I’ve crossed a milestone that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. As of 3:00pm today, I’m officially “over the hump” on my NaNo word count at a smooth 25,021 words. This puts me ahead of schedule, and I’m still not done for today. I’m finally getting to flesh out some back story that I’ve been mulling over for since Day 1. I’m excited to get it done and complete “Part One” of the novel. It will finally let my brain focus on how this thing starts to turn and zoom toward the finish line. Yay!

This week I am re-running part of an article from September. It’s newly applicable because the software I’m discussing, OpenOffice.org, has released it’s latest version, 2.3. In it, they’ve added compatibility with documents created in Microsoft Office 2007′s newest document format, making it even more compatible with Microsoft than ever before. They’ve restructured much of the code to make things run work faster and more smoothly. Also, IBM has taken a big interest in the continued development of OpenOffice.org and has released their own version of it under the name “Lotus Symphony.” This is good news for all of us. With IBM’s research and development money and added talent pool in play, OpenOffice.org will undoubtedly benefit with newer features and tighter integration with other programs in the near future. It’s an exciting time for Open Source software!

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Update, 10:30pm: I’ll be away from the Internet for the next couple of glorious days, so this is my final word count update until Sunday night! Until further notice, I’m at 14,457.

It’s Day One of Week Two of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). So far, so good. As of this post I have written 12,922 in my NaNoWriMo novel, and I’m still slightly ahead of schedule. Tuesday was a bad day. Wednesday made up for most of it, but I cut a chunk out of my lead that I wanted to hold onto for a while.

Se la vie.

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Last week we discussed how to make a backup copy of the personal data on a Windows XP computer using “Fab’s AutoBackup.” Today, a discussion on where to store the backup and how to restore it when necessary.

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It’s day three of NaNoWriMo, and while the NaNo web site seems to have cratered under the unexpected turnout, so far, my novel has not. I can’t log into my author profile to update my official word count, but anyone who cares will be looking here anyway, so I’m happy to report that I’m currently at 6,575 words, 1,574 ahead of schedule.

Important update: I sent out an email to people on my mailing list that contained a link to the wrong author profile on NaNo. I had mistakenly created a new profile this year, thinking my old one was gone. It wasn’t, but I sent the wrong link anyway. Therefore, my correct NaNo author profile is HERE.

I’m excited to report that, I’ve got characters, a plot, some twists and a few “scenes-in-waiting” on my “Idea Pad,” so things are rocking along nicely and I haven’t become hopelessly stuck. In fact, some key plot elements that I was worried about have already started working themselves out all my themselves.

So far, so good! Thanks to everyone for the kind emails of support.

I know it’s one day before NaNo starts, but I just had to know some things: First, what am I writing about and second, can I write that much in a day?

I discovered that I’m going to be writing about a woman named Allison, but I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about. I know more about her now, but not a lot. She promised that things will get weird, though, which made me smile. I did so want a weird novel.

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Continuing with last week’s discussion about home backups, we left off talking about a free program called “Fab’s AutoBackup.” You’ll find the program to download here: http://fabs.dyndns.org/

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I’ve given myself a radical assignment with an ultimatum attached. Since this portion of the post will appear on the main page, I’ll sanitize it a bit: Poo or get off the pot.

NaNoWriMo – the yearly “contest” to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days – starts in three days. Because of the way my life is arranged at the moment, there’s no good reason why I can’t allocate the time next month to write the required 1,667 words per day, every day. So I figure, if I don’t take this perfect opportunity to crank out a novel on a 30-day deadline, I should cease pretending that I’m a writer and just stop.

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I used to have a sign in my office that read, “Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.” There are fewer more harrowing moments than the one in which you realize that, not only has your computer just become a boat anchor, but that the documents, spreadsheets, pictures, databases, music, emails, Internet Favorites and more that your computer contained might also be lost as well.

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Let’s take this week to explain a common misconception about computer hardware. It’s another one of those things that technicians and even some advertisements about computers assume that the consumer already knows, but it’s not often that anyone bothers to explain the difference.

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