Due to recent effects of the Sasser worm, many students working in campus labs lost in-progress documents when the worm spontaneously caused their computer to reboot. This is unfortunate, especially since most of the problems could have been prevented by saving work frequently.
The Office of Technology Services (OTS) offers the following file management tips to prevent future occurrences. These tips are important to follow at all times, not just during a virus outbreak.
o When working on important documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other applications, save them immediately?as soon as you type the first word. Then, and only then, get down to the business of writing, calculating or presenting.
o As you continue to work on your document, save your work frequently. Most software applications have an icon below the menu bar that lets you quickly save the document. Click it frequently. How often? Every 5-10 minutes is generally reasonable. If you type fast, maybe even more often.
o Make sure you save your work to the right location. Most campus labs prefer that you provide your own floppy disk or Zip disk. Other labs (such as Computer Science) prefer that you store your work to your Tiger account through a User Drive utility.
o Beware of floppy disks; they are notorious for wearing out. By saving your documents as soon as you start working on them, you’ll know if the diskette is faulty sooner rather than later.
o For extremely important documents, you may want to take extra precautions and e-mail a copy to yourself as an attachment-Or use the Web Files feature within WebMail.
o If for whatever reason your computer displays an error message telling you that it is about to shut down, immediately save your files. You may have only seconds to save your work.
o If you use floppies to store your work, label them with your name, telephone number or other contact information just in case it’s lost or inadvertently left in a computer. If you use a “thumb drive” consider keeping it on a ring like a luggage tag.
If you have questions, please contact the OTS Help Center, x4-5151 or {helpcenter@towson.edu}.
