How Linda found her thesis

[Cowperson]

A lesson for all you students out there. . . . . and a nice story in the end.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10551825/from/RS.4/

Cowperson

[northernflame]

That's a great story.

Back in 2003 a colleague of mine was just putting the finishing touches on his Phd dissertation.

At Christmas time he & I drove back home to Calgary for the holidays. We stopped at Boston Pizza in Peace River for something to eat and, though he didn't realize it until we actually arrived in Calgary, he forgot his keys, with his jump drive (complete with the most recent copy of his dissertation!) at the table (If any of you are like me and can't stand keys or wallets in your pockets, I'm sure you can understand the desire to empty evertying out on the table, silly though it is).

We called BPs right away and the manager there sent the keys to him, Express Post, at no charge. Very nice of her! In return, he sent her flowers and wrote a nice letter to her boss.

Anyway, it wasn't quite as critical for my buddy as it seems to have been for the woman in the article as he did have older versions kicking around. However, anybody who has ever worked on a thesis, dissertation or any project of similar size can appreciate how much "fun" it would have been for him to have to re-trace his steps.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

why I save everything in five locations (PC desktop, Laptop, Thumbdrive, Outbox and Inbox of my e-mail) writing papers is about as much fun is pulling teeth, if I lose one copy (which does happen from time to time, you delete the wrong thing, make a major blunder and accidentily save it, etc) there's always others.

[habernac]

terrific story. Too many people, especially ones at work, take little or no precautions when working on important stuff. I've worked on help desks in the past, you get these panicked calls....."The power just went out and my PC turned off in the middle of writing an important document. Can you help me?"..... "Did you happen to save a copy?" .... "Uh, no...."..... "Yeah, really sorry but it's probably gone forever. We can check your temporary files, but....."

Save your work, people. In more than one area.

[SoulOfTheFlame]

One of the best stories i've read in a long time.

Great find Cow!

[Hack&Lube]

in this day and age, just gmail a copy of it to yourself and it'll be safe for decades and you can access it from anywhere.

That said, this news story made me hyperventilate because I never want to go through the agony of writing a research paper of any significant length again. It seriously causes me physical pain to the point of suicide.

[Bobblehead]

Out of curiosity, has anybody read the Terms of Service for GMail? I know Hotmail has a clause that says anything that is sent through it's system gives rights to Microsoft to use as it wishes (I'm not sure if it is still that way - this was around '99 when the stoy came out, just after MS bought Hotmail).

Years ago in highschool, I accidentally dropped an essay in the waste basket and had to redo it. (Anyone remember GEOS on the C64?)