Computer: Crash
keystroke bot   (+3, -3)  [vote for, against]
usb robot for Excel saves

I set the "save every 5 minutes" on my Excel spread sheet, and lost about 30 minutes worth of work when it froze up.

It saves up to the minute if you do it manually, but sometimes I forget. I would like a robot that is programmable to recognize if I am running Excel that will reach in and do a quick applethingy S every five minutes. Nothing fancy, just a little thin arm on a base, with a special keyboard with keys that can be located via RFID or magnets or magic of some kind.

It would be sensitive - if you were typing, it would say, "Do you want to save?" or "move your damned hand," and then would wait until you move.
-- nomocrow, Feb 21 2008

Sigh. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMecNKP1s/
Baked [nomocrow, May 28 2021]

How's about just a USB stick that emulates a keyboard and sends the appropriate signals? That would eliminate all the pesky expensive motors and unpredictable poking.
If you have autosave set but you don't seem to be autosaving, consider that autosave in some msft products saves to a different file, which is opened by a recovery function - not your standard file-open-previous-name thing.
-- ericscottf, Feb 21 2008


So, not some strange perversion, then.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2008


(-) Unless you think of over-complicated outlandish fixes to very specific software or usability problems as a strange perversion.
(OK, I'll admit this *is* the halfbakery. I wouldn't object if it actually fixed some common problem. But just some Microsoft thing ... come on.)
-- jutta, Feb 21 2008


Give me some credit - my first idea involved a pair usb-powered drinking birds pecking the keys.
-- nomocrow, Feb 22 2008



random, halfbakery