one, but do you really believe was MS says? But which comes first? Is the software trying to catch up or is the technology racing ahead to keep ahead of the software?   

Computers are everywhere these days, I’m sure you don’t need to be told that. Everything we do is being recorded somewhere or other. Pay for your petrol by at Tesco, they’ve got it in the data; pay for your lottery tickets, two new paperbacks and a daily paper at WH Smiths, and they have your details in their data. That is something else that SecDef wouldn’t have thought about, but I bet the current one has. We already know that all our intelligence services use computers and hackers on a regular basis. Maybe the days of Tom Cruise and his Mission Impossible isn’t that far away my friends. Just watch your back next time you get your credit card to buy that curry n chips in the local chippy … … …

Today’s photo …

A tufted duck – nowt ter do wiv ‘puters!

Today’s funny …

Judge: ''Do you wish to challenge any member of the jury?'' Prisoner: ''Well, I think I can beat that little fellow on this end...''