I have a good excuse for not being online lately. Over a week ago I was sitting here working with six or seven programs open. John was wanting to replace a GFI outlet in the bathroom so he walked right by me and went out and flipped the main power off. :-( Fried my computer. He spent the next few days dinkin' around here and there trying to fix it, finally accepted the "Revert it back to the way it originally was" offer, and there went every program I'd ever bought and loaded. I couldn't edit photos, print anything. argh. Finally upon my subtle suggestions he packed it up and took it to the repair geeks. While waiting for Photoshop and Publisher to arrive from ebay sellers I can't help but wonder if I'd be alive to share the story if the roles had been reversed. Anyway, it just really sucks when you've gotten so used to something being a certain way, and then it's just gone. Oh well--could've been worse, right?
Here's a pic I snapped today. I cropped and resized it at picnick.com. Pretty handy online program!
These went with Caleb to school today. I think Guittard's make THE best chocolate chips for melting and candy making EVER. This green was quite a yummy mint flavor. And we always use the white chips at Christmas. Bonus: they're super cheap at the grocery store. And BIG THANKS to Jenny of Allsorts/Owlsorts who so kindly shared the little circles that we used to tie off the tops.
I'll try and hobble through another post tomorrow.
jen
John's very lucky you're not the murderous type Jen, I'm not sure how gracious I'd be at that point ...
Posted by: Sue McGettigan | November 03, 2009 at 06:54 AM
Gaaaaaaahhhhhhhh computer crash! Hate it!
I have done the nuke the computer thing too many times in my life--not because the computer actually fried, but because I wanted a "clean start" and every time it was a hundred times more trouble than I expected.
I have decided I'm beyond fresh starts now, and I want everything left the hell alone!
Posted by: Kathi D | November 01, 2009 at 11:32 PM
*shudder* Now that's a scary story worthy of Halloween. Love how you used the little circle things!
Posted by: jenny b harris | October 31, 2009 at 03:15 PM
Its so bad when your computer dies... I just got a brand new one and its just not the same to get around.
Posted by: deb | October 31, 2009 at 02:47 PM
I don't know what I'd do if something happened to MacOatmeal (yes, my computer has a name). I feel for you!!!!!!!!!!
Your little treats are adorable! And I love how you used Jenny's darling circles - GREAT IDEA!
Posted by: happy zombie | October 31, 2009 at 11:28 AM
This is the nightmare I dread!! I currently have no backup (eek!) and have been considering Carbonite or McAfee's new backup service.
A question for your brother. Wouldn't one service do the job? Why would one need or choose multiple layers of backup? Thanks so much for any further clarification!
Posted by: Jan | October 31, 2009 at 09:43 AM
Jen those are sooo cute. Love it. The pretzels are alot of fun to make. I made tons of them about a year ago. Maybe more this Christmas. :-) Love the tags.
Posted by: Sharon | October 31, 2009 at 08:37 AM
You are a fancy smancy treat sender! lol. I just stuffed plastic bags with cheese balls and mike and ikes. lol. cute pretzels!
Posted by: Michelle Infantino | October 31, 2009 at 05:58 AM
I will assume that you had your computer running on a surge protector and that something beyond that fouled your computer?
Two (perhaps three) things then...
Go get a 2tb "My Book Studio Edition II" (Western Digital) or similar. This is an external storage option that has two physical 1tb (1000gb) hard drives in it that plugs to your computer via USB or FireWire, etc. The key here if you decide to not get this specific drive is that it has RAID 0/1 options. By putting the drive in RAID 0 you simply merge the two physical disks into one 2tb drive which means you write one operation to two physical spindles which makes the operation go much quicker (some times by as much as double the speed). But by putting it into RAID 1 configuration you get a mirror of your data. The drive becomes 1tb in size...but if one craps out the data will be on the other drive. You snap in a new drive and you are back up and running with no data loss. Both drives going out at the same time is VERY RARE. Also they come with automatic back up software.
Second - check out the services offered at carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/). It is an online backup service that constantly copies all of your really important data to the internet. You can image your entire machine if you like and save that image to the online backup (check out acronis for creating images: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/). Then when the shit hits the fan you don't lose a thing!
If you get this far (you actually implement step one AND two) then there is an additional feature that will really help you totally miss any down time. Check out the virtual PC concept. Many people offer this (with VMWare being one of the better options: https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=vsphere&lp=1). What it allows you to do is run your computer virtually from an "image" with in your base computer. The image is like a separate computer inside your computer. You boot your regular computer. Then you boot the VPC, and have all your applications running inside of it, etc. The key here is that you have a 100% self contained computer inside that virtual environment. This VPC can be backed up to your mirrored external drive on a nightly basis. And it can then also be backed up to your carbonite account (similar to taking an acronis snap shot but you can actually run from it too). This means if your computer gets messed up you can literally go buy a new computer, install the VPC software (vmware), copy your VPC to your new computer, and then you are back to work. The key here is that in addition to not losing any data you also have minimal down time and you don't have to reinstall all your favorite apps which for me takes days!
Just suggestions from your little brother! :P
Posted by: Andrew Siemer | October 30, 2009 at 08:27 PM
Just went through the same thing...our hard drive crashed a week ago...bought a new one...but just like you spent hours and hours reloading programs. You don't realize how much you love your computer till it's gone for a few days!
Posted by: Sherri | October 30, 2009 at 07:23 PM