The Myth of No Return--or you really can still use your notes if you go back

[srd]

Microsoft, imho, was wrong to encourage beta testers to abandon ON 2003.
Why? While the logic is arguably correct, a premise is false. Has no one
checked? It is no doubt true that no one wasted his time developing a
backwards translator allowing ON 2003 to read 2007 files. The proper
response: who cares? Converting file formats is NOT the exclusive way to
get access to data. There's also, among methods untried--has anyone
guessed--cut and paste.

Yes, you can copy pages from ON 2003 to ON 2007. You do it page by page,
so get a clip manager. O

Once you reach an equilibrium, you can move files between the two
programs, without losing anything. Get frustrated with 2007, don't beat
your head against the wall. Revert, wait for a new version of wds ro use
ON 2007 for some things, and trad e files. Whatever. Anything is better
than being stuck, without options, as I have heard some describe their
plight.

If you trashed your 2003 notebooks, it doesn't matter that you have no
backup.

(As they say, mileage may vary. I do not warrant that all information will
be preserved between the translations.)

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha srd,

Sure, if you're desperate enough to go back to 2003 there are ways to do
it. Of course, nobody is foolish enough to use beta software in their production
environment anyhow are they? So it's all test data in 2007 anyhow right?
Their production machines are all still 2003 -- like Microsoft strongly
recommends.

Right?

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[srd]

Of course, nobody is foolish enough to use beta software in their
production environment anyhow are they?

With an adequate incremental backup (in my case, at least daily disk
imaging with Acronis TrueImage and redundant superfast file backup with
RelativeRev Backup every 2 hours), I really don't see why not. That is to
say, yes, I am foolish enough to do this, now that I know that notes I
take in ON 2007 are easily transported to ON 2003. What more security do I
need besides knowing I can always get lost notes back (backup); and I can
always read them them (copy from ON 2003 and paste into ON 2007).

At the moment, WDS 3 beta is malfunctioning again on my system. I take
notes in 2003 and immediately convey them to ON 2007. This is more
efficient than taking them in ON 2003, if only because 2007 allows
applying highlighting from the keyboard.

Stephen R. Diamond

 

[srd]

Of course, nobody is foolish enough to use beta software in their
production environment anyhow are they?

It's a question of your level of confidence in ON 2007, isn't it? It could
be said that your comment bespeaks a paucity of such confidence. Legally
necessary cya disclaimers by MS notwithstanding (disclaimers _you_ have no
need to re-issue) -- either you think ON 2007 is too unstable to merit
business usage, OR you think the improvements too slight to warrant the
(any?) compromises on security and stability. A balancing test! Applying
the same test, one presumes, you hold against ON 2007 for business and I
hold for it.

And where is it written that aesthetics can play no role in business
decisions?

Stephen R. Diamond

PS On MS's real intentions--Posit a customer who has not used ON 2003,
trials 2007. Customer decides he needs this application. Customer wants it
NOW. What will customer do? Buy 2003 and then pay another $100 per user
for 2007 when it comes out? Or will he use 2007 for business purposes, if
for no other reason than to save 50% of the price he would otherwise pay.
Incentives speak louder than words.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha srd,

It's a question of your level of confidence in ON 2007, isn't it? It
could be said that your comment bespeaks a paucity of such
confidence.

No, it's a question of best practices. Beta software is inherently buggy
and unstable and subject to change. By definition. You don't trust production
systems to beta software unless you are prepared to lose any data you put
into it.

It's got nothing to do with confidence - it has to do with what beta software
is and where it is and is not appropriate to deploy. If you deploy it outside
of your test bed then you're taking chances.

(disclaimers _you_ have no need to re-issue) -- either you think ON
2007 is too unstable to merit business usage, OR you think the
improvements too slight to warrant the (any?) compromises on security
and stability.

No, I think beta software is not appropriate for production environments
unless you're willing to lose the data.

PS On MS's real intentions--Posit a customer who has not used ON 2003,
trials 2007. Customer decides he needs this application. Customer
wants it NOW. What will customer do? Buy 2003 and then pay another
$100 per user for 2007 when it comes out? Or will he use 2007 for
business purposes, if for no other reason than to save 50% of the
price he would otherwise pay. Incentives speak louder than words.

Then you're positing a customer who is running a risk of losing their data.
If their data isn't worth more than $50 then maybe that doesn't matter.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Ben M. Schorr - MVP shared these words of wisdom:

Then you're positing a customer who is running a risk of losing
their data. If their data isn't worth more than $50 then maybe
that doesn't matter.

LOL

Well roared Lion!

Rainald

 

[srdiamond]

:

Then you're positing a customer who is running a risk of losing their data.

The protection against data loss is incremental backup. If you backup
adequately, you can use the most unreliable programs without fear.

