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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Um... thanks for the advice.

Every once in awhile I get a little cocky about how computer savvy I am, and the Powers that be decide I need to be slapped down a few notches... you know, taught some humility.

Nothing teaches humility like using the 'cut' or 'copy' command to place a huge chunk of richly formatted text onto your computer's clipboard in preparation for pasting it somewhere else in a few minutes... only to get momentarily distracted during the intervening few minutes and accidentally copy something else (usually something inconsequential) onto the clipboard; effectively wiping out the previously saved clipboard data. 

Yes, I know there are plenty of utilities I can buy or download for free that will allow me to save multiple items to the clipboard and have access to the clipboard history whenever I do something bone-headed like this.  But that only works if I actually buy or download one and install it on my computer.

After getting slapped down again this morning, I went and did a desperate search on the web to see if anyone had some nifty trick for gaining access to items that had been overwritten on the clipboard.

Needless to say almost all of the answers to such inquiries were of the , "No, sorry... you're out of luck.  It won't help you this time, but you should download a free utility called... ", variety.

But my favorite reply to the question went as follows:

"Oh that's simple.  Just get into your time machine and set the destination dials for right before you did the 2nd cut/copy command."

Nice to know I'm not the only giver.

Posted by David Bogner on October 5, 2010 | Permalink

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Huh. I guess you don't have a Mac, then. The time machine advice would literally be true in many cases (Time Machine being Mac OSX's incremental backup program). It has saved me many times from cases similar to what you describe.

Posted by: Russell Gold | Oct 5, 2010 11:31:47 AM

Russell Gold ... Actually we are a Mac family now. Everyone (except Yonah) has a Mac of some sort. But the boneheaded move I described in today's post actually happened yesterday on my Windows PC at work. :-(

Posted by: treppenwitz | Oct 5, 2010 12:04:27 PM

david, take the 5 minutes to sign up/ download Evernote. it is worth spending those precious minutes for your own personalized database. it is so easy and so helpful.

Posted by: ahuvah | Oct 5, 2010 3:23:03 PM

not a mac then.

i do that sort of thing daily, occupational hazard.

Posted by: sarah | Oct 5, 2010 5:41:36 PM

I love my Mac - so simple when you know where to look. This morning our 5 month old kitten jumped on my keyboard and somehow managed to turn on the voice which verbalises EVERY move you make on the computer! I found out how to turn it off quickly, just because Apple is so easy to navigate if you are techno ditsy like me.

Oh, and if you really want to annoy a Mac user, try hitting Command + F5.

Posted by: Kiwi Noa | Oct 5, 2010 8:24:30 PM

ALWAYS paste into an e-mail immediately and hit 'save'.
I write my blogposts as e-mails, and only then paste it into the blog too - if blogger goes wanky on me while I'm writing, I will not have lost anything.

Of course, if Microsoft decides to have kittens while I'm writing I'm hosed.

Posted by: At The back of the Hill | Oct 6, 2010 12:33:37 AM

Macs, toys like those just make me shake my head.

Posted by: Jack | Oct 6, 2010 9:48:11 PM

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