Remember that time a few weeks ago when I said I'd keep blogging because I wasn't burnt out or anything like that after the A to Z challenge?
Yeah. I didn't lie, but all of a sudden I became slightly more computerless than I was before. You know back when I had a computer to use and all.
Long story short, I finally got around to installing the new cd/dvd drive my sister got me for Christmas (yes, it took me nearly five months to do it. I'm lazy, remember?) and wouldn't you know it, that even though it only took me about ten minutes to install, I apparently screwed up something somewhere, because the second I turned it on, I got the blue screen of death.
Twice.
So off to the Computer ER I rushed with my ancient tower. And, well...I confiscated my daughter's laptop in the meantime, but I'm taking this time to go a little unplugged. It's nice. And some projects around the house are actually getting done. Amazing what one can accomplish without the Internet to entertain me!
Hopefully, the computer techs will be able to fix whatever I screwed up and I'll be up and running again sometime next week. Until then, My Friends, I'll be putzing around the house and garden - have I mentioned my garden yet? No? Well, just wait!
Cheers!
UPDATE:
Seriously, folks, I got my computer back and they techs were all like..."Um it's $40 bucks and we couldn't find anything wrong anywhere. We had it running all day. No blue screen. No weird noises. Nothing."
Okey Dokey.
So , YAY! Computer! Although they did mention that it was a rather old computer. Old? It's barely five...but I guess in computer years that's about 4,724 years old. Guess that will need to get budgeted in sooner or later.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Where the day leads...
I spent the day home with a sick Ashleigh. I had grand plans…laundry, dishes, vacuuming. But in the grand scheme of things, I ended up spending most of the day working on lesson plans and researching Twilight Zone episodes for my Drama unit. Interestingly, that led me to research gremlins which led me to reflect upon modern technology, specifically when modern technology fails, which in turn got me thinking about how we would deal with a sudden absence of all technology.
All those people running around without their cell phones and their apps; mobile blogging and twittering. How would be people who are used to being in contact 24/7 handle the void? Obviously there have been stories about this before. I think I’d like to try my hand at it too. I’ve always had a fondness for end-of-the-world stories and one without technology is one that interests me greatly.
I’d like to imagine that I’d be a-okay without my geeky gadgets, but I think I’d miss my computer…my stove…ohh…my AC. Do appliances count as geeky gadgets? I can do without a cell phone. I have one but don’t use it all that much. I could do without my MP3 Player. I’ve been without before, so I think that while I’d miss it, I could deal. The more I think about this the more I think I’d like to read one of those “living off the land for a year with no modern technology” books.
Needless to say, the dishes are still taking over the kitchen, the laundry is still piled up like unpaid bills and the dust bunnies, without fear of the vacuum, have left the security of the dark underworld beneath the couch and are blatantly mingling with the dog and cat hair balls.
Other than that I really don’t have much to say today. So I will leave you this thought:
"We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story." — Mary McCarthy, American author (1912-1989).
All those people running around without their cell phones and their apps; mobile blogging and twittering. How would be people who are used to being in contact 24/7 handle the void? Obviously there have been stories about this before. I think I’d like to try my hand at it too. I’ve always had a fondness for end-of-the-world stories and one without technology is one that interests me greatly.
I’d like to imagine that I’d be a-okay without my geeky gadgets, but I think I’d miss my computer…my stove…ohh…my AC. Do appliances count as geeky gadgets? I can do without a cell phone. I have one but don’t use it all that much. I could do without my MP3 Player. I’ve been without before, so I think that while I’d miss it, I could deal. The more I think about this the more I think I’d like to read one of those “living off the land for a year with no modern technology” books.
Needless to say, the dishes are still taking over the kitchen, the laundry is still piled up like unpaid bills and the dust bunnies, without fear of the vacuum, have left the security of the dark underworld beneath the couch and are blatantly mingling with the dog and cat hair balls.
Other than that I really don’t have much to say today. So I will leave you this thought:
"We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story." — Mary McCarthy, American author (1912-1989).
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Live and Learn
Okay, so here’s the gist of what has been going on this week.
Number 1
- Florida Writes. This inhuman test of an 8th graders ability to barf an essay onto a piece a paper is a major hassle and an inconsistent way of judging whether or not a student can write. I’ve kids who can write brilliantly if given enough time. I’ve no love for standardized testing though I understand the concept. I would rather go to a portfolio based assessment program, unfortunately, many teachers are too lazy to want to keep up with all that paper and a portfolio system would cost the district more money since someone would have to collect the portfolios and “grade” them. Anyway, the test was on Tuesday and the week leading up to it was so incredibly stressed, I have no words for it. I can say that I am exceptionally proud of my homeroom. For a group of kids that had barely given me an inch all year long, they showed out well on test day. They all planned and all but one of them wrote a full page and most of them wrote front and back - a whole actual essay! We’ll see how their grades turn out in late May, but I am hopeful. Besides, if they do well, my principal is more likely to keep me on in the face of HUGE budget cuts coming down the road.
