Your family is ready for dinner as you race to finish a blog entry, typing like mad as the thoughts flow into a witty conclusion to several hours of writing and research. The wrong combination of keys sends your browser back to the "Write an entry" page, you click the Stop button but it's too late. A deep breath. The Forward button reveals nothing but a blank white text box. You want to scream but instead you take it out on the roast beef and mashed potatoes. Burdened with rewriting an entire article and absolutely unmotivated to do so, you slink back to the computer, take a breath, and start again.

Writing for the web can give you a surprise at any turn, hours of effort can be lost in an instant. However, in just a few moments you can make your computer temporarily remember everything that you have type in web forms. Although you won't need it 99% of the time, tomorrow's pre-dinner writing time will be completely stress-free.

Avoiding the surprise of losing a blog entry, article, survey answers, or anything that you type into web forms is easy and only takes a few moments to set up. When your computer becomes your companion, remembering what you've typed just in case you need it, you can relax and use the web with confidence.

The data recovery software discussed in this article is called Lazarus, a free extension for the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser. If you have not heard of Mozilla Firefox, you are probably using Internet Explorer now. Hopefully this article will give you some inspiration to try a new web browser.

Go to the Lazarus download page and then follow the instructions in the slideshow below to install it on your computer. If you want more information first, please continue reading this article.

The Lazarus text recovery browser extension maintains a database of the text that you type in web forms, the options that you select from dropdowns, and your choices for checkboxes and other web form elements. It then allows you to restore any field, or even the entire form, to a previous state.

The next time your web browser loses all the information you just typed into a form, you can simply go back to the empty form, right-click somewhere on the form, and Lazarus will give you the option to restore everything! It even works with revisions, so if you submit a change to your article but accidentally deleted a portion, you can restore the older version, copy the missing section, and add it to the new revision.

With the exception of passwords, Lazarus will store confidential information and that information could be accessed by other people who use your computer. If this is not concerning to you, perhaps it should be.

Fortunately, Lazarus offers a variety of security features which will allow you to keep the information that you type online to remain secure.

Expiration of saved data

Since the restore feature is meant to only be used immediately after you realize that form data was lost, the information is automatically removed after 24 hours. In the instructions below, you will see an option to extend or contract this time period. If many people use your computer it may be best to reduce the time period to 1 hour.

You can also manually delete the information stored by Lazarus, either by deleting the entire database, or by deleting select entries. For more information, view the Lazarus Database slideshow.

Security of database storage

The information that you type into forms is stored in a database on your computer, but it is not stored as-is in plain text. It is modified first into an encrypted form that cannot be read by a human unless it is properly decrypted. This provides a level of security that will prevent the Lazarus database from showing up in text searches on your computer.

Require a password for data retrieval

The simplest way to ensure that other users of your computer do not restore forms that may be considered confidential is to require a password for retrieving data. Your password is not needed to save form information, so the holder of the password will be able to view form history from all computer users (unless they have separate user accounts on the computer).

The following screenshots will guide you through the simple password protection process.

Choosing whether to store passwords

Lazarus allows the option to save passwords as well, though by default it will not save any data from password fields due to obvious security risks. If you choose to allow Lazarus to save passwords, the passwords will be available in plain text for anyone who is able to view your Lazarus data.

A safer way to save passwords is by using the save password feature which is integrated into Firefox. Follow the instructions in the slideshow below to learn how to use the Firefox Save Password feature.

If you decide to use Lazarus, be aware of the following limitations which might affect you or others who use your computer.

• Lazarus supports only one password; if there are multiple users, all of their information will be visible to the password holder (unless they use separate user accounts on the computer).
• Lazarus runs unobtrusively which makes it easy to forget about and cumbersome to clear the stored data.
• Lazarus will not restore data that you lost before installing it. Unfortunately if you are reading this article because you just lost a blog entry, Lazarus will not help you today though it may save you tomorrow!
• Lazarus will only store data submitted in forms within Firefox and will not restore some heavily customized forms, such as those on Adobe Flash based web sites.
  

Occasionally, Lazarus is unable to restore text for particular forms. If this happens to you, just follow a few simple steps to see all of the stored Lazarus data, then copy and paste the text back into the form.

The most common technique to avoid losing a blog entry, forum post, or other online text is to write the text in word processing software, such as Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word is a good choice because it will also automatically save your document in case the computer shuts down unexpectedly.

However, Microsoft Word will apply subtle edits to your text, such as converting straight quotes "like this" to curly quotes “like this.” This can introduce compatibility issues when the text is pasted into web forms since these special characters require special handling which could cause all of the curly quotes in your article to appear as "You Won’t Believe It!" with confusing garbage characters.

This can greatly affect the readability of your article and should be considered before pasting text from a word processor. On HubPages, while your articles will look correct to on-site readers, your RSS feeds will include the strange garbage characters!

Some people choose to use a plain text editor instead since it will not change what you type, but text editors generally do not include spell checking and auto-saving. Fortunately, you can also learn how to turn off the autocorrection features in Microsoft Word to avoid these problems.