Friday, December 16, 2005
Back-up to the future
So I go to check on several of my favorite blogstops this morning, and, one after another, poof!, they are missing their latest posts. It's like taking a step back in time.
Of course, in an automatic reversal to high school angst (aka, "memememe!"), my immediate suspicion is that "I've done something to make them mad! They've all gone away and will NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN!!!! Waaaah! They don't liiiiiike me!"
My second thought is that I'm sicker than I thought, and have been hallucinating recent posts.
Well, no. Turns out that Typepad is having problems again, so people's last two days' worth of posts have vanished into the ether.
Immediately paranoid about something similar happening here to Omegamom's little spot on the web, I googled "blog backup". The results: Typepad does, indeed, have an export and import feature (I don't know whether it backs up the commenttrails, though). Blogspot, alas, does not. You can finesse around it by fiddling with your template, as referenced here. Be sure to make a backup copy of your template FIRST!!! Another suggestion, which only backs up the posts, is to have your posts emailed to an address of your choice when they are posted.
Categories: [Bloggy Stuff]
We bought a new 'puter, a laptop. Gasp!! Yes--the old 'puter has been gasping and wheezing and rattling for months now, and finally these past three weeks has just been dying at totally unexpected moments. This is all due to a cooling fan dying the death. No data has been permanently damaged, it's just an ongoing frustration. First, there you are, on one of your boards, composing a real zinger of a reply to someone, only to have this odd *poit!* sound emerge from the computer and the screen suddenly go black. So you lose that wonder of composition, and in the irritation of losing it, it disappears completely from your human memory, too. Secondly, if you want to continue on, you have to reset the surge-protector, restart the computer, wait for Windows to scan for broken files, yadda, yadda, yadda. All of which takes far too long. And if you do it too soon, the heat disperser hasn't cooled enough, and the next unexpected downtime comes that much sooner. Anyway. We'd like to transfer our data over from old 'puter to new. (I already used our USB digi-cam to transfer over our cable modem's driver...seems that the hardware wizard really really wants to use the Internet to install new drivers...but if you're trying to install the driver that allows you to access the internet...well, it ends up being like that old Celtic image of the snake surrounding the world, eating its own tail.) I sent OmegaDad off to Staples with a list, which included "null-modem serial cable". The poor folk at Staples didn't know what the hell that was. I feel old. Is there such a thing as a serial-to-USB null-modem cable? (Honest question, and you may feel free to mock me in the comments as a twit who knows nothing about modern day computers...) Would this work? (The laptop was a real deal, and is way cool.) Categories: [Computers]
OmegaMom is sick. OmegaDad is sick. We think OmegaDotter is getting sick; she is being ultra-whiny and running an itty-bitty fever. The folks at daycare tell me a stomach bug is going around. Well, this was conveyed to me thus: "One of the kids threw up in the hall from Miss Betty's class." I boggled. Some kid threw up from Miss Betty's class out into the hall?!?! Ewww! Projectile vomiting! No, no--it turns out it's supposed to be: "One of the kids from Miss Betty's class threw up in the hall." Folks. Can we please use a leetle precision when speaking? It reminds me of my pettest peeve: people who say "All x's do not do y" when what they mean to say is "Not all x's do y". Trust me. There's a difference between "All bees do not sting" and "Not all bees sting". Use that as an example, and everyone can see the difference. Use a different statement, and they seem to lose the ability to understand the difference any more. Grrr. Categories: [Mr. OmegaMom] [This 'n That]
We bought a new 'puter, a laptop. Gasp!! Yes--the old 'puter has been gasping and wheezing and rattling for months now, and finally these past three weeks has just been dying at totally unexpected moments. This is all due to a cooling fan dying the death. No data has been permanently damaged, it's just an ongoing frustration. First, there you are, on one of your boards, composing a real zinger of a reply to someone, only to have this odd *poit!* sound emerge from the computer and the screen suddenly go black. So you lose that wonder of composition, and in the irritation of losing it, it disappears completely from your human memory, too. Secondly, if you want to continue on, you have to reset the surge-protector, restart the computer, wait for Windows to scan for broken files, yadda, yadda, yadda. All of which takes far too long. And if you do it too soon, the heat disperser hasn't cooled enough, and the next unexpected downtime comes that much sooner. Anyway. We'd like to transfer our data over from old 'puter to new. (I already used our USB digi-cam to transfer over our cable modem's driver...seems that the hardware wizard really really wants to use the Internet to install new drivers...but if you're trying to install the driver that allows you to access the internet...well, it ends up being like that old Celtic image of the snake surrounding the world, eating its own tail.) I sent OmegaDad off to Staples with a list, which included "null-modem serial cable". The poor folk at Staples didn't know what the hell that was. I feel old. Is there such a thing as a serial-to-USB null-modem cable? (Honest question, and you may feel free to mock me in the comments as a twit who knows nothing about modern day computers...) Would this work? (The laptop was a real deal, and is way cool.) Categories: [Computers]
OmegaMom is sick. OmegaDad is sick. We think OmegaDotter is getting sick; she is being ultra-whiny and running an itty-bitty fever. The folks at daycare tell me a stomach bug is going around. Well, this was conveyed to me thus: "One of the kids threw up in the hall from Miss Betty's class." I boggled. Some kid threw up from Miss Betty's class out into the hall?!?! Ewww! Projectile vomiting! No, no--it turns out it's supposed to be: "One of the kids from Miss Betty's class threw up in the hall." Folks. Can we please use a leetle precision when speaking? It reminds me of my pettest peeve: people who say "All x's do not do y" when what they mean to say is "Not all x's do y". Trust me. There's a difference between "All bees do not sting" and "Not all bees sting". Use that as an example, and everyone can see the difference. Use a different statement, and they seem to lose the ability to understand the difference any more. Grrr. Categories: [Mr. OmegaMom] [This 'n That]
