Hey You! [my personal pronoun]

Tags

mainsplain, male, mansplainer, peronsal pronouns, poetry, Politically correct, pronouns, social media, white, white male, Workshop, Writing, Zoom

I attended a writing workshop yesterday. On Zoom. It was hosted by the University of Manitoba which is, according to that search engine and map, 3,178 kilometers from my home and a 33 hour drive. The proposed route leads me across Quebec from Montréal to Timmins ON, a route I would never consider driving in winter let alone summer. So make that a 40 hour drive. But I digress. I attended a pretty good workshop I probably never could have attended before the pandemic.

I’ve come to love Zoom. I am on calls every week, and it’s my only contact outside my home and Pete’s Fruitique in the City Market where buddy calls me Buddy: “Hey Buddy, is that everything?” I find myself wanting to tell him my name: “I am not your buddy.” Like a woman saying, “I’m not a deer!” And then last week a young lady was in the checkout line ahead of me and buddy said to her, “Hey Buddy, is that everything?”

Over Zoom, I’ve come virtually face-to-face with people in Ontario, Mexico, Portugal, Egypt, New York, Tennessee, North Carolina, Victoria BC, Toronto, Nairobi — I bet nobody else has had a Kenyan Cow bomb their Zoom meetings! — and now Winnipeg (and wherever these participants lived.) *One of them actually lives in my city. I didn’t know them and made friends with them on Facebook during the call. They could literally be my neighbour, met 3,178 km away.

Anyway, the Zoom writing workshop was on poetry and was led by a graduate student who I believe identifies as gay. His bio contained several LGBQ keywords, and… whatever. He seemed qualified to lead it, so I joined. Honestly, I don’t care about people’s sexual leanings. What you do is your business, and what I do is mine. It’s something we don’t need to talk about.

The session had about a dozen participants: the young, gay-identifying leader who had a trim beard, more than a single screen of participants I would describe as female, a couple of pictures with no picture at all but with female names, and me, the now senior-citizen-white-male. I like to know people. I am a people watcher. I am a people voyeur. I want to know everything about everyone. So I typed the full names (some used only their first name to keep stalkers like me off their tail) into Facebook search to see what came up. The first thing I noticed when I began reading the participants’ names were pronouns in parenthesis after their names, such as “Janet Smith (she/her).”

Cute, I thought, but why? I could find suitable pronouns to match their names/pictures, couldn’t I? I acknowledged that my visual cues might be incorrect, that one of these John-identified-females might actually identify as… whatever. Like sexual leanings, your personal sexual identification doesn’t concern me. Then, as my mind tends to do, I played out conversations that might take place where I might use these pronouns. “She said this, but I disagree.” I shook my head. These were conversations I would not undertake.

The leader gave his — his was his chosen personal pronoun, or I would have written their — housekeeping rules. Good leader! I rarely give any rules in my meetings. In fact, I tell participants in my prompt-writing there are no rules. Anyway, he said please pick your personal pronouns. I watched the remaining screen names expand to include “(she/her/they/etc.)”. I wasn’t sure what he was asking. Pick my own pronouns? The Paul Simon song, “You Can Call Me Al,” played through my head. I did not change my name.

This was a new experience for me. I assume the participants who had their pronouns already designated were familiar with this exercise. Extrapolations ran through my head. Is this some new practice being adopted in social media? I haven’t seen bracketed pronouns in any of my social media circles: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Zoom. Should I look closer? Is this a trend? If I ever get business cards printed, should I add my pronouns to my name and title? John Hanson, Writer. (Male binary he/him/his) My brief research since then indicates this is more of an academia and workplace practice. I am not involved in either.

