Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Flamin' Computers

And bloody ISPs. And come to think of it bloody email. Technology's great when it works, isn't it?? But there's very little else that can bring on that instant-rage-and-ready-to-chuck-it-through-a-window feeling quite so easily.

I've been having email issues for a while. First I blamed Thunderbird. So I got rid of it. Problems continued. Then I blamed Yahoo. They did admit some fault but even after they sorted it the problems continued. Turns out it's my ISP. The routes they use are used by spammers, hackers & sundry other undesirables so a fair few places block anything. Which means half the time I don't get mail - or mail I send doesn't arrive - and I can't view some websites without using a cloak. I'm not happy with them at all. Contract renews in February. I think I'll look elsewhere.

And then to really make my technological hell worse - My laptop died. It's been a pretty good machine and lasted well, I got it in 2003 and it was second hand then, so I can't really grumble. Though it had a minuscule hard-drive and a laughably small amount of RAM by modern standards it served me faithfully. No, what I'm annoyed about is that it's holding chapters 2 & 3 hostage!!

I'm very careful about backing files up. I either back-up to cd and/or email myself every new chapter. I have multiple cd copies of various edits and versions of everything. Except for my most recent one. I hadn't backed up parts 2 & 3. I was intending to but hadn't got 'round to it. And now I can't get them. Yet. (I've got a couple of friends who might be able to work miracles for me, so all might not be lost. After all - anybody who can speak and understand that language, you know - the one with too many consonants - especially Ws and Ls - and not nearly enough vowels - has to be capable of miracles).

So this is a timely warning to you all. Back up your important files. Every. Single. Day. Don't leave it. You never know when the fickle fates will strike. For your sanity's sake...do it.

Ze

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