At 05:56 PM 1/18/06 -0500, David W. Fenton wrote: >I have all the benefits of Dennis's methods with ZERO EXTRA >KEYSTROKES. >I use an undelete program that runs in the background, and protects >all deleted files on my computer from overwrite until a certain >amount of space has been used up on each drive volumne. [...] >The result is that I have 3 complete runs of all versions of my file, >the Autosave version, the backup version and the main MUS file >version. If the one for the time that I'm trying to roll back to >lacks information, it is likely in one of the other two versions.
David's point is a very good one, and certainly addresses the overwrite bug as described. He's especially correct in that a computer should do your manual labor for you. My answer was probably tangential because I compose music, write articles, and design graphics directly at the computer. For someone whose chief work is editing and presentation (engraving, layout, etc.), David's methods are likely satisfactory as protection against computer/program failures. For me -- and I'm not the only one, as I have heard tales of woe from others whose retrospective wishes were for more than just that very last draft -- the incremental filename system keeps a complete record of progress, including material that I might want to recover later for other uses, or bits I felt were stupid a few days ago and just discovered were actually better than my Scotch-besotted late-night groggy mind believed at the time. My method is a stupidity-protection system, too. For example, right now I'm finishing a 4-part series on RFID predictions for 2006 (for RFID Update [rfidupdate.com], in case you want to check my bio there for a chuckle about my non-musical hat). An ordinary MSWord document began the process -- various bits of research typed or pasted into it. These were formulated into questions. The questions became interviews. The interviews were transcribed and the questions deleted. The transcriptions were mined for juicy quotes and the rest deleted. The quotes were paired with more research. The questions & quotes & research became topics. The topics became sections. The sections became articles and subheads. The articles ran through drafts, and unused content was moved or deleted. The articles were mercilessly chopped and chopped again. The final articles were each copied from the main document into a single document and emailed to the editor. At every point in this process, I was working on but a single document. The document contained the same root name, with incremental numbering and sometimes a descriptive progress point as part of the name. I could compare and cross-copy parts of previous drafts. There was no loss of information or break in thought. The whole 4,000-word series was begun and will be completed within a two-week deadline (today), and (should I need to defend a point with the publisher or a vendor) the logic of how I progressed from evidence to a conclusion is preserved. The same goes for how I compose into Finale (mind you, only about half of my work is composed that way from start to finish). Whole sections that I've deleted might later turn into something useful (as happend with an organ piece "Yer Attention, Please" that I finished on January 1), and the process of composition is also there to be seen. As one who's often asked how I work, I know I can't answer that question coherently from memory. Too much is going on, too much blur, too much coffee, too many trips to the refrigerator or outside to the barn or, in summer, to the swimming hole. But if it's important to answer, I can drag out my hundreds of saves and discover what the heck I was actually doing, and exactly when. My 3-piano piece "Syrens of the Collective Unconscious," for example, has 202 incrementally changing scores from first measures to final draft. When a project is done, its one directory is copied over to a backup drive and to CDs or DVDs and stored away. After enough time has passed (usually a year for articles), the local copies are deleted. Dennis -- My latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/365-2007.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