Number 2
- Wednesday I got home to pretty crappy news. My non-tech savvy husband managed (and I’m still trying to figure out how) to perform a complete system wipe on my computer. I know it involved one of the cats and the keyboard, beyond that, I’m at a loss, as is he. So, I yelled, screamed, cried, begged the computer gods to wake me up because you see…I did not have a backup. So, I got on the phone, to my tech geek buddy at work who said, “that sounds bad.” And he referred me to a geek company, who said, “Wow? Really? A complete system wipe? Wow. That’s bad.” Then they offered an outrageous fee per hour to attempt (attempt - not guarantee) to recover some (SOME) data. I called my big brother. Still crying, and was informed that “yup, it is bad and really there isn’t much hope.” I believe my big brother. I do. I put faith in his knowledge of computer geekiness but that did not stop me from calling an additional 12 computer repair companies in town to try to get my data back.
So where did this leave me? Well, fearing for his life, Scott slept on the couch after I threw a phonebook at the wall, screamed, “Fuck all this, I’m going to bed” and slammed into the bedroom at 7:00pm. Thursday was not much better. I kept thinking about the lost pictures, the lost stories, the lost everything! I moped through the day, grouching at my students, not yelling at them, but just in a funk and they knew it and for the most part left me be and actually worked. By the time I got home, I was still upset but not mad anymore. After all, Scott didn’t do anything on purpose. It was just something that happened. I made some attempts to get the computer back up in working order and realized that a daunting task lay before me.
My computer was 6+ years old and while in human terms that isn’t very long, in computer terms, my faithful tower should have already been put out to pasture, sent to the great PC pile in the sky. I started in with updates and downloads from Microsoft. Even with high speed internet it took about an hour to download everything. Then I tried to open Word. My product code have been deleted. Yikes! So I called up HP and begged for them to give me my product code so I could reinstall it. The nice foreign lady explained to me that it would cost a nice shiny credit card for them to remotely access my computer and manually input that information. And that it would take up to three - five days and would cost me $56.95 each day! What? I politely declined. By the time Scott got home Thursday night, I was no longer mad or upset, just frustrated with the reality of the situation. I told Scott that I wasn’t mad at him. I was just sad at the loss. He said he was sorry, and that I could blame him all I wanted. Instead I spent a good ten minutes hitting him with a throw pillow. While I felt better afterward, it was kind-of pitiful because he just took it.
That left me Friday to think about what to do. I had already had plans to purchase a new graphic card so that I could play Spore. The more I thought about the amount of money I needed to spend to update the system the more I began to think maybe it would be more cost effective to get a new system. I researched. Which is what I do. And found that graphic cards are expensive. And one that would be compatible with my ancient motherboard was about $200. Yikes! Again.
So, with Scott’s bonus check for making Salesman of the Year, I went out today and purchased a new HP Pavilion desktop for under $650. It was bundled with a flat screen monitor (which is beautiful) and printer (which I didn’t need, but can give to Ashleigh to have in her room). It has about a gazillion GBs of hard drive space (and read that gazillion as 500 GB which is almost 3 times as much as I had before and I hadn't come anywhere near to filling it all up). I brought it home, plugged cords in like mad and was rewarded with a shiny new computer.
So the story ends with a lesson learned - I bought an external, portable hard drive that I will use to religiously back up my files once weekly. A “big” purchase with money that wasn’t slated for anything and that we didn’t account for when budgeting (and really, I’m just doing my part to help the economy!). And a realization that stuff is just stuff. I may have lost photos of my girls, but I still have my girls. I may have lost stories and ideas, but I’m full of ideas and stories (just ask Sara). And one of the reasons (aside from financially) that I hadn’t purchased a new systems was because of the hassle of transferring files. Not a problem now. And what’s more beyond that, I know have the capability to use ALL my Sims expansion packs without crashing the computer or closing 30 background tasks while I play!
So, live more, learn more, take more pictures, play more Sims, write more stories, rip more music…and apologize to the husband for yelling at him because, of course, I should know better than to not have back-ups!