The leader scanned his screen, probably saw that I had no personal pronouns designated, then went into a spiel about how to change your name in Zoom. And he/him looked right at me on the screen! I bet he/him thought I was the socially ignorant white senior male just getting his feet wet in social media — we will ignore the fact that I began using email around 1987, was a BBS junkie in the early nineties before finally getting on the internet in 1994, and have coded many complex websites and applications in my previous career. I sighed deeply and appended “(hey you!)” to my name. No, I don’t give a shit what you call me. I am the white, senior-citizen mansplainer stuck in his tropes. I have a dozen participants to refer to, to pick pronouns for, but I have trouble finding words to say about subject matter at the best of times. I have no time in a discussion to scan all the names to be politically correct. “I think the volta is this line, and I think… just a sec… her… no, she was wrong.” I have come to use “they” when referring to anyone: they/them/theirs. If they/them/their bothers you, I can’t wait to read your blog.

During the two hours and fifteen minutes, only one reference was made to another participant by a participant, and they used the person’s name. The leader referred to several of us but always used our names or the pronoun you. “What did you think of that?”

Nobody said, “Hey you!” to me.

The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

America the Rock, America the Island

Tags

change, economic, growth, island, rock, technology

I am unhappy with my homeland. This realization has been slow developing but it has been steady. A person wants to believe their nation is a great country. American patriotism is an ingrained propaganda based on solid values. After 55 years, much of it remains but much has been whittled away. When you live abroad, you seem to pay closer attention to home than many homelanders do, but it is tempered with a much broader, global perspective. Americans, even the broader thinkers, are myopic to the core. I moved to Canada in 1970. My father was not a draft dodger but a teacher. He had a Masters of Music from UW in Madison which he later upgraded to a PhD. He took a job at the now defunct Nova Scotia Teacher’s College, and we settled into life in this new nation. It was exciting. It was eye-opening. And it was confusing. During grade three in Lodi WI, I made a complete and accurate map of South America. To me Canada was a red blob (the province of Ontario) in the arctic with little to offer but a rustic, backward, third world lifestyle. The quick discovery that Canada was a vibrant, cool place didn’t shock me. What bothered me, and what still bothers me, is I knew almost nothing about the nation.

Many times I have wondered how any American could be unhappy with their country. Unhappiness and disagreement are common and arguably necessary. One doesn’t improve without disagreement. But I mean vitriolic hate. My adult life has all been spent abroad, and I have heard such sentiments. I have no direct quotes, but these are generally not public figures. They hate violence; they hate war; and they hate America’s invasionary habits. While I am immensely unhappy with America, I don’t hate it. I don’t hate the people, as is a common sentiment among expats happy to live abroad who share my sentiments. I have family and friends there. I still hold strong American values, strong human values of right and wrong, of freedom, of liberty and the pursuit o happiness. I still think I hold noble values, but they’ve been tempered by said perspective. My pen [this post] writes to improve.

Living abroad, by no means perfect a perfect existence, has provided a more worldly view. Canada does suffer some of the isolation America does simply from its size and ocean borders, but we’re more multicultural and we have the large French population. We are a multinational nation. And of course we have the Queen. Many are still loyal here. Involvement in World Wars is much, much higher here, absolute and percentage, and ties to Britain and Europe are much higher. Gaelic is still spoken in parts of Nova Scotia. Partridge Island at my home Saint John was Canada’s Ellis Island for almost as many Irish. We think my ancestor Peter Boylan might have come through here in 1848 before making his way to Wisconsin. The truth is, of Jay Leno’s testing of the common citizen are true, I know much more about language, religion, multiculturalism, social-capitalistic balancing, elevating community values above individual (an no, this is not a euphemism for communism), the trade-offs that rule the free world outside the U.S. But we all come from the same stock, and this does not explain America’s myopia. Why America forgets and the rest of the word remembers needs deeper study.

