Just before the auspicious day my computer decided to crash – again. Ironically I was just backing up my files – in a ‘just-in-case’ scenario as it can take time to retrieve them when they are backed up remotely online. I had done my research and chosen a suitable portable hard drive. Jumped in the car, zoomed down to the local shopping centre (that’s a mall for you non-Aussie residents), found the desired shop and purchased the hard drive. In fact, I discovered that the portable hard drive came in a 500 gb size or, for just $10 extra, a 1 terabyte. Naturally, I went for the Mr Big version!
My computer has crashed and burned – yet again!
My computer has crashed and burned - photo from iStockphoto - konstantin32
Alas, as I was connecting it up my computer froze and nothing happened. I repeated the process but then had to assume that my computer was kaput. Of course, there was a call to my brother (mentioned here) who gave me some advice (by then I was rather teary) and told me to drop it into his place and he’d take a look.
Which he did. But the motherboard has burnt out and so my trusted 4 year-old machine has departed this mortal coil.
In the mean time – the email with all my Blog Jog Day information was lost in the darkness of my now dead computer and I had to contact the lovely Carol Denbow to send me the info again – as I didn’t have her url or email addresses I had to do some back-tracking-come-sleuthing. I had pre-prepared a lovely blog message but it too was lost in the darkness so I had to start from scratch.
But, all ended well…
…both for Blog Jog Day and with the files that were ‘stuck’ inside my computer. Luckily, my talented, lovely, kind brother (yes, there is a touch of sucking-up involved here – as well as one of my kidneys should he ever need it) has shifted the hard drive into a cover and now it is portable! Terrific work! I now have two hard drives to back up my files as well as the remote server I use (MOZY http://mozy.com/). Talk about ‘phew’!
And the winner of my book is:
Truth is I was very pleased to have you all visit. I couldn’t decide the winner so I have involved my 82 year-old mother (who is still strong of body and mind!) who checked out all the comments and then randomly chose a winner. Who is (drum roll please):
- Linda Henderson
Linda – the book is in the mail!
Now that I have access to all my research and notes, next time I will continue on with my writing journey.
m a miller - author of young adult s.f. 