Casualties of Data Loss
First of all, let me say that this marks the official end of my "How to..." naming convention. It only goes so far, and it's time to move on to just doing the normal thing instead of having a weak uneffective gimmick. Well, technically the end was a month ago or so, when I write an entry only to have the page crash and lose it all. I haven't had the patience to write again since.
Which brings me to the present. My computer crashed a week ago. It turned on, Windows booted up, I go to click on a file on my desktop, and "click, click" goes the hard drive. Something seems to have slipped inside and with every restart it did less. After 6.5 years togtether, I have to declare it dead. My computer lasted me through college and well beyond, always hanging in there through a bad floppy drive, aging software versions (eh hem, AOL 5.0), random software problems, evil programs lodged inside, but it handled things well. It taught me a lot about remedying simple problems. Moreso it guided me into the webgod I am now, and of course entertained my creative side for probably thousands of hours.
Thankfully I had started backing up my files on the other computer. Started... as in not finished. I got the really important stuff, thankfully. That's all on CD now. But now it's time to log the dead: My address book. My random "storage" folder of files without a home. My recent updates saved for the Sinfonia database. 400 or so MP3s, though only a few were truly unique and will be difficult to replace. Many PSP files, including my stored shapes. My music compositions I wrote in college.
But the biggest losses: my copies of Excel and FrontPage 2000. That's hurting me the most already. Can't re-edit the database without finding a computer that has Excel, and I'm now coding websites by hand, which isn't fun but I can do it as long as they remain simple. I'd buy a new computer just to have Excel.
The next month will be spent trying to recreate what I can so when I decide to buy that new system, I just run a couple CDs and everything's the way I had it... almost.
Which brings me to the present. My computer crashed a week ago. It turned on, Windows booted up, I go to click on a file on my desktop, and "click, click" goes the hard drive. Something seems to have slipped inside and with every restart it did less. After 6.5 years togtether, I have to declare it dead. My computer lasted me through college and well beyond, always hanging in there through a bad floppy drive, aging software versions (eh hem, AOL 5.0), random software problems, evil programs lodged inside, but it handled things well. It taught me a lot about remedying simple problems. Moreso it guided me into the webgod I am now, and of course entertained my creative side for probably thousands of hours.
Thankfully I had started backing up my files on the other computer. Started... as in not finished. I got the really important stuff, thankfully. That's all on CD now. But now it's time to log the dead: My address book. My random "storage" folder of files without a home. My recent updates saved for the Sinfonia database. 400 or so MP3s, though only a few were truly unique and will be difficult to replace. Many PSP files, including my stored shapes. My music compositions I wrote in college.
But the biggest losses: my copies of Excel and FrontPage 2000. That's hurting me the most already. Can't re-edit the database without finding a computer that has Excel, and I'm now coding websites by hand, which isn't fun but I can do it as long as they remain simple. I'd buy a new computer just to have Excel.
The next month will be spent trying to recreate what I can so when I decide to buy that new system, I just run a couple CDs and everything's the way I had it... almost.
posted by Choops | 10:44 PM
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