Friday, December 11, 2015

Celebrate the Small Things: Soft Close

I'm a little late with this post, but I had a wee drama with my computer. When I say a wee drama, I actually mean a world destroying catastrophe: my world that is, not the whole world.

I upgraded to Windows 10 and discovered to my horror that all my files had apparently been wiped. I checked the hard drive and I had 610GB free space out of my 683GB available space, and my files were nowhere to be found. After following online help instructions I discovered a folder called windows.old and inside that, was directed to one called Users. This was where my files were supposed to be, Alas, there was nothing, nothing but empty folders. In shock, I packed up my laptop and raced off to the local computer repair shop.

Unfortunately, it was closed: open only Monday to Friday. I then sped to the next closest store which, to my dismay now housed an employment agency. On to the next suburb where I imagined there might be a computer a store. No such luck. Then I remembered a locally famous shop which frequently advertises on the radio and has a very well known, and annoyingly catchy jingle.


As I entered, I received a cordial greeting and an offer of assistance to which I replied "Please tell me it's not the end of the world."

15 minutes later and without having to part with so much as a brass razoo, my files had been found: all of them.  My relief was indescribable. My gratitude such that I had offered the guy a free copy of my book, but he was a fantasy or tech manual kind of guy, so he graciously declined. 

Speaking of relief: today I am celebrating soft close drawers, cupboards and toilet seats. What a great innovation! We've only lived in our current home since August, and I've never had a home with all these silencing wonders before, so I am still thrilling at this very clever invention. Soft close? Yes!!

Have you ever had, what appeared to be a computer disaster, and then had it quickly and cheaply fixed? Or a computer crisis which was an expensive and extremely troublesome one? Do you love soft close seats and drawers?

7 comments:

  1. I've heard so many frightening stories about Windows 10 and people having their programs and things disappear or not work. Yay that you finally found someone who could help! I keep a backup hard drive and also my most important files on outside servers, but I'm STILL not updating to the new windows. It scares the bejeebers out of me -- and I write horror for a living!!

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    1. Fools rush in where angels feat to tread (who said that?) and I certainly did.Just picked up my laptop from a service and its all good. I had most of my stuff backed up as well, but yes, I know the horror of the moment when you think all your work is lost.

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  2. Oh, how awful!! So glad you recovered everything. And so.. the moral of the story is....uh, backups on an external hard drive? Or jump drive (memory sticks)? I use the latter because a memory stick is transportable. I lost 5 years worth of financial records with a crash one year. Now I'm paranoid.
    I have a (push pedal) soft close garbage can that I absolutely love. Cost me $100, but so worth it.

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    1. I do back up regularly, or semi regularly, but I hadn't done it for a couple of weeks so at least two chapters of my WIP were in danger. Whew! Soft close garbage bin? I'll have to add one of those to our collection.

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  3. I did an update to Windows 10 of my Windows 8 home PC some time ago. Had no problems, fortunately. I think it's a nice improvement, didn't like Windows 8 very much. At work we still run Windows 7. The computer department don't want to upgrade before everything is guaranteed stable. Vista we never had, fortunately

    Cold As Heaven

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    1. G'day CA. Good to hear from you. It's been a while...since the A-Z, I believe. I was running 7 and didn't have a problem with it but I can be a little gullible when it comes to new stuff. It's all good now. It did not turn out to be the end of the world.

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  4. I feel your pain here. This is life and technology - the human condition in the 21st century. It's only secondarily about the pros and cons of windows 10. But who the hell refuses a free book!? AND a free book offered to you by the author. What a strange world we live in - so advanced in some ways and yet, as you say in your post, this is the first time you've lived in a house with cupboards and toilet seats. Are you sure about that, though? I'm sure I saw those things in your house. What exactly is a soft close drawer and why do we need that? It's not like you can actually slam a drawer, or maybe there is a new version of drawers that I'm not aware of (drawers 2) which are slammable, and then drawers 3 are soft close....you didn't happen to lose all your old stuff when you got the new soft close drawers did you?

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