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[Nov. 2nd, 2009|09:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Possibility, Lykke Li | ] |
Hooray hooray.
My enrolment for next year is currently screwed. A while back, they dropped one of the core subjects of my course, replacing it with a free elective.
Unfortunately, they've changed the administration system. The new system doesn't seem to know of the change. It's going "Oh. You need ITPS. I can't give you ITPS. Oh well!". I guess I'll have to go fight with uni bureaucracy again, I suppose, when I have time. ...Alternatively, I'll need to figure out where they've hidden the e-Request system in the new website. Of course, submitting an eRequest tends to require you know what you want to do, and I really don't.
In other topics of fail, Connor's got issues. Like, really bad issues. I turned on his screen this evening to be greeted by a parade of "This program has had an error and must be shut down." messages. I rebooted, he got to the desktop, and then crashed. Not just a blue screen of death, oh no. A corrupted blue screen of death. The text was all overlaying itself at random lines. He is now going through a boot-crash cycle every few minutes while I download a Live CD to try and save my data.
...My father claims it's a conspiracy. "Windows 7 came out last week, so this is Microsoft trying to convince you to upgrade." ...Hmm.
I was intending on spending this evening doing my data mining assignment, but I got a little distracted. Oops. I'll probably do a bit before I go to bed. I really can't do much more for Connor at the moment than make sure that there's a backup of everything. I have too many other worries on my plate right now.
The question also becomes refresh or replace. Connor's pretty decrepit, but I don't really use him that much any more. Chris thinks I should just stick with Mike, who also barely gets used, but Mike can't make use of a lot of Connor's hardware, like the surround speakers and the tape deck, and Mike has very few USB ports, to boot (even compared to Connor).
Why me?
-Mmaster
EDIT: To add to the list of complaints, trying to type on Bianca has been doing strange things to my wrists. It got to the point where I had to strap both wrists this afternoon. The fact that I only have one actual wrist brace meant the other was tied with a double-wrapped handkerchief. I went a bit overboard on the one with the actual brace, though - when I realised that my hand was turning blue, I decided it was probably time to loosen it a little. In some ways, the handkerchief's probably better, because it's hard to make it into a tourniquet one handed.
In possibly more promising news, I think it's just a software problem with Connor - he stayed up for a couple of hours running off the Puppy Linux live CD I made while I copied the essential data from the C:/ drive onto my secondary drive. (People talk about Ubuntu live CDs, but unless things have changed, they're terribly slow to boot compared to Puppy. Ubuntu probably makes a better permanent operating system (more packages, for starters), but Puppy is nice if you just want a quick alternative for whatever reason - if nothing else, the installer's a quarter of the size for a full GUI interface.) There were a few strange occurrences, - windows disappeared into the aether, and at one point the screen turned entirely black except for the semi-unresponsive taskbar - but I have a feeling those were more from Linux being glitchy than the hardware failing in some fundamental fashion.
The "Possibly more promising" stems from the fact that the prospect of re-constructing Connor fills me with little-to-no enthusiasm. I've uninstalled the apps that I could stand to lose and he's still unstable, which means it's a program I actually want. A fresh install of Windows takes me days. (Though hopefully it would be less so, this time, because the media files can stay on their current drive.) |
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[Mar. 13th, 2009|12:27 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | My So-Called Life, The Ataris | ] |
Continuing with the I name my computers strange things theme.
I was chatting with Andrew Patterson the other day, while we waited for class to start. He mentioned that he'd just been to purchase Office 2007 for his computer.
Andrew: Do you buy Windows for your computers?
Mm: Well, let me think. Bianca had a hacked copy for a while, but I didn't like it, so I purchased a fresh copy of XP Pro and installed it. Connor has XP Home. Tristian had two versions, since he started out with XP Home and I upgraded to Pro. ...So I guess... Yes, for all of them?
Andrew: Are these your siblings, or just random people?
Mm: ...No. These are my computers.
Andrew: ... ... ...
...Wow, that makes two people I know who actually purchase Windows. The first being me.
...In related news, I had a terrifying hour or so today when I thought I'd left Bianca somewhere at the mall and she'd been lifted. Luckily, I got home to find she'd been sitting on my bedroom floor the whole time. Sigh...
And now, I should have been in bed two hours ago. Sleep time.
-Mmaster |
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| I can't do my Latin homework because the scanner's broken. :(. |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|08:41 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Pride (In The Name of Love), U2 | ] |
Bianca now has more memory than she knows what to do with.
