Hiding from us, no doubt. 
Not really. I was off WS for two or three weeks to, among other reasons, wrap up my latest book. I wanted it out by the Halloween and I had missed my original release dates of October 1st and October 11th, so I was determined to release it on the 21st. So I spent a whole lotta time on it to proofread and edit it. Mind you, I had done that prior to sending it to my beta reader, but found stuff I'd missed. I ran it through spellcheck and made those corrections. Sometimes, there are words that are not spelled wrong but spellcheck thinks they are, so I spent some time uncorrecting words in some cases only to go back and correct them again. Also, there are words that are both hyphenated and not and spellcheck likes one but not the other, and checking online came up with different results so, in the end, on some words, I picked a source I trusted and made sure all usages of the compound words were consistent (hyphen or not) throughout the book.
Finally got it all ready to go and had it formatted and then, the evening of the 20th, while doing a final check, discovered I had used a name that's in use elsewhere. Maybe it wouldn't have been a problem, but I wasn't going to take any chances. So, come morning, I changed the name to be on the safe side. Finished formatting it, again, and uploaded to Amazon . . . wherein it got stuck. Rather than pending, or whatever, it was stuck in not finalized or something mode wherein it said I hadn't completed all the steps but also wouldn't let me do anything with it. After a couple hours, it hadn't changed so I thought, heck, I'm sending a support request. I had already tried clearing my browser cache and even using a different browser to no avail.
The next day, I get a message (canned) saying how sorry they are that I am having problems accessing their website and that I should clear my browser's cache and all that. Oy.
Meanwhile, however, the book had gone live so I guess it was stuck in manual review.
Once live, I started running AMS ads for it, hoping to get some sales on this one.
So far, zippo, which is a bit of a bummer but, on the other hand, at this point I am used to my books not selling.
Anyways, last week or so, I came upon an eBay listing for a Newton keyboard. I should mention first that I have an Apple Newton MessagePad that I am quite fond of. I'd long wanted a keyboard, not that I cannot use the onscreen keyboard but just that it'd be nice to type sometimes. Mind you, I have an eMate 300 that does have a keyboard, but I haven't done the hinge repair on it so I try not to use it until I get brave enough to try to do the fix. Anyway, so on Monday, the keyboard arrives and, excited to try it out, I get my Newton out and give it a whirl.
Keyboard doesn't work. Seller said it was tested and it worked. Is that true? I dunno. Meanwhile, I discover that all the data from my Newton is gone which is a major bummer. At that point, I wasn't concerned with the keyboard anymore. It gave me a warning that I needed to replace the battery or all data would be lost but I am pretty sure all data had been lost prior to that point.
You see, unbeknownst to me, or if it had been beknownst to me I had long since forgotten, the memory relies on power from the batteries. There are the main batteries it runs on (four AAAs) and a backup battery (a 2032). I had removed the AAA batteries a year or so ago after leakages had caused some minor damage to the inside.
I should explain that the Newton has a power issue that needs to be repaired. Also requires a bit of bravery because the instructions come with warnings your Newton may not survive the attempt. So, I haven't used it much because the batteries die out quickly or I forget about them and they leak. So, I took them out to prevent further damage from leaking.
That was a stupid move. Good for preventing physical damage--bad for maintaining the data.
The backup battery, being the sole battery in there, died, resulting in data loss.
Now, had I known or remembered it required power to maintain the memory, I would have kept batteries in it.
Anyway, so all the data is gone. And it hasn't been backed up in 24 years. I have a partial excuse in that the computer that it connects to with its special connector died five years ago. But, I could have taken photographs or whatever but nope. I didn't. Stupid me.
One note on there had some sentimental value. I was initially optimistic that this note had been preserved in the last backup, but, nope, the last backup was performed
two days before that note was written. On the plus side, four years ago, I did have the presence of mind to copy the contents of that note to a file on my iPad and I have a copy of that on my computer. So I still have the content of the note and I can probably later recreate a reasonable facsimile of it on my Newton if I want to maintain a copy on there. Won't be quite the same but better than nothing.
And I cannot seem to find a number of the applications that are on the Newton. Most are still there but at least one is gone. Hopefully, I installed it prior to the last backup because I cannot find the original install files anywhere. The only thing I can think of is that they might have been on a Zip disk that went bad before I could copy its contents to other media because I have two dead Zip disks from that time period that are bad. There used to be a site online that archived Newton programs, but it crashed a year and a half ago and is still offline. So, hopefully, those programs are on the backup I do have.
The worst part is not knowing what was lost. I don't think there was anything critical on there and I'd like to hope that anything important had been copied elsewhere, but I can't remember for certain. On the one hand, I didn't use it that often. I'd pull it out now and then and put fresh batteries in a use it for a week before the batteries ran down and then I remembered why I didn't use it that often. And, also, a lot of times I just played a couple games that are on it, so hopefully, I haven't lost anything important.
Its greatest value was the time machine aspect in that I could start it up and see what things I had done way back when. I have made a file and written down things I think might have been on there but I don't remember how long it's been since I last used it so I can't remember what all might have been on there. And it's the not knowing that's the difficult part. If I could see what was there, I might be like, oh, okay, I got all the important stuff. But, not being able to see what's there and not remembering what's there, it's like, am I missing anything important?
I mean, my phone and iPad are far more capable than the Newton and I use the iPad almost daily but the Newton's been there for years and not knowing what things I might have recorded on there is a bummer. I keep thinking of trying to build some kind of external power pack so it can run longer but who knows if I'll ever get to that. I guess it's that the Newton is old and past its prime so maybe that's why I like it so. I guess it's just like me in that now neither one of us can remember our adventures together.
Anyway, so that's been a bummer. I'm awaiting a new 2032 and some rechargeable AAA batteries from Amazon. After that, I'll see if I can figure out if I have a computer I can use to restore it from the 24 year old backup.
I've still been writing daily, trying to finish the space opera. I'm not going to go back and post all the past totals, but I'll post the end of the month total after tomorrow and maybe start up with daily reports in November.
