Okay, right now I am a raging inferno of anger. Techno-anger, because my computer thinks it's smarter than me and should decide what's best.I leave my computer on all the time. It takes forever to boot up, I can leave open websites that I'm using to research articles, it's just more convenient. When I haven't turned it off in a couple weeks or if I need to reboot for updates to happen, I am happy to do so.
I am not, however, happy to have my computer decide to reboot for me.
Yesterday, I was nearly finished with a 700-word article. It was so painful to write, my fingers were practically dripping blood by the end. I was about 50 words away from finishing and decided to call it quits, so I could finish it up quickly in the morning and have a good start to a day of writing many more boring, painful articles.
When I got to my computer this morning, it informed me with a chirpy message that Windows downloaded an update and needed to restart. So apparently it restarted without my permission. All of the programs I was leaving open because they were trials (Photoshop, Illustrator) are gone. Okay, yes, I deserved that.
BUT, all the websites I had found for references for my articles are gone. AND when I opened my Word doc, any versions of the painful article that had been autosaved or I had saved myself were gone. Completely gone! I checked where I usually save articles. I checked the temp file. I checked the tilda versions of the file. All old and pre-bloody finger work. Everything I'd worked on during the evening when I could have been having quality chill time on the couch with Keith was gone.
So who's in charge here? Because I used to think that the computer was a useful tool that I commanded with my superior brain to do my bidding. But if the computer is taking decisions like when to reboot into its own black plastic and microprocessing hands, where does that leave me? A computer shouldn't decide to reboot without at least mentioning it to me first.
Maybe if the computer would write the damn articles itself, I could handle its suddenly self-assertive nature much better. Maybe I'll write that suggestion into notepad, take the day off, and see what happens ...
2 comments:
Here, have a margarita. Or two.
I lost a beautifully-written paper that just seemed to flow from my fingertips once in college, all because of an ill-timed power outage. Still got an A on the paper, but the one I turned in just wasn't as good.
As a computer guy, I will give you my advice.
1. If you are disciplined enough to check for windows updates yourself on a regular basis (once per week is plenty) and if your computer is connected to a cable/dsl router and not connected directly to the cable or dsl modem, Andy recommends disabling auto updates. This is a two step process. First, disable the automatic updates in the control panel. Second, disable the annoying balloons that remind you to use automatic updates.
2. If you prefer to use automatic updates and you are using XP Pro, you can command your computer to never restart. This is a feature of what is known as the "group policy" of the computer. If you need to know how to do this, I'll write a how-to.
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