The Save Button: Saves Your Work, Saves You Time
For all its “evil empire” trappings, Microsoft has some great programs, particularly Microsoft Office. Problem is, that autosave feature spoils me. I end up not saving regularly, confident that if and when something goes wrong, my work won’t disappear. Unfortunately, this habit carries over to other programs, with disastrous results.
I’m no programmer, but I’m sure it’s relatively easy to implement autosave when we’re talking about word-processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Not so when it involves a powerful application like photo-editing, illustration, and especially computer animation. There’s just so much data involved in creative software that most of the programs in this category just don’t bother with autosaving their documents.
And thanks to the habits taken from Microsoft Office, here’s how it goes down: I spend hours and hours creating a design. The end result is something I really like. Problem is, I take a break after this, leaving the computer unattended. And when I come back, something bad happened and I lose all my hard work in a flash.
To be fair, this doesn’t happen as much as you may think. But it’s still damn irritating to lose everything just like that. Of course, it’s easy to retrace your steps and recreate the whole thing, but it usually isn’t the same. And with the deadlines looming, I’m sometimes forced to cram and produce output that’s barely acceptable for me.
So avoid my mistake, and save. Save often! The save button is aptly named because it lets you save your progress, saving you from any screw-ups that will make your work disappear. There’s a reason why teams of programmers spent many man hours placing such a feature in the programs you use after all.
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POSTED IN: Freelance Design, Ways to Work Faster
3 opinions for The Save Button: Saves Your Work, Saves You Time
Tobsy
May 9, 2007 at 10:00 am
One time I’ve lost 12 pages of a script to a power outage. Kinda embarassing to admit. So never forget: Ctrl+S is a good friend.
Vyoma
May 9, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I cannot agree with you more on this Rico. There have been several instances when my hours of work would go down the drain due to power failure or system crash. And after that, I run around the house, screaming and wailing like a maniac - “No! No!” or more verbiage that I cannot put it down here. :P
Rico
May 9, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Tobsy: I know what you mean! Careless mistakes always make us look stupid.
Vyoma: Yes, it takes a while to sink in that cursing to the high heavens won’t bring your work back.
Even more reason to save whenever you can! :)
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