The U.S. is polarized along every imaginable topic: politics, religion, social safety nets, income, race, gender, and even art. Pick a topic and America is divided on it. The government is corrupt, the media is corrupt, organized religion is corrupt, law enforcement is corrupt, the military is corrupt. Pick a topic. I guarantee the country is divided on it and each side thinks the other side is corrupt. My problem is I don’t see mere disagreement. I see more than disgust; I see unadultered hate. I see a nation divided with many sharp, deep wedges. If the dialog gets any drier, what kind of spark will set it off? Militant ranchers attacking a larger government facility? The Texas State Guard taking pot shots at U.S. Marines engaged in harmless exercises? A future president taking real action to limit individual freedoms, as in free speech? A third civil war sounds far-fetched to many, but if history is a measure, America is in trouble.

Is it any wonder America is filled with radicals? America was founded by religious nut bars escaping persecution of their fanaticism, capitalists searching for power and riches, the utterly destitute, refugee after refugee, hosts of military forces, and shipload after shipload of slaves. People with limited agendas, one-dimensional communities, either by free will or by others’ choices. It became hostile to its homelands, and took to arms. It fought off its oppressor and drove out tens of thousands of its own people in what many academics call America’s first civil war. Since 1765 it has isolated itself and thrust forward towards its Manifest Destiny delusions of grandeur. The open, mineral-rich land unencumbered by modern government succumbed and fueled its exasperated growth, and the South thrived on the backs of the blacks. Its pockets swelled. Its heads swelled. Its radicalism and racism entrenched in success.

This nation emits disturbing signals. It’s the “greatest nation on earth,” number one, the leader of the free world and keeper of the peace (right). It’s the land of freedom and democracy. It’s the land of religious freedom and tolerance. The reality is strikingly different. It’s the land that 65 years ago adopted (the Christian) God as its trusted leader. It’s a land that cannot support the United Nations and most other international movements because these are New World Order. It cannot adopt the metric system. It cannot consider changes in government because their constitution is an entrenched gospel. It is a people that arguably have never been able to think critically but for handfuls of academics and social blowhards. America was founded on unfettered growth, but even as they deny the world’s resources are fixed, it continues its mission, “Grow, grow, grow!” I don’t fully agree with Premier Trudeau (yes I have the right to say this), but I do agree with his criticism of Americans: “Americans should pay more attention to the world.” My own words are a little harsher, “Stop being so bloody myopic!”

The conservative in me says the nation suffers from the same inefficiencies its own conservatives claim to disdain: it lacks competition. The U.S. has no close, competitive neighbor. Europe is too busy fighting among themselves and is separated by an ocean. China and Southeast Asia are progressing rapidly and are arguably the modern America, but an even larger ocean separates them. Japan has been contained. Korea ignored. The only true pest since Hitler has been Russia. The U.S. has a monopoly on power, and it is easy to argue America has abused its own dominance to gain further advantage. They still thrive on economic slavery: the pennies an hour labor geared to produce the dollars per hour profits. It treats its own citizens as economic slaves, sucking billions a year through them from foreign economies. American corporations are moving abroad. G.E. and Johnson controls don’t hate America, but doing business abroad is without the American ball and chain. If state-run administration is a recipe for disaster through inefficiency, according to libertarian sentiment, then the U.S. is dying in its own made bed.

What Americans do not realize is the world is not only catching up but in many ways has passed them. We are generally more educated, better trained, more global, more accepting, and more adaptable. The religiously destitute nations excepted. Few countries need America’s help anymore; nobody wants America’s help anymore. We can build our own infrastructure; our computerization and technological advances are on par or better; our education systems are better; our basic research is broader; and our arts have always been more daring and artistic. The world no longer throws spears at the American white man and no longer fears her guns; we wave her away with the back of one hand while typing code with the other.

