Today the sun has made a hesitant reappearance. The thuinderstorms and prolonged heavy rain we got yesterday has moved north, and hopefully I won't get drenched again today. Mornings like this are to be savoured in Britains new globally warmed (and definitely wetter) climate. So in a relaxed happy frame of mind I sat down at the library computer.

As it happened, I was answering a question made by someone else about Roman legions. It deserved a fuller answer than a few sentences, so I got typing furiously bearing in mind you only get a limited time on these computers each day.

"Cannot write to memory" came up on the screen in one of Windows message boxes that tells you something hasn't worked they Microsoft would like you to believe it should. Disaster. It means the various web pages and programs will freeze-up, rendering everything I've done useless. Quickly I used a text editor and saved as much of my work as I could. The librarians were very sympathetic of course, but none of them are IT experts and apparently I'm not the only one suffering these kinds of breakdowns.

Well, as you can see, I'm back up and working after faffing around and trying to explain the situation to the computer-illerate. It's that sense of helplessness that's so stressful. You lose your work and can't do anything to restore the situation. Computers are such insidious machines. Great when they work, but...

It Happened Again

Another breakdown. Memory can't be referenced. I even had the IT man out to stare helplessly at the screen like they do when put on the spot. Needless to say it's been hugely frustrating. As it happens, the IT man is going to flag this library PC as 'down' when I'm finished, even though this problem has ocurred on other PC's.

I broke the computer

Back From The Dead

My recent personal disaster with my own computer at home has been addressed up to a point. After a rebuild I got the thing working (I've already posted on that subject) but having sifted through the wreckage that is my hard drive I've discovered how much has been lost. By good fortune not too much. My reference files are intact and I can access a lot of data I was working on.

Sadly however some files are gone, vanished into the electronic ether, and unrecoverable. What can you do? Start over, replace what has been lost, and build toward the objective you wanted. Thankfully most of the lost data isn't vital - so I shall count myself lucky.