Literally. Windows XP apparently only recognises up to three gigabytes of memory, and she now has four.
This amuses me for reasons I cannot define.
Next job on the list is copying the contents of her hard drive to an external, deleting the Windows partition, and re-installing.
That can wait for a bit, though. I won't have time this weekend, most likely, but I'll find time eventually.
-Mmaster |
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[Jun. 11th, 2008|11:03 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Maybe I'm Wrong, Blues Traveller | ] |
Okay. I'm up far too late again. But I think I've now set up automated daily backups of most of the key files that are important to me.
'Course, they're running off Tristian, who ain't exactly a powerhouse - he's more been relegated to 'server' from the standpoint of 'random spare machine I had lying around'. He is now:
* An SVN server
* A media server
* A backup server (though half the backups are actually being saved to an external drive on Connor, Tristian's in charge)
* Possibly some other things, if I've forgotten them
Wheee...
-Mmaster |
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[Jun. 9th, 2008|12:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Still Alive, Portal | ] |
I have a drive!
Note to self: If the BIOS can read the drive, but Windows won't acknowledge it, try:
Control Panel -> Administration Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management
It appeared as an uninitialised drive in the list - I right clicked on the left section section to wake it up, then the right section to start it formatting.
The floppy drive's still not working, though...
-Mmaster
EDIT: The drive is now formatting. Veeeery slowly. *twiddles thumbs* I realised, belatedly, that I probably should have done the Quick Format option, but for the first formatting of the drive, doing a Proper Job (TM) seemed like a good idea. |
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[Jun. 8th, 2008|09:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Age Of Reason, John Farnham | ] |
Today, before heading over to Avalon to visit my grandmother, I took a quick shopping trip to Capitol Square to pick up some bits and pieces for my assorted computers. Two XP SP2 CDs, one for Bianca and one for my next desktop whenever I get around to that. And a new hard disk and floppy drive for Connor, because his hard disk's nearly full and he refuses to read from his floppy drive.
Several hours with a screwdriver later, I'm still exactly where I started. Windows flat-out refuses to acknowledge the SATA drive. This is doubly irritating, because the BIOS notices it. And, freakishly, I'm fairly sure that the first time I plugged it in, I got a "Windows has detected new hardware" bubble for it - but it never appeared in My Computer after that. Gah.
The floppy drive, meanwhile, despite having pretty green lights, says "Please insert a disk into drive A:" even when known-good disks are inserted. I don't remember any read sounds at all, so I think it's continuing its belief in the PHANTOM FLOPPY DRIVE (dun Dun DUNNN!).
I had a temporary, but very real, fear that Connor was going to end up in this situation:
After I'd declared myself defeated and resolved to shut it up and take him to Brinton tomorrow, he stopped booting, except for expressive beeps. A couple of times, I didn't even get that. After some pulling and prodding, however (I unplugged and replugged the RAM and video card), he booted again, and I breathed somewhat more easily.
*prods Connor* Why are you doing this, you idiot?!?
-Mmaster |
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| Yes, I anthromophise my computers. You didn't know this? |
[Mar. 1st, 2008|10:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  confused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | A Laptop Like You, Jonathan Coulton | ] |
What the HELL, Bianca?
She was telling me that it was 11:45 in the morning. How she got to that conclusion, I have no idea - though I have a nasty feeling that jumping between operating systems tends to freak her out a little.
She's Bianca, because she's pretty, and she knows it. Unfortunately, she thinks that "Being pretty" forgives her all transgressions - tends to mean she has lots of quirks that everyone brushes off as "Part of her charm".
...Or, y'know, just say "It's your own fault for having a Mac, and doubly so for running Windows on said Mac."
Now I need to go do the washing up and then crash. It may not be nearly midnight (or nearly noon), but I should have a bath before bed as well, so it will probably be around midnight before I get there. Stupid Monkey Island, being addictive!
-Mmaster |
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[Dec. 26th, 2007|12:14 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  dorky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Dance Floor Anthem, Good Charlotte | ] |
Does anyone have any bright notions about the laptop market at the moment? Tristian's on his last legs (and has been for some time), so I'm giving reasonably serious thought to splurging on a replacement. However, I suck with hardware and thus don't know enough to figure out what I should actually be getting.
