Thank You Computer Gods

I got the red screen of death the other day. No lie. Just like in a movie. Then big letters in the middle of the screen "physical boot dump begins now."

I screamed and did what any sane person would do. I turned it off. I couldn't stop it.

So that day I call the IT help desk. They can see my computer on Monday morning at 6:30. I was thankful. Even though I had to go a whole entire weekend without it.

And for those of you who have read long ago posts, yes, I was cuddling with my pink external hard drive all weekend long.

I had backed up over spring break and was pretty happy to have done that. I had also backed up my book. EXCEPT for the last 100 pages. Okay. I wrote it once, I can do it again.

So I drop off my baby at the doctor bright and early and head off to summer school. Yes, the summer school computer teacher shows up on the first day of school without her computer. Ironic huh?

So after that, I head to MY school to get all the disks for picture editing, the scanner, the document camera, etc.

And you knew it had to be in here somewhere - yes, I made a LIST of all the websites I might have lost from the favorites section and a list of countless other things that needed to be reinstalled.

As I walked out of my school, I grabbed the phone to call the computer doctor and check in on my little one. I could come pick it up!

I have to admit I was a bit worried, but mostly about how much time it was going to take me to reinstall and refind everything.

All worrying was for naught. I DIDN'T LOOSE A THING!!!! I don't know how it happened or why.

The doc said he "ran a couple programs and it started working." I was elated!!!!!! I walked out of the office hoisting it up over my head in joyous triumph. For once, it all worked out.

Mythological Computer Gods

(To the right you will see a picture of the computer god, Vy Russ.)


Today the computer gods are laughing and playing with my life. No, not the big wigs at Microsoft and Mac or anything like that. These are the mythical gods, like Apollo and Zeus. But these are the COMPUTER gods, whom I imagine have names like Web loss, File aria, Connectus, and Help phos.

I am fairly computer literate. I take care of my computer by regularly cleaning it out, defragging, emptying the cache, etc., to make sure it runs efficiently. I also regularly back up my computer to my external hard drive, which I love. It is pink and cute and cuddly. Well, not right now but if I ever lost something, I am sure I would cuddle it.

Anyway, today has been crazy. First I couldn't get to my report cards (all day). The school tech came by to help and she couldn't get them either. Only on HER computer, not mine. And while I could access the students' files, they couldn't because the the "parkway server tree listed as K does not exist" on their computers, but it does on mine????

This wasn't a connection error as they were able to get on the internet. They could also open all programs and create new documents, but that doesn't help much when we are trying to finish old ones. And if we create new ones, we have no place to save them because the server has mysteriously disappeared off the student computers.

So I talk to people. I call people. Everyone just says Hmm. Now how helpful do you think that is???

Then there is this whole issue of "space." I think we should have as much as we want - it's CYBERSPACE people, it isn't real! It's not like I am taking up two seats at the movies!

This comes up because yesterday I tried all day to upload a homework assignment onto a forum. It just sat and sat and sat (must have had Error Uploadius laughing his fool god head off). I never received a message that the file was too big. And I can never remember which is bigger (kb or mb - i got a real nifty lesson in that from my instructor which I might just copy and paste here)

quoted from the instructor: "A byte is a unit that measures information storage. It is made up of smaller units called bits. Essentially a bit is "on-off" and is how the computer takes electricity and arranges it into something meaningful. The byte (arrangement of bits) is equivalent to one letter.A kilobyte (KB) is about 1,000 bytes. To be technical, it is 210 power or 1,024.A megabyte (MB) is about 1,000 kilobytes. To be accurate, it is 220 power. Those old floppy disks we used to use were 1.4 MB.A gigabyte (GB) is about 1,000 megabytes. Most hard drives are now measured in gigs. Other prefixes go up for here: terabyte, petabyte, yottabyte."

Okay, that was a trip to another land in itself. How 'bout byteme?? Is THAT invented yet?

So my instructor gives directions on how to shrink it. I had to shrink it twice. How ridiculous is this?? It's one page with four pictures on it. I think I should be allowed that space. I think I am entitled to that space. I WANT that space. I shouldn't have to shrink. They should have to grow. The god causing all this havoc of shrinking and growing space must be Alice ophrodite.

Please tell them to go away and pick on someone else! Like my sister, who can handle them!

Do Our Computers "know" Us?

Have you ever tried to help someone with their computer?

Do you help them do something on their computer you have done a million times? And it doesn't work the way you do it every time??!!

My new thought is that our computers, unbeknownst to the general population of dummies like me, are reading our minds. Well, really, I think they have little readers in them that track our activities. And when we do something over and over, the computer "gets used to us" and knows what we want to do when we plug something in or stick in a gadget. They learn us.

Take my school mp3 players I use for my kids. I upload to these quite regularly straight from my computer where the podcast was made. (We use them as study guides) So one of my teammates had made a podcast and I wanted it on my student mp3s. I went and plugged it in (they have a straight usb port to the player) and the thing went wacko. Wouldn't work until I did many different things to get it where it was supposed to go. But in mine, I put it in and it works just like it is supposed to.

So maybe at this point you are saying, well the teammate has her computer set up different. But she doesn't. All her settings are the same. Well, except for not having a purple Windows Media Player screen.

This hasn't been the only incident. Different things like this have happened many times. And I am always so happy when I "come home" to my own computer and it works like it is supposed to.

I think I have trained it well.