Updates by Nancy L. Eady

One of the exciting things about a holiday weekend is snatching a couple of hours all to myself to write. Alas, this morning, as I be-bopped into my temporary office (otherwise known as the den sofa), my plans came to a screeching halt when I received the dreaded “update” message. My iPad recently updated itself, and Microsoft, not to be outdone, pushed one out at me as well. 

How software companies update my devices has changed over the years. Way back at the beginning, when computers ran off of DOS and we stored data on 5.25 - inch floppy disks, updates didn’t happen automatically. The internet did not exist. If you wanted the newest version of a program, you had to go to a store and buy it. The wisdom of the day was that you never wanted to buy a program when it was just released. You needed to wait at least six months to give the programmer a chance to discover, and fix, all the bugs in the program. Over time, the programs got bigger, which meant that the medium storing them had to hold more data. At first, the programs were on large floppy discs; then the vendors moved to smaller, plastic, solid “floppy” discs; then CDs. 

As the internet continued to grow, programs were sold online. The first Windows version sold online was Windows 8. We could still avoid updates by refusing to buy the newest program but the writing was on the wall. Even once updates and security patches started being sent over the internet, we could choose whether we wanted to update immediately or be reminded later. I guess too many of us asked to be reminded later and never got around to updating, because we no longer get to choose. 

Now, updates begin automatically when you start or turn off your computer. If it happens when I turn off my computer, and I am trying to close out a laptop to head home, I receive dire warnings inferring that I will destroy the laptop and most of the Eastern Seaboard if I dare to turn it off without letting those updates get installed. One day, though, I was trying to head home, and I did the unthinkable—turned the computer off in the middle of the update. The Eastern Seaboard and my laptop survived. Windows got a little snippy about forcing the update on me the next time I opened the laptop.

Given my personal history, I understand why software manufacturers have had to ramp up their methods of getting consumers to upgrade. Without their coercion, I would still use Windows 98 and save data on floppy discs. But I wish they’d avoid such updates on holiday weekends. 

What’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever been help up by a Windows or other update? Am I the only person who disabled the “new” Adobe Acrobat look to go back to “classic” as soon as that update finished? Mac users, does Apple manage your updates the way they do the iPads? 

 

We've Come a Long Way by Nancy L. Eady

      It has been many moons since I had a real summer vacation, the kind that starts when school gets out in May and ends when school starts again in August. (In other states, I realize those dates work as June through September, but in Alabama it's May and August.) I still remember the summer before my senior year as one of the best. I spent six weeks that long ago summer in the 1980s at an electric typewriter from 8 until 5 Monday through Friday, banging out the draft of what evolved into a weird, fractured fairy tale about three bears named Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. I know it was weird because my mother’s only comment  after reading it was, “That was different.”

          Do I still have the manuscript? Of course. I haven’t read it since that summer, but I have many forgettable manuscripts tucked away in a secret corner of my closet (in that last moving box that never quite gets unpacked when you move) because even though they’re pretty much garbage, I just don’t have the heart to part with them. The collection also includes poetry from my junior and senior high school years that I wrote during the “I walk alone” stage many teens suffer through.

          Thinking about that hidden collection reminds me how much the world around me has changed since then. That long ago summer, when I was banging away at the electric typewriter, computers were things that those of us in advanced classes learned how to program using simple DOS commands [DOS was one of the earliest programming languages] with a connection to a main frame computer at a local college. If you could write a program that would alphabetize a simple list of first names, you accomplished something!

          The idea of using a computer as an extremely intelligent typewriter was nothing more than a gleam in the eyes of a few visionaries out west and in the high-tech departments of a few universities. Electronic books such as Kindles or Nooks existed only in science fiction.  My owning a library of hundreds of books one day was unthinkable unless I intended to be a neurosurgeon, to marry extremely well or to stumble into an unexpected source of wealth. Even had I access to wealth (which I didn’t), spending such wealth was only possible if I had cash or a check from a bank account. ATMs didn’t exist, either.

          It was also a good thing my writing that summer required no research. Because the internet had yet to be imagined, let alone implemented, research meant you had to stop writing to travel to the library and hope that it had the information you sought. That is a far cry from today’s world, where I get highly irate if I can’t find the answer to almost any question I can conceive of through Google.