Number 1
- Florida Writes. This inhuman test of an 8th graders ability to barf an essay onto a piece a paper is a major hassle and an inconsistent way of judging whether or not a student can write. I’ve kids who can write brilliantly if given enough time. I’ve no love for standardized testing though I understand the concept. I would rather go to a portfolio based assessment program, unfortunately, many teachers are too lazy to want to keep up with all that paper and a portfolio system would cost the district more money since someone would have to collect the portfolios and “grade” them. Anyway, the test was on Tuesday and the week leading up to it was so incredibly stressed, I have no words for it. I can say that I am exceptionally proud of my homeroom. For a group of kids that had barely given me an inch all year long, they showed out well on test day. They all planned and all but one of them wrote a full page and most of them wrote front and back - a whole actual essay! We’ll see how their grades turn out in late May, but I am hopeful. Besides, if they do well, my principal is more likely to keep me on in the face of HUGE budget cuts coming down the road.
Number 2
- Wednesday I got home to pretty crappy news. My non-tech savvy husband managed (and I’m still trying to figure out how) to perform a complete system wipe on my computer. I know it involved one of the cats and the keyboard, beyond that, I’m at a loss, as is he. So, I yelled, screamed, cried, begged the computer gods to wake me up because you see…I did not have a backup. So, I got on the phone, to my tech geek buddy at work who said, “that sounds bad.” And he referred me to a geek company, who said, “Wow? Really? A complete system wipe? Wow. That’s bad.” Then they offered an outrageous fee per hour to attempt (attempt - not guarantee) to recover some (SOME) data. I called my big brother. Still crying, and was informed that “yup, it is bad and really there isn’t much hope.” I believe my big brother. I do. I put faith in his knowledge of computer geekiness but that did not stop me from calling an additional 12 computer repair companies in town to try to get my data back.
So where did this leave me? Well, fearing for his life, Scott slept on the couch after I threw a phonebook at the wall, screamed, “Fuck all this, I’m going to bed” and slammed into the bedroom at 7:00pm. Thursday was not much better. I kept thinking about the lost pictures, the lost stories, the lost everything! I moped through the day, grouching at my students, not yelling at them, but just in a funk and they knew it and for the most part left me be and actually worked. By the time I got home, I was still upset but not mad anymore. After all, Scott didn’t do anything on purpose. It was just something that happened. I made some attempts to get the computer back up in working order and realized that a daunting task lay before me.
My computer was 6+ years old and while in human terms that isn’t very long, in computer terms, my faithful tower should have already been put out to pasture, sent to the great PC pile in the sky. I started in with updates and downloads from Microsoft. Even with high speed internet it took about an hour to download everything. Then I tried to open Word. My product code have been deleted. Yikes! So I called up HP and begged for them to give me my product code so I could reinstall it. The nice foreign lady explained to me that it would cost a nice shiny credit card for them to remotely access my computer and manually input that information. And that it would take up to three - five days and would cost me $56.95 each day! What? I politely declined. By the time Scott got home Thursday night, I was no longer mad or upset, just frustrated with the reality of the situation. I told Scott that I wasn’t mad at him. I was just sad at the loss. He said he was sorry, and that I could blame him all I wanted. Instead I spent a good ten minutes hitting him with a throw pillow. While I felt better afterward, it was kind-of pitiful because he just took it.
That left me Friday to think about what to do. I had already had plans to purchase a new graphic card so that I could play Spore. The more I thought about the amount of money I needed to spend to update the system the more I began to think maybe it would be more cost effective to get a new system. I researched. Which is what I do. And found that graphic cards are expensive. And one that would be compatible with my ancient motherboard was about $200. Yikes! Again.
So, with Scott’s bonus check for making Salesman of the Year, I went out today and purchased a new HP Pavilion desktop for under $650. It was bundled with a flat screen monitor (which is beautiful) and printer (which I didn’t need, but can give to Ashleigh to have in her room). It has about a gazillion GBs of hard drive space (and read that gazillion as 500 GB which is almost 3 times as much as I had before and I hadn't come anywhere near to filling it all up). I brought it home, plugged cords in like mad and was rewarded with a shiny new computer.
So the story ends with a lesson learned - I bought an external, portable hard drive that I will use to religiously back up my files once weekly. A “big” purchase with money that wasn’t slated for anything and that we didn’t account for when budgeting (and really, I’m just doing my part to help the economy!). And a realization that stuff is just stuff. I may have lost photos of my girls, but I still have my girls. I may have lost stories and ideas, but I’m full of ideas and stories (just ask Sara). And one of the reasons (aside from financially) that I hadn’t purchased a new systems was because of the hassle of transferring files. Not a problem now. And what’s more beyond that, I know have the capability to use ALL my Sims expansion packs without crashing the computer or closing 30 background tasks while I play!
So, live more, learn more, take more pictures, play more Sims, write more stories, rip more music…and apologize to the husband for yelling at him because, of course, I should know better than to not have back-ups!
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