* Weight is the primary issue. I'd cut a fair bit off the specs of the screen for something small and light (I really don't need a 17" widescreen). Tristian's 2.3 kg, I believe; I certainly wouldn't want anything heavier. However, I'd still prefer a full-sized keyboard - preferably without eccentricities (such as my wireless one, that has the function keys arranged in groups of threes rather than fours).
* It doesn't need to be massively powerful, but at least mid-range specs would be nice. It'd primarily be used for web browsing while listening to music. However, there'd be the occasional DVD or game of FlatOut 2 (or similar). Also, assuming it lasts through to 2009 (which it'd better), I'll be back to the student grind, likely requiring several Office documents open simultaneously - so it needs to be capable of that.
* A decent (160GB+, preferably) hard disk.
* I don't want Vista. At least at this point. I can download XP from MSDN if I have to, but first preference is it comes with XP in the first place. Or (as in the case of Chris' laptop) the laptop starts with Vista but the recovery disk's XP. :P.
* Preferably, it doesn't have half a million "Oh, we'll use our own software for that"s, like controlling the wireless card and the like, though that can be worked around if necessary.
* It needs to be fairly sturdy. I try to take care of my tech, but sometimes accidents happen. And I'm a veritable Black Thumb when it comes to hardware.
* Tristian's a Sony, and I've had a fair number of issues with him, hardware-wise (though that may be treatment). I'm tempted by the idea of a triple-boot Mac, but am honest enough to realise that paying the MacTax to make my life harder is ludicrous. Other than that, I have no real experience with assorted brands; I think Mum has had trouble with her Dell laptop at one point or another, but I may be making that up.
Does anyone have any bright suggestions? Recommendations? Extra points that I should be considering?
-Mmaster |
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[Nov. 11th, 2007|06:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Falls On Me, Fuel | ] |
Connor's hard drive is currently being copied onto my external hard drive, via the USB enclosure I bought today. The question is now whether I'll ever be able to get it slotted back in. And whether I remember which way around the assortment of cables go.
I also bought a cheap case fan to replace the previous case fan that wasn't working for some reason. This one has the additional joy of a slightly longer cable, that makes it easier to deal with. That brings him back up to four fans; one on the motherboard, one on the powerbox, and two on the case.
Once the copy finishes, I'll plug him all back together, and then I'll probably ask Dad to take him to the shop on Monday.
In other news, Chris and I watched three episodes of Spooks today. And will probably watch the rest, one episode a night, after work. I'd forgotten how awesome much of it is; I hadn't watched much outside of the first season in a long time.
-Mmaster |
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[Nov. 11th, 2007|01:00 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Expo '86, Death Cab For Cutie | ] |
Chris visited, and we did a little troubleshooting on Connor.
* Removing the RAM makes him emit an expressive continuous beep. So, the inbuilt speaker is still working.
* Replacing it silences the beep. So it probably isn't fried RAM that's the problem.
* There's a little LED on the motherboard that's supposed to shift from "Flashing" to "On" if the machine successfully completes POST. It was still flashing when I wandered back five minutes or so later.
* Chris' best guess is a fried video card. Except we can't figure out how to pull it out to try booting without it; there's some form of locking mechanism on the seating that means the card won't come out easily. The manual doesn't tell you how to unlock it, just what type of card it takes.
At that point, I think it's probably a matter of taking it to the shop and saying "What the Hell have you done to my machine?!?" or words to that effect.
However, before I do that, I want to back up the contents of the hard drive, just in case. Unfortunately, I can't just plonk the drive into Mum's machine; it's an IDE drive, and to the best of my observational skills, her computer only seems to have SATA support. (I was amazed to discover that Connor supported SATA - I never knew that.) So, would anyone happen to have an IDE hard disk to USB case around anywhere, that I could borrow sometime in the next couple of days? ...I could always head to Capitol (and probably will, if all else fails), but fixing him's going to cost a reasonable amount already, so adding extra expenditure to the bill doesn't grab me very much. But ideally I'd like to have my computer back in one piece (not open on the floor), as soon as is feasibly possible - so it's something of a balancing act.
And now, it's quarter past one. I've decided to jig dog training, and arranged to meet up with Chris to watch the second season of Spooks - we watched the first one today. So, sleep is in order, I believe.
-Mmaster |
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[Nov. 4th, 2007|01:52 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Get It Get It, Scissor Sisters | ] |
Hahaha! I win, iTunes! Mine is an evil laugh!
