Part two of vacation consisted of performing a computer lobotomy on my desktop, wine and keeping Eli occupied.
For the few years I've been whining about all of the time I've lost with needing to reboot because some thing happened whether that be identifiable or not. I've also spend a lot of time just waiting for things to open or for my cache memory to clear so I could do my work.
Another issue was that when firefox has a few tabs open for a while it hogs memory and my computer would hardly move. Yes I can hear you saying, well just close the tabs. Well when you work with multiple people throughout the day, and multitask between calls closing every thing is a real pain in the butt - so I'm not sure which slowed me down more, waiting or opening and closing every thing multiple times.
To combat this I've paid to have others wipe my hard drive off twice at the recommendation of those who know more, upgraded my memory, and religiously run programs for spy-ware, disk defrag, etc. But alas I still spent a lot of time waiting and literally could grab a coffee, pee, open mail, etc as I impatiently waited. I figured it was time to send this baby to it's computer graveyard and get a new one.
Then my visiting computer geek brother suggested I wipe of my hard drive (isn't three times suppose to be lucky?) including the operating system (since I somehow had two) which hadn't been done. His diagnosis was that I had a few bugs that wouldn't go away unless I did this procedure and that I had plenty of speed and memory, but it just wasn't accessible at this time.
So I decided to ship my desktop via UPS to Syracuse, New York and spend a bit of time reloading programs and getting organized. I talked about it in this blog post earlier in the month.
The computer lobotomy and then finally a new 200 gig hard drive went well in-between sending Eli to play with his cousin, conversations with my computer geek brother and multiple glasses of wine. I even spent time re-organizing a gazillion files including outlook and general folders so that when I got back to Seattle I could simply focus and enjoy my spare time. Then I headed off to part 3 of my vacation - a road trip to New Jersey.
The day before leaving I decided to turn my computer on and oh my God, OK, let me say that again, oh my God, all it would do is cycle between starting up and and starting up, but never fully starting up. I got it into safe mode saw that all my hard work was still there and screamed for my brother. He kept muttering things that are better left off the blog and said, well you've been f....by the blue screen of death. Of course by this time we couldn't even access the safe mode.
We backed up what we could (which I found out wasn't much at about 11 pm) once we had once again loaded some of the general files. At 1 am I said, well, we got done what we could, I want to get a few hours sleep before I get up at 4 AM (WA-AAA WA AA) and leave at 4:30 AM (WA-AA WA AA some more) and head back to Seattle. When the alarm sounded I dragged Eli, 3 bags and my computer in the lovely box that UPS had provided and we all headed to the airport.
I was grateful for curb check because I really couldn't figure out how I was going to get to check in while carrying Eli because his 4 year old walking legs were not working.
That evening I took a screw driver and physically took out the wireless card for the desktop...this driver some how created a bunch of incompatibility issues that wouldn't resolve (according to the messages we received from Microsoft) plus I have an Ethernet cable to hook it up directly. I loaded POP settings so I could get my email from my various accounts, re-downloaded the 1000+ messages, noticed I was missing 1.5 weeks worth of mail...gone to email heaven. Downloaded drivers for my printer and scanner (which keeps doing weird things...even though I un-installed and re-installed it).
I then tried to load my client software program and cracked the disc getting it out of the case - arghh....well actually I said more than that! I'm know running a trial version and am waiting to figure out what's next. The company was sold and they developed a new program so this one isn't supported. Great. By the way the new Client Compass is $349, I don't qualify for the upgrade as I am one version behind. And since I only use a portion of the program I don't see the value in the cost. At least I have 173 more days to decide.
It's been a slow process of moving through the 3 versions of my computer....the old C drive which is now the D drive, the new C drive, and the last version that crashed which is on a separate hard drive named E. Unfortunately I continue to toggle as I was deleting some things office D as I transfered them to what is now E - so these two drives didn't mirror each other. The search feature has been very helpful. I also think if I drank more wine it would almost be amusing.
I've learned a lot in the process and hope to forget most of it in the next year...cause who really needs that all that technical knowledge and to locate every registration key, disc, user id and password anyway?
Next year I vow, no computers on vacation - nada, zilch!
I'm also grateful for some of the programs I use that helped me access information in-between things not working so well.
1. Plaxo - if you work from home, have a calendar you follow, need to access names, addresses, task lists etc...this is great. You can use any computer any where or your mobile phone. Plus it allows you to sync your address book, calendar and tasks between computers! Admitting I keep quite a few passwords and registration information for miscellaneous Internet stuff It made my life bearable during all of the chaos.
2. Online File Folder - I got this through Go Daddy. It allows you to back up (and sync) files. You can also access your information any where. Although we have a separate hard drive which I back up information to...all the craziness I just went though clarified that having your files in one more place is a good thing. If I would have lost all of my business stuff or my cherished photos that would have been a personal disaster. It's reasonable priced.
Until next time,
Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep: A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order
Comments