Thank you for the reply. Great blog, btw. We've all been bitten by the
"wished I would have backed up" bug.
A few questions (I'm a NOOB with ON, so please forgive me ahead of time if I
ask something that's obvious - you know how it goes, people invent something
and the users end up devising a million ways to use in unanticipated ways):
1. Just relating to your emergency tactics - ON notebooks have to be open
for the notebooks to be in the cache (if your original drive where your core
ON files dies)? I keep multiple notebooks, not all of which are open at the
same time. I may not have the Personal Notebook open at work, for example.
2. Again on your tactics for drive failure - When you say you are "saving
the cache", are you talking about the physical cache in the Office folder
(default location) or are you talking about saving it from the open notebook.
I went down to the default cache location and while there is a notebook open,
there is no visible file there. I checked to see if I have all hidden files
showing and I do.
3. Backing up using OneNote - get all the notebooks open that you want to
back up, sync, then backup. What does backing up using OneNote get me over a
simple copy of the Thumbdrive? Does it make sure to gather up all the
attached files on that computer?
4. Backing up the thumbdrive - so I make sure to sync the files each time
and back those files up on a different drive or using
home.live.com, my thumb
drive subsequently dies and I copy those files down to a new thumbdrive and
off I go. Right?
This is just a general question or a sense of wonderment at ON, I attach a
file at work, come home, click on the attached file and it opens. The way it
does this is somehow effortless and some of these are REALLY BIG files. Where
in the world does it save the attached files? Along with syncing, this
continues to amaze me because using ON is just simple and flexible once you
have a few of the basics down. I know there are limits and the more I use ON
I'll run into them, but a lot of times I'll just do what is logical and it
just works. The complex parts are behind the curtain. Please protect the
simplicity of this product!
Thanks again.
;-)
--
Dennis James
"John Guin [msft]" wrote:
> Hello.
>
> 1. If the drive dies, you still have your notebook in the cache of all your
> machines. You can save it from there (as either .ONE or .ONEPKG files) and
> restore whereever you want. Since you have multiple machines, you have (in
> effect) multiple backups already. I had a similar eventhappen to me and I
> wrote about it at
>
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnguin/archive/2008/03/07/still-living-in-the-onenote-cache...
>
>
>
> 2. I've never worried about the folder structure once I choose a location
> for a notebook. You mentioned attached (embedded) files in OneNote pages -
> they are typically stored in a drive on the local machine. For instance, my
> embedded files are at
> C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\12.0\OneNoteOfflineCache_Files
> (on my vista machine). This is in addition to the .ONE file. And OneNote is
> pretty resilient with moving folders around. Just right click on them after
> moving and select "Open as Notebook in OneNote" if you feel the need to
> restructure the files in the file system, but it's probably not worth the
> effort.
>
> 3. My notebook on the flash device is about 250MB. The device is a 4GB
> device, of which 2GB is devoted to ReadyBoost. So far, no problems. I have
> a separate notebook on a USB device in which I took nothing but ink notes,
> and it capped out at 150MB.
>
> --
> I hope some of this helps,
> John Guin
> OneNote Test Team
>
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnguin
>
>
> "dvjames" wrote:
>
>> Typically I would have one discussion for each question, but these questions
>> are all connected to using ON on disconnected computers. So up front, sorry
>> for the 3 questions here.
>>
>> I keep my OneNote notebooks on a thumbdrive as the different computers I use
>> are not always able to connect. This works fine as ON keep track of changes
>> for me. However, I have several questions:
>>
>> 1. What happens is the thumbdrive fails? I know that I have copies of the
>> notebooks on each device and I am continuously syncing (thank you ON
>> developers). But what happens if the thumb drive fails? Having backed up on
>> each computer, restore backup files on one computer to a new thumbdrive then
>> resync the other computers? Will ON sync properly?
>>
>> 2. What folder stucture would you use for the documents from several
>> disconnected computers you insert into ON? I understand that you can keep any
>> documents attached from wherever they are on any computer that is synced, but
>> some kind of structure makes sense. I don't keep every document in ON, but I
>> am keeping more and more in it (it is addictive). Like any database, once you
>> create a folder structure and attach docs, you can't change it so getting the
>> folder structure right up front is important (please don't give me the
>> Apple-side of folder structure, I already know what an Apple can do and Apple
>> doesn't have OneNote).
>>
>> Do you keep the attached documents in each notebook folder (which could end
>> up putting a staggering number of files in one folder and make it hard to
>> find the .one file) or do you keep a separate folder for the notebooks and
>> documents?
>>
>> Each computer I use now has an important unique set of documents (word,
>> photoshop, etal). My toplevel structure is _OneNote (for notebooks) and
>> _OneNote Documents (for attached documents) in the My Documents folder. I
>> then have the OneNote Documents folder dividied into the kinds of notebooks I
>> keep (like Internal Projects, External Projects, Partners, etc.). I may have
>> a third level of folders under Partner such as the name of the partner.
>>
>> 3. When is the Thumbdrive going to be too small? The total so far is about
>> 7MB, but I'm sure that someone has multiple GB in ON. Anyone else use ON like
>> this?
>>
>> Just a statement: ON is a totally new kind of program in it's ability to
>> sync like this. There is something weirdly freeing and uncomplicated about
>> not having to worry about where your data is and what is happening to it -
>> you can have it with you (or not), you can update anytime you want no matter
>> how you are connected, and you can use any form of input you want (keyboard,
>> pen, or record) - right now I'm using a Motion Tablet. I've been using
>> computers for a long time and I don't remember any software product with
>> these abilities. I am still trying to get used to that fact. While I'm sure
>> there's errors and whatnot, it seems to do it seamlessly up to this point
>> 100%%.
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> --
>> Dennis James
