Thursday, August 4, 2011

Why no blogpost for over 3 months - Unk Dicko

Hi all visitors, friends and readers of this blog,
More than 3 months have passed since my last blogpost in late April. I'm certain many must have wondered if I had gone on a long leave of absence or had been in poor health or simply was living in the 7th heaven somewhere or worse.. that I may have absconded from ever blogging again.
Touch wood, it's none of these things. The reason was due to something more down to earth. Let me explain.

From the time I started on my IT journey of self-discovery which included my initial adventure into the world of blogging, I had always depended on my generally reliable desk-top computer system. It has served me well for the last 5 plus years. But I did not know that many of the parts making up the systems, the hardware may have only a shelf life of about 2 years, 3 if you are lucky. From time to time, breakdown will occur not necessary due to virus attacks or other malware.

The trouble is as a layman, you and I have no precise knowledge about such things as there are literally hundreds of parts, wires, cables that are part of a computer...which as I've said we know nuts about...especially when do these parts start "expiring ".
That's what I've been facing these past months...one part expiring after another. I changed the internal fan ( cooling system ) yet within days something else breaks down. A condenser got heated and melted. Had to change that whole segment/piece.
My computer engineer chap suggested that I buy a new set up.
But it was not just the costs that made me wary.

My present system have ALL the stored info and data that I've patiently accumulated for over 5 years of often painstaking research and effort, things I need for my future Blog posts and future talks etc. They are all in the hard disk and I'm not prepared to lose all that precious stuff.
Don't get me wrong..I'm not afraid someone hacks into my harddisk or anything like that. There is NOTHING of MONETARY or FINANCIAL value inside. I AVOID  all internet banking/financial/transfer of money totally.

 So my suggestion was to set up a 2nd Desk top system which was done. This new system is a Dell Office system with the latest Windows 7 Ultimate with High Definition resolution. I connected it to my all my previous external applications...printer, scanner, etc..
 My existing Acer computer desktop with Windows 7 system ( older system) was set up at another location in my living room... with no attachments.

 Then came the problem. Big problem.
When I wanted to blog again, I found that most of my "saved" resources were not in the new Dell system. It has a new hard disk which did not completely transfer my old stuff in the Acer system. Many files were there but not the stuff I needed for blogging. Sigh !
Worse, my printer and scanner were not properly configured to work in sync with the new Dell system.
My computer engineer chap conveniently neglected to do it properly..thus requiring me to call on his services again ( at his convenience of course ).
This to and froing went on until 2 days ago when he came to complete the job. But there are still some problems left hanging as I've discovered but will wait until a more opportune time to discuss this.

At least, I can now resume my usual blogging life, at least 80 % of it.
So much has happened in the last couple of months aorund us at home and abroad. For those past few months I have been more active on Facebook as an alternative...if any of you had noticed.

Thanks for all your PATIENCE !

Duty calls. Service will resume as from today !

Unk Dicko