windows live writer sucks. or, fail early, fail often.
April 19, 2008
This was not supposed to be my latest post. I’ve been using Windows Live Writer with good success, and my latest post was based on a previous post, why 6 weeks.
So today, Windows Live Writer – combined with my efforts, of course (PEBKAC) – ate my why 6 weeks post, sort of, and…
Of course, I can’t link to why 6 weeks because it got mangled… further proof that Microsoft is evil?
You could poke around here to see what I wanted to write if you like, but I expect I’ll get things fixed up within a day or so.
In the mean time, beware Windows Live Writer and using old posts as the basis of new posts. I’ll post a diagnosis at some point to follow up this post!
Something tells me I’ll be doing everything via WordPress for a while…
Technology, the cause of, and solution to, most of life’s problems (just ask Monika). Fail early, fail often.
Have a great day folks!
(Update: everything seems to be fixed up now, thanks to backups… back to your regularly scheduled programming! Thanks for your understanding, my friends.)
–
Postmortem:
The following is a brief description of what transpired:
1. I wanted to write a new post based on one I had already written and published, as much of the text would be similar and could be modified.
2. I opened up the old post in WLW, and it retrieved the published version from my blog.
3. I gave it a new title, and modified the text.
4. Next I chose to save a draft to my blog – note, this is a feature of WLW that I really like – so good job on this one to the designers.
5. I went to the WordPress control panel to edit the (assumed) draft post, to put in my picture and thumbnail.
6. At that point, I noticed that the text of the old post had been replaced by the text from the new post, which I had assumed was in draft.
7. I went back to WLW later in the day, and used it to replace the original text into the old post from a backup.
8. I then made a completely new post via WLW as intended.
So, upon consideration, I realize that WLW was not to blame here. It was my fault for not understanding the interaction between WLW and WordPress (and the database that keeps the posts).
Now that I know how this all works, I won’t make the same mistake again.
Fail early, fail often. Fall down seven times, get up eight times.
Boo Microsoft (says the woman from her Windows machine…
) I’m sorry that your post got eaten, though.
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
Vi has never eaten any of my posts
Tony Lawrence’s last blog post..A thousand meanings never meant by Anthony Lawrence
@ RLD: well, my own fault for not understanding the nuances of the program… and working far, far too early in the day… I will fix! Thankfully I have a backup…
@ Tony: I was actually going to put something in the post about how *nix tools don’t do that to me… you beat me to it
And that’s why I’ll be coming back to the fold soon.
@Tony Hooray vi! Though I’m still an emacs junkie, vi has its place.
@Brett Just realized I hadn’t sub’d and quickly remedied that this morning! Looking forward to reading the lost post.
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
@ Nicole,
I’m still laughing at what Tony said, serves me right… vi, emacs – either would have done a better job…
I’m looking forward to actually posting the lost post – I think everyone will enjoy it, and of course I’ll have to modify it based on what happened today
Thanks for making me laugh, guys & gal.
@nicole
It’s OK that you are an emacs junkie. I forgive you. No doubt you cut your teeth with the luxury of fast processors and lots of ram.. I, alas, came from a more impoverished environment where emacs would have brought everything to a grinding halt – hence I learned the way of the “eye”.
@brett
Seriously: I do it all in vi. Plain text files and then a Perl script that converts those into marked up, properly formatted, ready to run pages – 7,814 of ‘em as of today and 21 “in the bank” ready to run when their turn comes..
Tony Lawrence’s last blog post..A thousand meanings never meant by Anthony Lawrence
@ Tony,
I believe it. I like vi a lot, actually – it just works. Now that I’ve got the blog running, and a few other things sorted out, I’ll be doing things a bit differently. WLW doesn’t play nicely with my blog theme… and then after today (argh!) I could kill it
Hey Brett
I tried to install Windows Live Writer last week, and suffice to say I have “issues” with it.
I would say that Windows is the software of the Anti-Christ…but I save that category for our Oracle-based stuff at work.
Friar’s last blog post..Water Color #8: Dempster Highway
Friar,
Well, I can now tell you one thing *not* to do if you keep using WLW… I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll keep using it, but at least now I know what I did incorrectly and I can fix it (I think)
Yeah, Windows is nothing next to iTime and iProcurement…
[...] I hope that you enjoyed this post today, it almost didn’t make it up here fail early, fail often. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
Hello,
I was just wondering if you could explain in some more detail about what you were doing and how Windows Live Writer failed. Please feel free to email me at bturner*at*microsoft*dot*com or leave it in the comments and I will check back later.
Hello Brandon,
Looks like my blog post title got your attention! It was sort of intended to be humorous and as I had mentioned a bit later in the post, partly my fault.
I’ll email you directly as that will be a bit easier communication-wise.
Thanks for taking the time to comment here today – I did, in fact, use WLW for my latest blog post once I figured out what I had done.
-Brett
I’d love to say it sucks, but I’ve used it for many months now and never had one issue with LW. I agree though, Windows is evil and if I knew how to get other stuff instead, I would.
Apple here I come, just not right now. Sorry to hear your post got eaten. It does suck when things go wrong but they do make us stronger I guess. Thanks for the link Brett, I appreciate it.
Monika Mundell’s last blog post..A Few Hickups
Hi Monika,
Well, with a little bit of work (and a backup) I was able to fix things. I even used WLW to fix it, just to prove to myself that it was mostly my fault
as always. Once I have my Apple, I may still use WLW via virtualization if I don’t find something that works better for me…
As you say, we always learn from things like this, so it is okay. I couldn’t resist linking to you, as at that moment (in a smaller way) I felt your pain.
Postmortem posted to keep anyone else from doing what I did
I have only tried using WLW once or twice long time back. I primarily use Zoho Writer which is online and offers a lot of features. The only problem is that it doesn’t allow to post as draft to WP. But otherwise its pretty good.
Abhijeet from Jeet Blog’s last blog post..Useful Methods To Achieve Distraction Free Blogging
Abhijeet,
I’ve been meaning to check out Zoho Writer for some time to see what it can offer vs. Google Docs and so forth. Perhaps you’ve done a post on it at your blog?
It might be nice to use an online program for this, in case I’m not at my computer here. But I suppose I could just use WP for this too.
Thanks for stopping in today!