If their data isn't worth more than $50 then maybe that doesn't matter.

Wrong arithmetic. The proper comparision is $50 (actually $100, ON's
price--where did you get $50?) divided by the additional probability of data
loss. So if the probability of losing data using ON 2003 is .001 and the
probability of losing data using 2007 is .01, the user would be justified in
declining to pay the extra $50 if his data is worth less than $50/.01 -
treating the 2003 probability as 0 for computational simplicity-- =$5,000.

We don't know what these values are, but you see, whether you use the
software *does* depend completely on your confidence in its reliability (with
value of data fixed) once you get over your black and white thinking and
conceptualize the problem in terms of probabilities.

Stephen R. Diamond

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha srdiamond,

The protection against data loss is incremental backup. If you backup
adequately, you can use the most unreliable programs without fear.

Well, I'm sorry Stephen, but if I gave my clients that advice I'd be sued
for malpractice.

Wrong arithmetic. The proper comparision is $50 (actually $100, ON's
price--where did you get $50?)

Make it $1000 if you like. My clients' production data is worth quite a
bit more than that and they are not going to risk it on beta software, certainly
not to save a few piddly bucks they might have to spend on upgrading.

We don't know what these values are, but you see, whether you use the
software *does* depend completely on your confidence in its
reliability (with value of data fixed) once you get over your black
and white thinking and conceptualize the problem in terms of
probabilities.

Whatever, Stephen. I've been an IT professional long enough to remember
the days before Al Gore invented the Internet. You can multiply your expected
return on data by the drag coefficient of an unladen African swallow if you
want to. In the field of professional information systems we do not use
beta software on production data unless we are willing to lose it.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[srd]

Whatever, Stephen. I've been an IT professional long enough to remember
the days before Al Gore invented the Internet. You can multiply your
expected return on data by the drag coefficient of an unladen African
swallow if you want to. In the field of professional information
systems we do not use beta software on production data unless we are
willing to lose it.

I'm sure you're correct, but that wasn't what we were discussing. The
question "What should an IT Professional advise his clients to do?" is not
equivalent to "What should a user do?" This holds true even if the user in
question was your client, but holds true more blatantly when the user is
an undesignated person in this forum.

Well, I'm sorry Stephen, but if I gave my clients that advice I'd be
sued for malpractice.

No, you couldn't possibly be sued for malpractice merely for giving that
advice. Perhaps you would be sued for malpractice, if they *took* your
advise AND then in consequence actually lost their data. But then, they
wouldn't lose their data if they took this advice, would they? Still, you
could be sued for malpractice, if they failed to take your advice, if the
advice was too hard to follow, and you should have known it. Perhaps this
is the case for incremental backup combined with reckless abandon in using
untested programs. A screw-up in performing the incremental backup might
be too likely. This is perhaps the main reason why you could be right
about the advice you give (not being an IT professional, I defer to you on
this), yet be wrong about best practices. The best advice does not
necessarily demand the best practice; it is rather the best practice that
the professional knows the client is able to execute.

Stephen R. Diamond

 

[EMRhelp.org]

Why Relative Rev Backup™ ? Better than the rest ?

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha srd,

I'm sure you're correct,

Good, then we have something in common.

The question "What should an IT Professional advise his clients to do?" is
not equivalent to "What should a user do?"

Yes, actually it is. As an IT professional I would never advise a client
to do something they shouldn't. That's part of being a professional. My
clients pay me to tell them what they should and should not do with their
technology and they trust that I'm not going to tell them to do something
that might, say, lose their data.

No, you couldn't possibly be sued for malpractice merely for giving
that advice.

I'm so glad you're not my attorney.

Perhaps you would be sued for malpractice, if they
*took* your advise AND then in consequence actually lost their data.

I see, so it's only wrong to give bad advice if they take that advice and
subsequently suffer the consequences from it?

My sister's a doctor -- I guess she could tell people to poke themselves
in the eye with a dirty stick and that would be o.k. as long as they didn't
actually do it.

Don't trust production data/environments to beta software unless you are
prepared to lose it and/or have downtime.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.ht

 

[srd]

Why Relative Rev Backupâ„¢ ? Better than the rest ?

From www.datamills.com:

"Unlike other incremental backup solutions, Relative Rev Backup's
technology does not need lengthy and space consuming full backup sessions.
That way even weekly or monthly sessions back up only the changes since
the previous session.

"At the same time Relative Rev Backup instantly recovers any file or
folder from any retained version, without having to slowly recover the
full backup first, followed by every incremental backup taken since."

I don't think competing products (i.e. file-based backup utilities) have
the described incremental capability. Being able to go back months is
crucial to full data security, imo, because you will not necessarily
discover the loss, corruption, or other recoverable problems immediately.

Stephen R. Diamond