#%&* Computers!

[jilleb163]

Wow. That is just ... wow. Awful. I am so sorry! I don't know what I'd do if I'd lost so many precious memories. I hope you can recover them somehow.

Back in October my computer crashed and would not restart. Period. I tried everything I could think of. Fortunately my brother (my own personal Geek Squad) found a way to boot from a disc using Ubuntu and I was able to transfer over 90% of my files to flash drives before having the stupid thing rebuilt. Maybe something like that would work for you too?

I hope so. See what your brother can do, I guess. That is so frustrating and devastating and ... urgh. Major hugs and pity from me. What a rotten thing to have happen!

[Beware_of_Italics]

Oh dear. First we try getting the brand new computer we bought today to working. We spend at least 2 1/2 hours on that, but nothing showed up on the monitor. (We tried 2 different monitors).

We take it back to the store and they say the computer is broken. Broken video card or something.

Drive to a different Best Buy for a replacement.

Bring the second new computer home, and - SURPRISE - internet doesn't work, so we spend 2 or 3 hours on that. Over the phone Mom is trying to get help from my brother, who clearly is frustrated with us lowly non-computer genius people. Still, he did try for a long time so that was nice of him.

We get internet up, finally.

We try to load the security cameras.

Cameras won't upload.

Mom takes a slug of whisky.

We download something to make the cameras compatible with Windows Vista.

It downloads, but now we can't find the darn file. We've looked EVERYWHERE. It's like an Easter Egg Hunt.

Yep, don't like computers very much. They were invented by Satan, I swear.

I guess we've all been here a time or two, eh? Thanks for seeing me through this "tragedy." I won't forget.

[-Kat]

Oh no! :c( I'm so sorry -- that's happened to me too (more than once), so I know how it feels. I've lost stuff that I'd been collecting for years. Can you take it in to a computer place? Sometimes they can retrieve stuff, even though it's a bit pricey.

[hawolleen]

Gawd, Kristin! I don't know much, but I wish I could come over and help you :) It is frustrating having a family member who knows what they are doing but lives so far away. Don't you just want to beat these stupid machines with a baseball bat sometimes?!
I hope that you get everything working and your brother can get your pics and videos off your other computer. This whole thing just sucks!
I will even have a swig of whiskey for you if that would help ;) (trying to inject some humor)

[FeverChick]

I can totally sympethsize and understand your pain. My computer crased about 2 months ago and I lost all of my graduate work I need to do my big portfolio I need to graduate....Urg. Hugs are being sent your way and I totally understand your pain and frustration.

[Beware_of_Italics]

I'm slowly getting over losing those files b/c now I have hope that my computer genius brother can recover them sometime.

Today my rant is that I HATE Windows Vista. Oh dear God in Heaven, how I loathe it! And intensely. It's my enemy. Not user friendly at all.

It's HORRIBLE! Why did they have to change a good thing? Windows 95, XP, etc were just fine. My brother said there's been lots of complaints about it, and now I can see why.

I'm having trouble even figuring out how to bookmark a page. I did it earlier, but now they don't show up at all. And what's with all these pop-up windows that never go away? You click on the "Dont show me this again" option, but still it shows up. I'm talking 5 of these pop-up windows in a row every single time you click on Internet.

And when you shut down the computer, it goes through TWENTY updates. Yes, 20! (And here we have it set to do updates only at 3 am everyday). It takes forever, so we just turn it off manually.

I can't even view videos on this thing yet. They upload to Photobucket fine, but I haven't figured out how to view them on this computer.

Everything about WB is so annoying! It makes me nervous.

[redheadgirl79]

Today my rant is that I HATE Windows Vista. Oh dear God in Heaven, how I loathe it! And intensely. It's my enemy. Not user friendly at all.

It's HORRIBLE! Why did they have to change a good thing? Windows 95, XP, etc were just fine. My brother said there's been lots of complaints about it, and now I can see why.

I'm having trouble even figuring out how to bookmark a page. I did it earlier, but now they don't show up at all. And what's with all these pop-up windows that never go away? You click on the "Dont show me this again" option, but still it shows up. I'm talking 5 of these pop-up windows in a row every single time you click on Internet.

And when you shut down the computer, it goes through TWENTY updates. Yes, 20! (And here we have it set to do updates only at 3 am everyday). It takes forever, so we just turn it off manually.

I can't even view videos on this thing yet. They upload to Photobucket fine, but I haven't figured out how to view them on this computer.

Everything about WB is so annoying! It makes me nervous.

Yeah, I hate Vista with a passion too. We went through the same thing with ours about a year ago, the power supply went out (more like blew up) so we got a new one only to find out that when it went out it took both the mother board and the hard drive with it, so all of our files were lost. I had collected a huge amount of music over the years, not all from itunes. It was then that I found out that itunes will keep a record of the songs that you buy from them, but any other song that you have on your ipod is instantly lost when you go to plug your ipod in for it's next update. We had XP before that and I loved it, then we got Vista......There's this old saying out there that I think applies "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If computers were invented by Satan I think Vista was created by the Anti-Christ.

[jilleb163]

Today my rant is that I HATE Windows Vista.

And when you shut down the computer, it goes through TWENTY updates. Yes, 20!

I hate Vista with a passion that borders on insanity. Vista is what killed my computer. More specifically, the nightly updates.

A Windows nightly update killed the hard drive. When my brother was trying to resurrect my computer, he took note of the error code and looked into things on-line and it turns out that about a thousand other people had their computers commit Hara-Kiri after that same update too. So my advice is to be very, very careful with updates and back EVERYTHING up. My brother downgraded me to Windows XP and I haven't had a lick of trouble since then.

I will say that I used Vista from February to October and that it does (eventually) get a little easier to use.

[highlanddreamer]

Goodness Kristin! Sorry to hear about all this!!
I wont pretend to know anything about how computers work (turning them on and off is about as far as I go) but hopefully you'll be able to retrieve some of the data. A friends computer died a little while ago and they were able to recover some stuff so hopefull you will too!!
I'm so sorry you lost all those memories! I've got my fingers crossed that they can be found!
Rant anytime you need!! (Gives me something to read )

[Beware_of_Italics]

So today we called Comcast and once again they'll be coming tomorrow night. Right now they say our internet connection is at 10% capacity. (And that's with constantly unplugging it and plugging it back in to load just one page). And all day I've NEEDED the internet to look up home remedies for Mom.

Her first kidney stone. So yeah... huge dentist bills, have to buy a new computer, computer doesn't work so we have to return it and buy another, internet connection is giving us trouble once again, dad might lose his job, mom gets a kidney stone. (Dad has always suffered from those, but this is Mom's first).

What a great year 2009 is turning out to be right from the get-go.

Okay, so I have one more rant. I'll just include it here since I don't know that I'll be able to get online again tonight with this bad internet connection:

I received another rejection letter from an agent's request for a partial of my manuscript. (Partial was requested back in November). I discovered that when she said I was "a good writer with a distinctive voice and nice characterization," that it was all a form letter. So there's false flattery on my writing not once, but three times from that agent. But really, I figured it was a form rejection and wanted to know for sure. I'm not really upset since I expected it, but it annoys me the more I think about it.