Reports in Sigil

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by exaltedwombat

Sounds like an obsession for making proper backups would be more useful to him!

Hmmm, looks like you didn't read what I wrote - even tho' you quoted it.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

They didn't lose their creative work, that's backed up every which way...

So lessons [learnt and implemented] ...Backup everything - even the adminstrivia [every which way].

Backups are at best a curative measure, providing the restore process works. Keeping unused, possibly out of date software off a system is hopefully a preventative measure. But, of course both is best, and not clicking blithely.

BR

[exaltedwombat]

They didn't lose their creative work, that's backed up every which way, but they did lose business records, tax, grant applications etc.

So he lost stuff that could, and should have been backed up. So his picture of how his computer system should be run and maintained was seriously flawed.

Not that my tax records couldn't maybe be counted amongst my most creative work... :-)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

One of them got badly burnt by malware that used an old version of something that shall remain nameless - which they didn't use - as a vector. They didn't lose their creative work, that's backed up every which way, but they did lose business records, tax, grant applications etc. He clicked on an attachment in an email from his brother, then things started to go haywire (popups everywhere) and in trying to 'fix it' he did even more damage.

So lessons - don't blithely click on attachments, if something goes haywire then be careful if you try to fix it, you might make things worse, don't have software lying around that you don't use and/or keep up to date. Backup everything - even the adminstrivia.

Person I'm writing of suspects he lost a $20,000 grant because he lost his almost complete application; he had to redo it in a hurry. Whether that's true doesn't matter, that's his perception and hence his reality. And from thus stems his paranoia. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, means I won't have to spend 2-3 days putting humpty dumpty's computer back together again - I hope.

My personal approach would have been to start backing up more stuff. Keeping away from outdated and unused software might help, but in this case it isn't unused -- it just has features that aren't used, not sure if that really counts. And on Windows, a decent antivirus is an absolute must, and should've caught it.

I am sure an up-to-date version of calibre that doesn't get used is no more dangerous than an up-to-date version that does get used, the only difference is whether some use is gotten out of it. So according to that logic, all software is too dangerous to keep.

Whatever --if it makes him happy, that must be worth something, even if I would've thought there were better ways in practice of securing his computer for the future.

[KevinH]

Could we please move this discussion out of Sigil to someplace more relevant? Perhaps to a calibre forum since the majority of the thread seems to talk more about calibre than sigil.

Thanks,

KevinH

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Could we please move this discussion out of Sigil to someplace more relevant? Perhaps to a calibre forum since the majority of the thread seems to talk more about calibre than sigil.

Thanks,

KevinH

AFAIK it takes a Sigil moderator or a Green God to do that



BR

[exaltedwombat]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

One of them got badly burnt by malware that used an old version of something that shall remain nameless - which they didn't use - as a vector.

Would you name it please? If there's a potential threat in a particular "old version of something" we need to know about it.