cell phones or similar devices cause file corruptions-loss text docs

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Guest

I am doing a second thesis and prepare word docs on PCs designated for word processing at my township library. Library patrons who leave cell phones on or use themat the word processing systems next to or near me seem to cause my word files to corrupt. I do have backups (several) however when I'm in the master I have lost up to 20 mins or 1/2 hr of work. I am a fast keyboardist and 20mins of work is sometimes 15 pgs of new work and the progressive corruption of existing text. I have lost as much as 197 pgs of thesis work or 639K as much as an entire 1M disk can hold. This has happened numerous times in the last six months
I didn't think it would be so problematic to take advantage of the the library automated reference services and word processing resource at the same time?? Frustration is an understatement here


Your technical reply will assist me and the librarians to further justify the "no cell phones in the library" at or or near the word processing systems for the more serious library patrons or automated users. Thank
 
Not very technical, but I have never experienced it and never heard of it
before.

However, I would support an "All cell phones must be switched off" policy in
a library.

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Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
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Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 
Sasha,

Much as I'd like to ban cell phones from libraries, restaurants,
concerts, and other public places, I don't believe you can blame your
data loss on them.

The first problem with your argument is that computer hardware is, for
the most part, too massive to be affected by the small amounts of
radio frequency energy emitted by cell phones. It would take much
higher energy densities to cause write errors in a computer storage
subsystem.

The second problem is that your post contains two terms that are often
implicated in document corruption and data loss (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm): master documents
are notorious for data loss, and editing Word documents on floppy
disks is a major cause of corruption.

I understand that when you work on a library system you may not have
any choice about working on a floppy disk -- although if possible you
really should copy the document to the hard drive, work on it there,
and then copy it back to the floppy for transport. Working on a master
document on a floppy, though, is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Besides the article cited above, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/RecoverMasterDocs.htm.
 
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