Dear Internet, [LMAO Conan!]
I used to think that experience made all the difference. Well, I still do, yet when you are not using the knowledge gained by all that experience on a regular basis, you loose a bit of it, sometimes a good bit. Hey, that’s why we make notes, right?
Enter OneNote. Thanks, M$. Leave it to you to introduce one of the best things out there, only to have folks neglect it’s use when it’s really needed. Sure, I regularly manage notes on my clients, programming projects, the size of air filters I need at various locations in my home, etc. It works great, and I use it… I know where those items are stored and click right to them.
Still, I know the main reason I wanted OneNote in the first place is keeping track of strange tech related issues and their resolutions… I do sometimes record THAT stuff in there (when I make the time, usually I’m in a crunch to get something done.) Problem is, I never LOOK for it in there, because the search sucks, in that it’s not Google! Google Desktop won’t search it without a 3rd party plugin (and not well if at all.) So no point in Google Desktop either, thanks again M$ : and your desktop search… well it blows mega chunks for a multitude of reasons. Copernic? I dunno. But foo.
No matter how hard I try I always end up using the internet as the primary resource of my tech research, even for things I already [once] knew how to solve. Thanks, memory, for letting me down when I need you.
Luckily, I’ve found SOLID solutions here and there — because I wrote them at some point! I recall once a few years back researching a strange issue with Autoplay/Autorun. So I’m kickin it on the internet, looking it up, and first thing I run across is this on annoyances.org: AUTORUN does not work, special circumstances, please read! http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/n1035002575 and immediately I realize, I WROTE THIS!
WOW! So I then remember that no one could provide any good suggestions, and soon I solved the problem myself, and sometime later finally reposted my solution to help out others. Sweet, the answer is right there! And I’m sure I can follow my own instructions, so I checked on my solution. BAM! Worked great.
And as a side note to anyone looking at that post, all the others searching for the solution themselves seemed to skip over my solution — to my own problem I might add — and the few ppl that did read my solution and it didn’t work for them, well they are either not good at interpretation or they probably had a different issue to begin with; ya know how ppl look to your specific solutions to their often far different problem. People just don’t *read* or take the time to comprehend what they are skimming… kinda like some clients ask your advice but don’t listen to it… but I digress…
Then I had realized the power of actually writing something down (or uh, typing.) You are more likely to remember it — and if you don’t, the internet will do the rest! I found a post I had made (at the time) 5 or 6 years earlier, and in effect I solved my own problem TWICE.
Still, at the time I was also an extremely active participant in an MSN Group, The Computer Technical Help Forum or something similar (now defunct) which consisted of a flock of hopelessly lost sheep trying to help others; I adopted them out of pity, under the handle “Alienboy” after a Wipers song (thanks Greg Sage for your awesome early punk rock.) The advice I had to give was mostly basic stuff, tutorials, etc. But that stuff is long gone now… If I had just blogged it on my own server, maybe it would still be around (ok, not really fair, since this is my 3rd blog and I didn’t save the older ones I hosted myself) but you get the picture.
Which brings me back to the significance of the title of my post. Tonight is the 3rd time in the last 6 months I’ve referred back to my own blog (the current one you see here) for the solution to an issue. So, think I’m blogging for you? (well, maybe with this post…)
A little long winded, sure, but I’m high so I issued myself a pass this time, plus I addressed this “Dear Internet,” 😀
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