More about saving work!

To follow up on The Unfortunate Story of the Student Whose Paper Vanished in Cyberspace-- this happens too often! However, there is more than one way and one place to save documents whether working at Delta, from home, or on Wifi at the local coffee shop.

In Delta labs, of course, you cannot save permanently to the hard drive because everything vanishes when you log off (or if the power blinks). If you just save to the computer when you are working, the material goes automatically to the My Documents folder on the hard drive; that can be a little tedious to search for. Here's my best advice for when you don't have your flash drive with you, and even for when you do. Smart people save a backup copy!

1. Save the document to the Desktop when you first create it, before you've even typed more than your name and the date. Then you just have to hit the Save icon at the top of the page every paragraph or so. The document is also easier to find on the desktop.
2. When you have a complete document, there are three ways to save it for later access when you don't have a flash drive. You can
3. E-mail it to yourself as an attachment.
4. One of your classes must have you using a Desire2Learn site.  If you go into D2L, you will see a link at the top called "My Locker." It's just that-- online storage for your stuff!  Click on the link and follow the simple steps to upload your document to the locker, where it will be accessible to you from your home computer.
5. Have you checked out your "My Portal" Delta site?  It's a link at the top of almost all Delta website pages.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of your Portal page, and there's a My Documents tab. Again, follow the easy steps to upload your material, and there it is for access other times and other places.

If you are writing something lengthy, it's probably wise to save your stuff to your e-mail, D2L, or MyPortal before it's done, just in case of electronic disaster. If the power goes out or software crashes, you have at least a partial draft saved.

Posted by E. Dewey