          Telephones remained firmly attached to walls by cords, and lucky indeed was the teenager who either had her own telephone line in her own room or a cord long enough to pull the kitchen phone into another room for a little privacy.  Except for a very privileged few individuals who had access to cable, television was limited to what was playing on the three major networks: ABC, CBS and NBC, and the public television station, PBS. Larger cities would have one or two independent stations also, but not Montgomery, Alabama.

          As people get older, they tend to wax nostalgic about “the good old days.” I miss some things from those days (i.e., the long summer vacation), but as far as my writing and research tools are concerned, I am grateful for progress.

          What is your favorite “modern” writing tool? What is your least favorite? Is there any tool you regard as a necessary evil?

Computers, Printers, and Phones (Oh, My!)

 

Computers, Printers, and Phones (Oh, My!) by Debra H. Goldstein

Today’s blog was written at the last minute. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to write it earlier. I had the best of intentions, but I ran into a combination of technological and human snafus.

 

When we moved, I didn’t hook up my standalone computer. Although the screen is a nice size, both to fit on my desk and to see, the tower is massive. For now, that computer, which is ten years old, is sitting in the corner of my office until I decide what to do with it. Not a problem, I was going to write this blog two weeks ago on my seven-year-old laptop.

 

The laptop has slowed from when I bought it, but it has been getting the job done. At least it did until two weeks ago when I thought about writing this blog. Suddenly, it began having problems being turned on. Either the connection button didn’t connect or there would be a moment of blackness before the words appeared. When it took me fifteen minutes to toggle it on before a Zoom PR call, I realized it was time to replace it.

 

I’m a writer, so it had to have memory, writing capacity, and a comfortable keyboard for typing purposes. I don’t do much in the way of gaming, graphics, or fancy stuff, so it didn’t need every bell and whistle. I’m not going to take you through my search process or how I decided it had to be curbside or mailed to me. Suffice to say, I ordered a new laptop, used not having it as an excuse for not starting to write this blog, received the computer, but failed to open the box – which was also an excuse for not writing. I finally broke down only to discover after six hours that what should have been a simple set-up wasn’t.

 

Next up was a conversation with a service rep after many minutes of being on hold. But, as you can see, we got everything resolved. It was a simple matter of having signed in with the wrong email. Six wasted hours on top of two wasted weeks.

 

My writing of late has been like the timing of this blog. Rushed or non-existent. For the past month, I’ve been doing PR for Three Treats Too Many, the third in the Sarah Blair series. The heaviest push has been during the past two weeks. Most of the time, the event was only an hour or two, with maybe another hour to prepare. But afterwards, when the adrenaline eased off, I was wiped out. My focus was gone. Things that should take ten minutes took hours because I missed something simple, like using the wrong email account for the 365 Office log-in.

 

In retrospect, I realize that for each of my books, I’ve had trouble balancing writing and PR. What about you? Does doing one or the other zap your energy or creativity? Do you look for an excuse to avoid one?  If so, I have a printer that is on its last leg, too.                                                             

I Don’t Do Windows® by Kait Carson

Back when the earth was cooling in the early 1980s, computers became “desktop,” and I learned my trade as a market consultant for an accounting firm. I learned DOS (disc operating system). It had a handy dandy little directory tree that served me well over the years both as a market consultant and as a word processor when the building boom went bust and demand existed only in the administrative support world. If you could run a MAG card, IBM Selectric, and a DOS based computer, it didn’t matter if you had three undergrad degrees and two masters. You could still earn a living. Yes, times were tough in the 1980s, but life was fun.

Enter the 1990s. Suddenly a little company named Microsoft decided it was time to take flight. They gave birth to Windows®. By now I was writing, selling, and working as a legal secretary/paralegal. I remember one of my best friends, a legal secretary of a certain age turning in her notice. When I asked her why she responded, “Honey,” (this was the south) “I don’t do Windows®.” Sage advice, even if I didn’t recognize it for 30 years. Windows®, is the curtain behind which DOS still hides but is rarely seen. Poor DOS. Not gone but forgotten.

Why this eulogy to DOS? Events of this past month saw me mourning that simple little directory tree. Suddenly, it seems, we no longer control anything. Not our apps (despite plunking down our hard-earned cash) not our data (despite spending hours polishing those sentences) not even where our stories reside. Instead it’s a Windows® kind of world without the transparency of glass.

