He’s b-a-a-a-a-a-c-k!!!
After a nasty crash Friday evening I finally have my laptop functioning properly once again. I wiped the hard drive and did a clean install of Windows Vista Home Premium using the re-install DVD that came with the computer.
While waiting for all the updates and patches to download and install I spent some time at the bedroom window waiting for a cardinal to appear. My patience was soon rewarded.
I came out of this entire mess far better than some of my more spectacular crashes of years past. The portable hard drives the girls gave me for Christmas 2009 to store my photos on came with a very handy utility that puts a pop up message on my desk top reminding me to back up my files. All I have to do is connect the USB cable, click okay and the backup is done while I continue to wander cyber space, kill space aliens or do whatever it is I do when left without adult supervision. If the cable could attach itself this would be totally idiot proof!
In the past I had the auto update set to run Sunday morning but this past week decided to change the setting to run Friday evening while I’m busy yelling at the talking heads on the nightly “news”. Man, was that a good decision!
This week’s back up finished at 6:44. The crash occurred at approximately 9:30. As I had already done the day’s photo editing and written and published a blog for the day all that was lost was my web surfing history and my saved game progress from an hour or so of “Redneck Rampage”! Yes, I know it’s an oldie and it has to run in compatibility mode but sometimes a guy just needs a good first person shooter to keep the voices in his head happy.
As I said, I wiped the hard drive and did a clean install of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office. My re-install disks are 2 years old and did not include any of the service packs and “important” updates Microshaft has dumped on us in the meantime. I meant to disable the automatic install feature in Windows Update but once it started running I was a little leery of interfering so I let it go….and go….and go…. it took 46 hours and that was using a brand new DSL modem and letting the system run constantly!
At least I got a quick dose of Face Book now and then to stay in touch with the outside world now and then. By the outside world I mean out there in Cyber Space, not outside of my house. By court order I’m not allowed to touch any of the dirt bags miserable bastards pieces of s*** a**holes neighbors after that unfortunate slinging gravel across the street with the Dandelion Destroyer….every time I saw them outdoors episode. On the plus side we had the best trimmed lawn on this end of the street before the sheriff took the keys to my lawn mower. Little does he know that keys are for people who don’t know how to hotwire and engine!
Now I sit here with a fully functional laptop, Windows Live Essentials 2011 and even Internet Explorer 8! The latter is still too damn slow for me and I’ll stick with Google Chrome for my web surfing. As for the former, there are a few features in it (Messenger, Live Mail, Family Controls, etc.) that I’m going to uninstall but this thing does work and it’s even a little faster.
I still have to restore the backed up files but I have files to restore this time. I also have all the photos I’ve shot in the past 2 years, nearly 40,000 of them, as well as all the Mp3 files I’ve “found on the web”. I think that rates a WOO-HOO!
LEARN FROM MY EXPERIENCE FOLKS;
BACK UP THEM FILES!
YA NEVER KNOW…….
Oh, and I didn’t really use my riding mower as an improvised gravel chunkin’ machine gun to terrorize the neighborhood jerks who seem to take great satisfaction in doing everything they can think of to piss me off……..or did I?
The Pine Ridge Philosopher 