Behind the scenes: The newsletter

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COMMENTARY By Will Fastie When I took this job, I was surprised at the number of moving parts involved in publishing the newsletter. My predecessor, e
[See the full post at: Behind the scenes: The newsletter]

14 users thanked author for this post.

mledman, LH, MHCLV941, Mr. Wizard, SueW, Norio, genej101, Redcoat, DLivesInTexas, John18, Bluetrix, geekdom, Alex5723, abbodi86

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Hi Will,

 

Thank you for the “peek behind the curtain” of what it takes to produce this newsletter.

I’m a long time subscriber and really appreciate the information that has been provided over the many years.  For the past 25 years I’ve operated solo, as an IT consultant for small businesses. I rely on this venue to keep me informed on what is happening in the world of computers and security.

Blessings,

Mike

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Will Fastie

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Happy Holidays Will,

I read your article and it raised a question that maybe you can address in a future article.

I try and do safe computing.  (Don’t click on unknown links, have and use firewalls & antivirus, use a password manager and use unique passwords, etc.)  In other words I am paranoid regarding computer safety.  It is from the paranoia that I have never used OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.  I have image backups at home, have offline image backups and do have some files that get saved on online at iDrive.

The question that the article raised is should I use OneDrive, Google Drive or any other product, or should I just stay in Paranoia Land since I have made it this far not trusting Microsoft, Google, etc., anymore than I need to.

Thanks

John

 

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Will Fastie

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John18 wrote:

… should I just stay in Paranoia Land … ?

That’s a great question. I’m inclined to repeat the old saw, “If ain’t broke, …”

I was with you for many years although I was heavily invested in Microsoft’s online offerings (especially email). The proverbial straw was making the decision connect my PC to my already extant Microsoft account, something I had resisted for a long time. That decision was tough, but I’ve lived to tell the tale and my opinion is that benefits have accrued.

So here’s my answer. If your PC’s login is already connected to your Microsoft account, then you’ve already made the leap to trust Microsoft. Beyond that, it’s simply a matter of deciding if you trust specific services, such as OneDrive. For the most part, I do. AskWoody is dependent upon OneDrive, with which we’ve had no problems. Two years of trouble-free service tend to up one’s level of trust.

I could suggest that you consider which services you trust the most. That’s not paranoid enough. The double-negative might be better – which services do you not trust the least?

Either way, your paranoia (let’s call it common sense) has served you well and I’m sure you’ll be equally careful should you decide to expand your online horizons.

That said, I don’t trust Google one whit. Were I not a Web developer, my only connection to Google would be YouTube.

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Mr. Wizard, John18

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Thanks for the response.

My computer power up login is not associated with my Microsoft account due to said “common sense”, so I will stay the course.

Thanks for the response.

John

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I was just wondering if you had ever considered Sublime Text for your HTML needs? It’s a very good program I use myself and have for several years. Great edition today. Thank you.

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Will Fastie

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genej101 wrote:

I was just wondering if you had ever considered Sublime Text for your HTML needs?

Unless I’m missing something, Sublime does not have WYSIWYG editing. It has the “Reload” extension that allows changes in the text to be displayed in a browser, but not the ability to write and edit as if one was using Word. If I’m wrong about that, I’d like to know.

genej101 wrote:

Great edition today.

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

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As I asked Susan: Do you sleep?  If so, when?

Aside from that, would you consider an article on how you use OneDrive in the newsletter?   Or did you already write one that I missed?

What prompts the question is that I recently found that there is no way to merge each user’s 1 TB of OneDrive space into one large storage space.  Since Microsoft 365 is supposed to be all about collaboration, having stovepiped storage makes no sense, but yet that’s what it seems to be.

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MHCLV941 wrote:

Do you sleep?  If so, when?

Every night, usually well since I improved the workflow to avoid staying up late on Sunday nights. Someone asked me the same question in an email, to which I replied that Susan’s the Energizer bunny in this picture.

MHCLV941 wrote:

What prompts the question is that I recently found that there is no way to merge each user’s 1 TB of OneDrive space into one large storage space.

That’s correct. We have a lot of coverage of OneDrive in the archives (use the Newsletter search field in the site’s sidebar to look for “onedrive”). We also published this article by Peter Deegan about syncing to multiple OneDrive accounts.

MHCLV941 wrote:

Would you consider an article on how you use OneDrive in the newsletter?

We use it to house all the files and documents connected with the business and publishing the newsletter. That includes the OneNote files. In practice, it’s not much different than having an on-premises file server.

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Thanks very much for sharing your kind efforts to keep we “Windows users” up to date.  This Bonus Issue is very informative regarding your individual, and collective efforts to produce “Ask Woody”

Respectfully,Robert Thorne

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Hi Will,

Loved your (and Susan’s) articles, but don’t know how either of you manage to do all you do … and keep it all organized! Impressive and very much appreciated by your readers.

Thanks for taking us behind the scenes.

Linda

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Will Fastie

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IreneLinda wrote:

… and keep it all organized!

Well, um, yes, come to think of it, we are always and ever perfectly organized, with nary a hint of a mistake peeking through.

Now, about that swampland …

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With regards to the statement, “I turned to a dead Microsoft product, Expression Web 4 (EW4, the successor to FrontPage). Discontinued since 2012 and turned into a free download at that time, it turns out to be almost perfect for our purposes. The article you are reading was authored not using Word, but EW4.

There are some drawbacks to EW4. It knows very little about HTML 5 and CSS 3, which somewhat constrains its use. It is fine with XHTML, despite that being somewhat retro...”…

I continue to use Eudora for email (last version 2006) and Eudora doesn’t understand modern HTML  (it uses an old IE engine).  So with your “older” HTML I get very nice, very understandable messages that tell me what I want to know.  You don’t need to use fancy HTML5 and all that stuff for me!

With many other messages I have to view them in a browser window – functional but a pain in the bu**.  I’m happy with functional old formatting.

Thanks  Richard

 

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Will Fastie

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Richard Merchant wrote:

You don’t need to use fancy HTML5 and all that stuff for me!

We’d very much like to use some fancier features of HTML in emails, just to make things easier on us. But the rendering engines in email clients are extremely retro.

So we’re stuck, and you’re in luck!

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I seldom comment in this forum. In fact I don’t think I have ever. But your latest newsletter, Issue 19.48, is a masterpiece and deserves serious praise for taking us behind the scenes. And I can only add my sincere thanks and praise to that recorded above for all the excellent hard work and effort Susan and Will both put in. Well done!

Please keep it up and long may it last. Definitely well worth subscribing!!

Robb

RobB

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Will Fastie

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And, to add to Richard Merchant’s comments about Eudora, In my opinion it was by far the best email program I have ever used. Certainly the best settings layout and user interface.

But killed by corporate greed and the failure to move forward, so I can’t use it anymore. Too far behind.

RobB

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Robb wrote:

Eudora

Everybody I know who ever used Eudora says the same thing.

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