Whether Americans believe it or not, global warming is real and serious; whether Americans believe it or not, fossil fuel supplies are limited and will run out within hundreds of years; whether Americans believe it or not, metals and minerals are limited and when the crunch comes, all technology will feel the hurt; whether Americans believe it or not, we need a healthy natural world; whether Americans believe it or not, capitalism is not a panacea (I am a fan of competition, but it makes zero sense to make health and incarceration compete); whether Americans believe it or not, drugs are not the danger, guns are; whether Americans believe it or not, human health, education, and social wellbeing are community concerns, not individual; whether Americans believe it or not, kilometers, liters, and degrees Celsius are the better measures; whether Americans believe it or not, our lives are not pre-ordained by a 2000 year old book that is in actuality nowhere near that old; whether Americans believe it or not, evolution is scientifically valid and creationism a fairytale; and whether America believes it or not, it needs the rest of the world to survive.  America needs to dump its growth fetish and adopt the mantra, “Change, change, change!” America needs to join the world community of nations as an active participant.

But a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

Anti-American … Not!

Tags

America, freedom of speech, liberty

Lately I have been writing about my situation as a dual American-Canadian citizen. I do not agree with America’s tax treatment of me and other American citizens living abroad, aka expatriates or expats. America is the only country in the world that taxes its citizens no matter where they live. It is invasive of me and the country I live in. It is anything but patriotic and profitable for America. The practice needs to be abandoned post-haste.

I have read lately where other expatriate activists are concerned about their statuses because of their negative views, that maybe they won’t be let back into America, be put on no-fly lists, given hard times at border crossings, and be subjected to over-scrupulous tax audits.

I am not worried about any of these concerns. Maybe I am an idealist, but I still see America as a great nation, the place of my birth, and my home. I write about her negative behavior because I want her to improve. All of my ranting has America’s best intentions in mind, and of course my own as well.

Should any of these fears happen to me or other expatriates, you can be sure our voices will be heard. I’ll be all over America like a Tyvek suit in an Ebola outbreak. Freedom of speech is the American value I treasure the most. We got here by open exchange of ideas. We will only improve if people like me and you speak out about what is wrong and throw our crazy, creative ideas into the ring. When America steps on my toes because of what I write, then my renunciation will be inevitable. When America stops valuing freedom of speech, she will be lost to me.

I don’t see it happening. I hope. Just remember America, I still vote.

Computer Gaming and Fiction: Civilization IV vs Skyrim vs Writing

Tags

addiction, civ, civilization IV, computer games, games, goals, skyrim, time, wast

I installed Civilization IV on Thursday night. I uninstalled it last night, Friday, just before midnight. I played two games about ten hours each.

The game is addictive.

Why is the game addictive? I suppose I could rant about its evils, but I sort of enjoyed this day away from life. We find books and stories addictive; they enable us to escape from reality. Writing can be even more addictive than reading. I good video game is not very different from a good book.

The problem with Civ.

Civ is a large game. You control the evolution of your civilization from the initial settler building a hut and his band of thugs with clubs to advanced modern structures with advanced modern weaponry. You start out at 4000 BC and finish, hopefully, in the 22nd century, literally *grin*

It is a large game with one goal: win. Winning can be one of many sets of victory conditions. Build a space shuttle and you will win. Wie out the other countries, you will win. Be the top country at the end of the game, you will win.

Big games with finite goals consume a lot of energy and time. You do not want to get up. You do not want to restart these games. You want to see it through from start to finish. They can also lose their appeal. Every game can feel much the same, and the fix for that is to get deeper into it. Spend even more time figuring out all the nuances and even competing with others.

My other game right now is Skyrim. It is a much, much bigger game than Civ. It’s an alternate reality where you run around with your weapon and armor, you rescue people, kill more, and find lots of treasures. I carry around over three million gold pieces. Figure that one out. I can’t. I also carry about 4,000 arrows, three swords, a mace, two sets of armor, a gazillion rings and necklaces, and I can’t even keep track of all my spells and powers. At level 74 I can practically beat a small dragon with my bare hands. Bandits die when they see me coming.

