Spreading this around so people know about the dangers :(

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/08/26/bc-overheating-laptop-fire-death-vancouver.html

Is planted! I ran out to take some photos, but then my man's card reader (which is the only one that works with my old Casio now) stopped working because a computer he was fixing for a friend picked up a virus from a shared thumbdrive. Argh. So I have pics... but you can't see them!

Go Canucks Go Tonight!

Not so much, it seems. My man went to build a system for a client yesterday. Drove all the way to the computer store to get the parts, got them home, sat down to build the computer. He pulled the Antec NSK 1380 (nee "Aria") out of its box and marveled at its compact nature and sleek looks. Did a double take. A triple take. You see, it was shipped without a drive cage. And no, drive cages are not optional. They're how you install the hard drives and optical drives into the box. We looked very carefully and it looks like a brand new unit, not refurbished or returned at all. So this must have been from the factory.

Antec, for the fucking last time: Get your shit together!

We got a booster antenna for our router this summer, since we started to share our signal with the people one floor up (long story) and set up a second router on their floor as a wireless access point. But ever since then I swear I've been getting more headaches and can't focus as well as I used to. It might be the weather changing or whatever, but there really isn't any conclusive data (that I can find) on the effects of Wi-Fi signals on people. Since the booster antenna is sitting about 8' from my head all day, this is a bit of a concern.

Anyhoo, I was wondering if anyone else experienced the same kind of symptoms (including the paranoia) or if I'm just crazy.

I'm probably just going nuts. I hope I am, I guess...

After much fussing and loss of hair and sanity to my video encoding habits, I finally bit the bullet and bought a quad core processor. I read the reviews and balanced the numbers, and I stood to gain about 50% of my time back, so at $230 it was worth the sacrifice.

I must say I heart this chip. Quad is SO much more uber than dual. :)

Ugh.

Ok, so before leaving for Mexico I picked up a WD Passport external hard drive. I thought it'd be handy to backup my work on in case the laptop (god forbid) has anything happen to it en route.

Before we jumped on the plane for home, we used the bundled WD Sync software to encrypt and back up all of the photos and such we made while in Mexico. Seems simple, yes? I created a profile and everything seemed to work just great. Then, to deter any nosey border fellows, I deleted the pics from my laptop.

Today I plugged in the passport to grab a few more non-Elli files from the laptop before porting everything to my desktop computer. Well, q'elle suprise! There's no more data?!

This is what I found after much surfing:
http://forum.hddguru.com/passport-dml-file-extension-encrypted-files-t9299.html

"If you are computer savvy...you should realize that the WDSync software is not backup software and is, in fact, just syncing software. So, if you delete something from your desktop it will delete it from the Passport as well, next time you sync. However, EVEN IF you are computer savvy, you probably wouldn't have guessed in a million years that DMailer would make "autosync" the default setting and that they wouldn't tell you ahead of time or prompt you in some way before it started deleting files. So, if you want to use WDSync to sync your data between your computer and your Passport, before you do anything else, SHUT OFF autosync and always manually sync. If you are not interested in syncing your data and just want to backup your data, skip the WDSync software all together. Don't use it. Just use the Passport like a jump drive and drag and drop your files to it."

So....

fuck you Western Digital. Fuck you very much.



LUCKILY I had a copy of everything saved to an encrypted drive on the laptop. VERY, VERY LUCKY.

Ok, so my laptop died last night. So this morning I checked Future Shop's website on a whim. They had a full loaded-to-the-tits Dell Studio 15 that I've been eyeing for months. For only $1149, too, which is below Dell's price (with coupons) on Dell.ca. So I checked it out. I bought one. Heck, they threw in a 3-in-1 printer for $10!

So I opened up the laptop in the parking lot, thank the computer gods. The box looked new, but there were HUGE scratches across the screen and a gouge/divot out of the case lid.

I examined the box more closely. There was a shipping sticker. It said it was sent from Dell Returns in Ontario to Best Buy's Western distribution center before arriving at the Bridgeport Future Shop. It was unit 3 of 24, sent on August 18th. Odd, n'est pas?

I walked back in and returned the laptop. The guy tried to blame the scratches on me at first, but the manager agreed with me. He suggested I look at the other one they have in stock. I did. Surprise! Even worse scratches and a divot in the centre of the screen! The case exterior was mint, at least. THAT box had the same shipping sticker, but was item 10 of the same batch of 24.

So, do I pay $1400 after taxes for a laptop that is obviously a Dell return/refurbished unit that Future Shop is trying to sell as new? Sadly, no.

I wonder if Dell knows these units are being sold as "new in box" items.

Last night, about 34 hours before I was to leave for Mexico on a jet plane, my eSata drive started ticking. It's a brand new drive in a CoolerMaster X-Craft enclosure, and I use it for backups. I was trying to access it to update some stuff on my site at ElliNude.com, but it was no longer being recognized by either Linux or XP. The drive worked fine in our other enclosure, but that one was already in use. Then we tried the power cord on the other enclosure. Same result.

Now the other drive also ticks and doesn't recognize.

So at 1:15am we gave up on that and decided to go to bed. Only to find that the laptop we added a brand new hard drive and 1gb of RAM to a few days ago now has a critical problem. The hard drive unseats. Or a solder is broken. Regardless, it has trouble finding the hard drive and shows a "no support os" error instead of booting up. This is the laptop we were going to bring to Mexico for work.

So, do we tighten everything down on that one and hope it works? Or do we go back to my 4 years old laptop, put the DVDburner back into it, maybe put the new hard drive in it, and hope IT works?

Holy smokes! I'm about to kill somebody!

I've been in crunch mode for about a week now. The big Florida show is coming up on the 6th and I just took a look at my calendar for August. It's ridiculously packed. I get back from Florida, then the next day we go camping in Osoyoos. Then the day after we get back from camping, it's time for a friend's stag weekend. Then the wedding. Then the end of the month and I need to get more shoots done, so it's time to reserve a place for that. Gah! Erg! Eek!

So right now I'm getting all my future updates that I have in the bag ready and online, so when it's time to update, I just have to change my main pages to reflect the new links. So far I've done one video and one photo update. I'm working on another photo update tonight (a very sexy one in a slinky black dress!) I *hope* to get the other video at least rendered by tonight, if not uploaded. That leaves tomorrow for reformatting my laptop and getting it all loaded with my software. I really must have a pedicure before I leave, and a hair cut. And I need to run to the states and fill up the car with gas.

Tonight I made spaghetti for dinner so the leftovers will take care of tomorrow's dinner as well. We even have some sourdough bread left over for garlic bread!

Cross your fingers for me that I get everything done!