Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Showing posts with label strange happenings in the computer room. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strange happenings in the computer room. Show all posts

Friday, August 26, 2011

The Haunting

Sometimes things happen to my computer and I don't know how, or what, or why. I have been sitting in this chair most of the morning...

trying to figure out why my photos wouldn't transfer to a file. I put them all into the tray and push "export" like I have done for a thousand years and each time a window would open up saying "Error... unable to write all files due to disk error."
WRITE? These are photos not short stories or poems. What is it really saying?
Then I made the real mistake of trying to troubleshoot the problem myself.
I went into Picasa and asked for HELP. What a joke!
I went into Google and asked for HELP.... nothing. They wanted me to ask other people who had this problem what they did to correct it.
I'm I crazy or is this self help attitude becoming an excuse for lackadaisical work ethics?
Doesn't the company know what's wrong with its own program?
I went into Windows... and by then I'm ready to feed someone to the rattlesnakes.
NOTHING!!
So about the same time that I had a small meltdown, my sweet little virus protector decides that it has had enough and it pops up with a small meltdown of it's own.
It shuts everything down and then tells me that it's "non responsive" and that I have a serious problem. I paid this company over a hundred bucks to have it tell me I HAVE A PROBLEM!!
I already knew that.
Then it tells me that I had better save all my "information" on a separate disk.
I did this, thinking that some malicious demon was going to destroy all of my computer programs... That all my photos would be thrown into the netherworld never to be seen again.
I would loose EVERYTHING.  This was de ja vu on a much smaller scale than the feelings during the fire, but none the less, it threw me into a panic.
I finally found the blank disks in the closet, (No small task.) and copied everything. I say "everything" because the extent of my knowledge about all this is so minimal that I really have no idea what actually went onto that disk.... but it said that the transfer was complete, so I guessed that it was now on this safe little silver orb and I remove it from my hard drive.
Then I tried to transfer my photos to a file again so that I could write and publish this galvanizing little vignette about what I look at when I'm sitting at my desk and what significance these things have for me.
I thought that I had beaten the system until the window came up again saying ERROR, ERROR, ERROR.
 and then, as if to make the whole experience even more like a true horror movie, the screen when gray and just sat there looking at me.
I finally make the decision to manually shut the computer down.
I left the computer to die without an audience and, while eating lunch, I told the Prospector my woeful story.
He said "Leave it off for a while and try it later."
He always cuts to the chase.

After lunch I turned on the computer.
I went to Picasa, pick the photos that I needed, pushed the "export" button and ,
YES, it loaded the photos right into a little folder file, waited for me to start  posting and nothing has gone wrong since.
The malevolent entity was gone.
The Jinks was lifted.
The Leprechaun left the building

I didn't have much to say today, anyway...

Tomorrow, I will thrill you with my thoughts on the little corner of my computer world.
I know you just can't wait.
There will be insights into the exciting world of blogging...
and beer bottle caps.
I think I need a good stiff drink... and I don't even drink.