The difference in Skyrim is it is filled with many small objectives. At any one time I might have a dozen or more quests to fill, and if I run out, I just stop at the local bar or palace and ask for more. Or I just wander around looking for repopulated dungeons. I can even search out the undying Imperial Captains and kill them over and over with my magic and build up some experience.

I can shut it off within sometimes ten minutes of starting and not lose my day. It’s a nice break. And if I want to indulge for a day, it’s there. But it gets tiring very quickly, so I don’t. Unlike Civ which is the same thing each game, pretty much, has a single goal, and totally consumes.

I was thinking of buying Endless Space. I must be crazy.

The bottom line for me: none of these gaming experiences come close to my experiences creating characters in my stories. My current protagonist talks in the first person for almost 110,000 words. This alternate reality beats any computer game I’ve ever played. This person has brought me closer to reality, not further away from it. I carry this person around with me 24/7 — which may not be a good thing — and I don’t need a computer and fancy graphics to create the alternate reality. It’s there when I work; it’s there when I sleep; it’s there in the shower and bed. It’s not there in my computer games. Tears came to my eyes as I wrote this week. Seriously, they did. That has never happened in computer games.

My Simple Backup System

Tags

backup, novel, security, story

Data stewardship is important. There’s a saying I like to use: “There are two types of computer users: those who have lost data and those who will lose data.” I take it as a given that something bad will happen, and it has. I’ve owned home computers since 1985, a state of the art IBM AT clone with a 40MB hard drive and maybe 16k RAM. After investing hundreds if not thousands of hours into a story, the last thing I want to see on my computer is a big honkin’ error message telling my story is toast.

We need to discuss objectives first. Not every data solution fits everybody’s needs. I guess I’m a power user. I work in the business and I know how to do things your average Joe could never dream of knowing. But I’m a software guy. I’ve always left backup and recovery to the hardware guys, the server administrators.

I need access to my story wherever I am. I like to write at Starbucks, Magnolia’s Café, the city library, and if I’m on the road, a hotel. I also write in various locations around the house: my office/writing room, the living room, bedroom, or basement rec-room. I’ve even ventured out on the deck, but the light there doesn’t agree with my damaged eyes. *I’ll have to blog about diabetes proliferative retinopathy

I want easy recovery. I don’t want to have to rely on a piece of software to compress then decompress my files. If I need to recover, I want to copy the files. I have tons of backup space. My main rig has three drives. Two are two-gigabyte monsters and the other half a gig. My play box has a single 320 megabyte drive. Not sure what my netbook has. I also use my wife’s laptop. I have more than enough space to make copies, and I have enough boxes to spread the risk.

Lets look at some worst case scenarios. Say the house gets robbed and they steal one computer. My other one, hidden under the stairway, remains. I’m safe. Say the house burns down completely. Oops, there goes John’s novels. Say John’s wife once again leaves a tap running and the flood shorts out his downstairs box. We’re safe. Say a hard drive crashes completely. We’re safe. The biggest risk, from a complete loss perspective, is where all my boxes are destroyed. A house fire, a major earthquake, or maybe a hurricane or tornado are threats. Really only the house fire is, and I suppose theft is as well.

Fortunately enabling access from many points and keeping a backup copy off premise are easy objectives to fulfill. It’s called Dropbox. Dropbox is a cloud service that lets you store files, and it’s free for basic usage. I have a low 2.5 GB of free space, far more than I will ever need for my text files.

I also use another service called Evernote. It’s also a cloud service, but this one is designed to help you track notes. I’m always bookmarking websites, and this helps me organize it and store it. It actually stores copies of the webpages versus a simple link. How many times have you linked to something only to have it disappear on you? Then all your bookmarks need to be clicked on. With Evernote, I can browse all my bookmarks visually. But back to backups.

My primary workspace is Dropbox. That’s where my current files live. But of course I don’t trust Dropbox, not with my bestselling novel. For all I know, I might wake up one day to find it gone, a victim of chapter 11. *poof* No, I copy my files to my own computer drives.

