TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Re: Saving data to hard drive vs posting it to network
Subject:Re: Saving data to hard drive vs posting it to network From:Gregory P Sweet <gps03 -at- health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us> To:'techwrl' <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 6 Jun 2011 11:44:22 -0400
>
> For those of you who store your work on a network rather than on
> your local machine, do you actually work on the network, or do you
> just move your stuff up there later?
>
> My work desktop was upgraded last week from Windows XP to Windows 7.
> So far, so good. My information was copied to a network share. I'm
> trying to work from the network rather than from my hard drive. My
> logic is that the network is more stable than my hard drive.
>
> The applications, however, want to default to saving my data to the
> hard drive. Overriding these defaults is taking some time. Also,
> it's just easier to save my latest work to my hard drive. Then I
> have to play catch-up later, and save my stuff on the network.
>
> How do you all handle this?
>
> Craig
>
For you sir, let me spin my tale of woe and network infrastructure.
Many applications will not mind one wit where you save your files whether
it be on your PC or somewhere in the cloud, but should you find yourself
dealing with multimedia files, such as the aforementioned Camtasia,
Captivate or Wink â run from the network server as fast as you possibly
can. For starters you will see performance hits and delays in your work,
but even worse there are applications that cannot use their own files if
they are ever moved from one directory to another, or your-choice-of-deity
forbid, to a network drive. Captivate in particular had this peculiarity
that moving a project file from one directory to another corrupted the file
beyond repair. This may have been fixed, I would not know having been
burned once long ago, I have adopted practices to prevent this form ever
happening again. OK so I have been burned more recently but this time it
wasn't my fault!
Another reason to loathe the network drive is that you do not control it.
And yes the fine network folk will talk of the automated and nightly back
up as a panacea to solve all lost and corrupted file problems. And promise
seamless transition from one PC to another as everything is perfectly
recorded on the network. In practice though those nice network folk need
day-to-day activities and as such engage in a never-ending litany of
network modifications, upgrades, and various other "improvements", like
mapping your My Documents folder to the network drive without notice. Or
cutting the development group off from the documents/training group, by
assigning each group to a different server and providing no cross access â
again without notice â and incidentally wiping out five years of Captivate
project files. OK so I have been burned more recently but this time it
wasn't my fault!
Work locally, upload important stuff to the network for back-up. Do your
best to convince the fine network folk you know the difference between the
two and when to use each one.
-Greg
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or sensitive information which is, or may be, legally privileged or otherwise protected by law from further disclosure. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, please do not distribute, copy or use it or any attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
