Blue Screen Blues

Every now and then those electronic deities that control all of our lives decide to take revenge on us for some evil act that they consider that we did at some time in our lives. Some of us have many more than one of these beings imposing their will on our lives and the risk of revenge increases proportionally.

I try not to let my computers dictate to me too much but the fact is that it has become virtually impossible to be a professional in the modern world without almost total reliance on these digital marvels/tyrants. I find myself staring at various computer screens for most of my waking hours and try to stay friends with them. But it is when these things instantly morph from marvel to tyrant that our lives change just as quickly.

Last week I installed updated CAD software that uses a hardware lock for security. Whether only coincidence or not I don't know but my laptop went from totally cooperative colourful multi-functioning work partner to the dreaded blue screen of total stubornness, locking me out and throwing all of its play things (really my work things) out of its cot. It allowed me to work in safe mode but refused all attempts to recover the normal mode aside from reverting to as-new condition.

Yes, I maintain multiple backups of my important data in various places to cover a host of possible scenarios of destruction. So, I am now in the very lengthy and frustrating process of rebuilding all that was on that computer. Some of it goes easily enough but other programs are not so obliging as to cooperate.

The net result is a few days and nights of lost work and leisure time. I know that there is a very long list of emails waiting for my attention. I will get to them as soon as I can. If you are waiting for a response from me, please bear with me, I will get to it as soon as I can.

In the meantime, our desktop and mobile websites work hard for us, assisted by our Flickr albums. Our order and payment systems, plan printing and shipping of orders is unaffected. Everything else is working as usual but I apologise for any delays in email responses from me.