I keep all my data in a folder called “_John” which lives on drive D. I back my files up with simple scripts that run an xcopy command. Here’s the simple steps to create the files:

1. Right-click on a folder, preferably the folder to file your backup scripts in, and create a new text document. Give it an appropriate name and change its file extension to .bat. Bat files will execute when double-clicked. *You can also run a bat file from anther bat file by including a single line with its path and full name.

2. Right-click the new bat file and edit it.

3. Type in the xcopy backup command and close the file.

4. Double-click the file and watch it run.

Step number three needs some elucidation. I assume you are running windows. If you are running anything else, you do not need these instructions anyway. Click the start button or windows button and in the search or run box, type “cmd” and hit enter. A black console window will open. Now type “help xcopy” in the new window and hit enter again. The resulting list shows you what all the switches do. Switches are added to the xcopy command to tell it how to perform in specific situations. I use the “/e” and “/y” switches. The first tells it to copy all subdirectories — otherwise you’ll need to run many, many commands — and the second says don’t ask if it’s okay to overwrite. I run these at night while I sleep, and I can’t sit there and say “yes” to everything. his is not a fancy command, but I don’t have fancy needs. I copy everything and let it run.

xcopy needs to use mapped files. You can’t copy server locations using UNC (universal naming convention) format such as \\servername\filename Let’s run through this process quickly. By the way, dropbox will map itself to your drive, so if you are simply copying from dropbox to disk location, no mapping is involved.

Main Writing Files: Dropbox at D:\_john\Dropbox\Dropbox *only the last folder is in the cloud. D:\_john\Dropbox is on my D drive.

All John’s Data Files: D_\john

Backup on 2nd PC”  We’ll call the pc “2nd_PC” because I don’t want to give out the names of my computers for security reasons. I mapped it to drive J and created a file on it which I shared and called _Backup_Dropbox. Here’s the quick steps.

*note that I like to start data file names with an underscore. It tells me it’s my data and not some file Windows or some stray software created.

1. Create the folder on the target computer

2. Right click the folder and share it. (You may need to enable file sharing. Google it.)

3. On the source computer, where you are copying from, you should now see the destination computer in teh network section of windows explorer. If not, fix it.

4. Browse to your shared target folder. Click on the target computer name listed under “Network” in windows explorer, and your shared folder should show up. If not, fix it. Refer to Dr. Google. Copy the address from the address bar.

5. Find your computer listing, where all your drives are displayed. Right click on the word “Computer” and click “Map Network Drive …” Select a drive letter to map to and paste the name of the folder you just copied. You do want to connect always. Click Finish.

File Location Summary

Location of Work:  D:\_john\Dropbox\Dropbox which is my dropbox cloud share.

Backup target 1 on pc_1:  D:\_john\dropbox\_backup

Backup target 2 on pc_2: j:\_Backup_Dropbox *my shared folder

Backup target 3 on pc_1: E:\_D_JOHN_BACKUP\_DROPBOX

The image shows five copy commands. The first three copy my Dropbox working files to three backup locations. The last two copy my writing folder from D to E. No, I am not yet copying this to pc_2.

So how do I execute this? There are two ways I use. Whenever I think I’ve written a significant amount of words that I don’t want to lose — it may only be a single comma 😉 — I will browse to the file and double click it.

I also schedule an execution each night via Task Scheduler. You need to be an administrator to create and execute a task, so if you are not, try to learn how to become one. You can find Task Scheduler in Control Panel->Administrative Tools. Create a task and a wizard will walk you through the steps. It’s pretty easy. Know where your bat file is so you can enter it into the schedule.

Test your work. First, double click your backup bat file. You should see a window open, and it will display all the files being copied. Resolve any errors. Create a new test file in Dropbox or wherever your main files live, and check the next day whether it got copied.

Remember, you can nest work. I also run backups for all my photos, but it takes forever to run. I only run that script once a week.

Good luck.