MUST READ: Help for fellow "Posters" Don't lose your work!

Thought I would bring this to the forefront once again.Copy and Save!To prevent losing your well thought out 'thoughts' as you write out post's or reply's, keep in mind that the 'idle' time that the site dosen't see any activity (believed to be 20 to 30 minutes)and will log you off and you will lose your writing if you have not submitted it before the "clock runs out" so to speak. What I have been doing as a precaution is to save the text I write, BEFORE I preview it, or submit it.Depending on what you are using, (Windows?) I highlight it, or use "select all" (right click)and copy and paste it to Notepad. That way if I have been logged off I can go back to Notepad, pull up the file and paste it back in again. Sometimes I will do this when I am writing something and I feel that maybe I am drifting off topic or I am unsure if I am making any sense, or I am tired. I will save it as "ramblings" or whatever,and then I can come back to it the next day with a fresh perspective.Also, if for instance you are sure of what you wrote and are ready to submit/preview it, you don't even have to "save it" to a file. You can just highlight all the text,(right click, click "Select All") right click again, select"copy", and it will be "held". If you find that you have been logged off, log back on, go back to your reply, right click, select "paste" and all your text will be there.It is surprising how fast 20 minutes can go by, so I have just made it a habit to always copy and "hold" just to be on the safe side....on the other hand there is probably a few reply's I wish I would have lost to cyberspace, before they got on to the forum ..........!:-D Hope that helps.(Edited 9/1/03)

What I have been doing as a precaution is to save the text I write, BEFORE I preview it, or submit it.Depending on what you are using, (Windows?) I highlight it, or use "select all" (right click)and copy and paste it to Notepad. That way if I have been logged off I can go back to Notepad, pull up the file and paste it back in again.I have designated a spare key on my keyboard (eg the calculator key on mine) to fire up Notepad (or Wordpad), it makes multiple quotes from an earlier posting easier too. I copy/paste as Mike suggests but if it is something I want to keep I can just quickly save it.

I lost my text last night (wasn't really long, but it just took a long time for me to write every detail.)

Thing is, Firefox is supposed to save the data or something... but for some reason SI doesn't "allow" this? I know on other forums I've been to, if I do the same, Firefox will save the text and I'll still have it in case of an accidental click or whatever.

Jordan

Thanks Mike!

After losing posts several times during my first couple of years on SermonIndex, I learned to copy the text (and sometimes, to paste it is Microsoft Word for correction). It was heartbreaking to pray, research, and write such posts only to have them disappear in cyberspace.

An added bonus is that I can spend time praying whether or not I want to post something that I wrote earlier. I often write my post in Microsoft Word, and then let it sit for a while. Upon reading it again, I would decide whether or not it was worthy of posting. I cannot tell you how many times that I have written a post (including long posts) that I later decided NOT to publish. I have a SermonIndex folder on my computer filled with unpublished posts!

I have sometimes decided against posting due to the problems or arguments that it could cause. At other times, I simply thought that my opinion on a subject didn't really matter. Of course, I would typically pray about whether or not I should or should not publish my post. Sadly, I still post things that I later regret. However, I have decided that my delayed post system works a little better than rushing into a conversation with objectable words.

Regardless, it was worth "holding my words" for a while if there was any doubt to what the result of such a post would be. So for me, MS Word really helps!

:-)