Last month on my blog day, I disappeared. I managed to get one comment reply session and then faded from view. My computer had frozen during a Windows® update and everything disappeared. Toolbar, taskbar, tiles, start button, everything. I finally managed to catch a Chrome® icon that flashed on the screen and thus scored a single reply session. After that, all I had was the photo of the login screen and nothing more. The details are unimportant but they involved two new laptops, four trips to Best Buy for set up and data transfers, wi-fi issues and finally, the discovery that all of my existing data had been put into something called “My PC” by the Geek Squad.

Undeterred, I very carefully moved all of the “My PC” data back to my “C” drive where my data has lived since DOS days unmolested. You see, I’ve always been careful to NOT have data on the “Cloud” (or any of the multiple feel good names it is known by). Mission accomplished, data moved, happy as a clam I am, I opened Word and it can’t find a danged thing. Helpfully, I pointed it to my C drive where it opened the file as read only. No worries, I clicked save as. Up popped the box: You do not have authorization – I teach the laptop new words – it doesn’t care – I teach it new words in French – it still doesn’t care, so I move on to new words in Italian – it still doesn’t care, so I move on to new words in Spanish. Guess what – it’s multilingual. I called Best Buy – They don’t do software data issues, but the Geek took pity on me. It’s My PC in Windowsland or nothing.

My PC. Cloud access permitted. Microsoft, or Santa Claus or whomever now has access to…my computer life. It’s either that, or no computer. Ladies and gentlemen. Really?!? [1]

I’m angry. Identity theft is rampant and yet, there is no option but to put my personal accounting program in the “cloud”? Every author I speak with, myself included, has books filling pirate site shelves, and I am expected to have my drafts and finished products in the “cloud”? Some data causes no concern, but other data puts sensitive information at risk.

The choice I made is to store some data only on my external drive. Other data, data that if it is compromised will be an irritation but not a disaster is on My PC. All of this took me nearly a month of essentially no computer usage to figure out how to implement. It cost me a month of writing time, communication time. Social time.

I wish I had followed my friend 30 years ago and said, “I don’t do Windows® either!”

How do you feel about living life in the Cloud? Do you think it’s a boon or a bust?

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[1] Update – Jim Jackson, a fellow blogger on Writers Who Kill, has instructed me how to turn off the One Drive setting. Thank you, Jim, I have followed your instructions and with fingers crossed am waiting for the next update to see if it stays off—I have noticed that Windows updates will often turn unwanted settings back on, but for now, I’m breathing easier.

The Blue Screen of Death

Dear Diary,

 

It’s been a week since my computer succumbed to the “Blue Screen of Death.” It turned vivid blue, then black. The Geek Squad technician said the crash was due to a Microsoft Windows failure. (Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.)

My automatic external back-up failed me, too. Apparently my last back-up actually took place August 2011. Should I have had back-up for my back-up?

I feel bereft…and twitchy. I miss my story people. I can’t think, sleep or eat. (Well, I can always eat.)

They need to completely wipe my computer hard drive, but will be able to save my files. After the tech quoted the price—about the same as a new computer—an intense sound halfway between a roar and a wail emerged from my mouth. It shook the very foundations of Geekdom. She quickly added, “You also get one year of service protection plus a free antivirus program.”

What to do? I watched a digital clock tick down the seconds, beeping like the countdown clock on the old TV show, 24. Sweat coated my forehead. I had to make a decision—fast. I could either lose a year’s worth of writing but buy a new, faster computer OR pay the big bucks and retrieve my data.

I mulled. Perhaps the “Blue Screen of Death” was a good thing. Maybe I should start fresh with new projects using an upgraded computer. But what would happen to my unfinished stories and beloved characters? Would Chaplain Jackson Waters, be able to retrieve centuries old stolen art and avoid a bomb attack in Afghanistan without me? Could Lorene, a young girl working as a morgue hairdresser in the 1930’s, track down a killer by herself?
 

Beep, beep, beep. Start fresh or save my characters? Beep, beep. Finally, I pulled out my credit card and said, “Charge it.” (Okay, I pulled out my husband’s credit card. It was an accident. Really!)

*****
So, dear reader, would you have sacrificed a year’s worth of work and purchased a new computer or paid the price to save your story people?