Given I'm running out of space on my iPod, I decided to switch it to "Only sync checked items". I unchecked a bunch of songs, and then went through the playlists and unselected the playlists that contained only unchecked songs.
The next time I plugged my headphones in, I discovered that half the songs I was expecting to be present were not on the gadget. After digging around for a while, I twigged: it only syncs ones that are on the checked playlists, if you choose that option... So all my random songs that aren't actually on playlists because I listen to them by album? They weren't being copied. Sigh. (The way I'd expected it to behave was for it to still copy the songs across if they were checked, but to not have unchecked playlists in the menu.)
So, my solution? To create a Smart Playlist with these rules:
* No rule to match
* Limit to 10000 items (I only have ~5000 tracks)
* Match only checked items
* Live updating
I called it "Checked", and added it to the ones to be imported. So it acts as the catch-all, to make sure that the files I want transferred actually are.
It's probably obvious, but it made me feel accomplished. :P.
-Mmaster
PS: I will probably get one of the larger iPods, eventually; but not right now. Aside from the "random $350 down the drain" thing, they're incompatible with the way Connor's set up at the moment (require XP SP2, and I don't want to download it, along with requiring iTunes 7.4, when I want to leave Connor on version 7.1), and Tristian only has a 40 Gig hard drive. So it'll have to wait till well after I get a new laptop, if/when that happens. |
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| 'Course, I think Tristian might be due for a reinstall regardless... |
[Oct. 13th, 2007|10:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | A Match Made In Texas, Her Space Holiday | ] |
I'd never really twigged to how much faster Connor is than Tristian.
I mean, I knew that Connor had roughly twice the RAM. But the point was, I don't think I'd ever sat the two down next two each other and tried to perform the same task.
Well, admittedly, I didn't do precisely that this time, either. However, I came closer to doing so than previously.
I installed NetBeans to Tristian the other day. I don't think I'm lying when I say it took roughly an hour to finish the installation (I don't remember precisely). Running it on him is, I've decided, more or less a lost cause; if you happen to alt-tab away from the program, you're waiting five minutes or more for the screen elements to come back after you return.
Connor, however? Two minute installation, one minute program load, and relatively instantaneous responsiveness.
Now I just need to not get distracted by the Internet while trying to work. 7PM deadline with an undefined task. Fun fun fun.
-Mmaster |
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| You rearranged my life - all I gotta say is "I must have done something right"... |
[May. 19th, 2007|07:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Must Have Done Something Right, Reliant K | ] |
Chris says: "I went to bed not long after that, but couldn't switch off. I lay there for a bit, then got up and dragged Trent and Bill into my room, and tested each"
Chris says: Progsoc is getting to you know i can tell..
Shoulder Angel says: *One eyebrow raised*
Chris says: it's ok, I have the same problem, waking up at night wanting to pull apart old machines and get them working, really ;)
Shoulder Angel says: Heh
Shoulder Angel says: Trent's probably going to be thrown out, actually
Shoulder Angel says: I was going to try and install something onto Bill to act as a file server, but he's so old that if I put a Puppy Live CD into him while booting, he spits it out again *eyeroll*
Chris says: umm Bootdisk for linux ? :p
Chris says: lol
Shoulder Angel says: Want to come over and play with half dead machines some time? :P
Shoulder Angel says: Trent has been pulled apart - I'm trying to decide if any of his stuff is useful for Bill
The project that came to me that caused me to drag out the machines in the first place was, as I said, to get Bill acting as some sort of file server. A sort of central point to access back ups and/or media files. Even when I first thought of it, there were a number of problems that sprung to mind immediately (and no obvious solution has been presented). The most important ties between the fact that
* I have no idea what I'm doing, and
* Bill is so old there's a lot he really can't deal with at all well.
However, it was more one of those "I have these machines sitting in the corner. Why are they still sitting in the corner?" feelings.
The way he's currently set up (Windows) would be ideal for the task (all of the other machines on the network are Windows, so it would merely be a case of sharing the entire hard drive and running with that), except for the partition restrictions - Yay 30GB per partition. There's also the fact that I only have a couple of spare hard drives; he came with a 4GB drive, but we added an extra 20GB later on. There's also Trent's 2GB drive.
Having put various pieces of Trent's hardware into Bill, I can say that:
* I'm fairly sure Trent's RAM is fried (which is probably why he is/was not booting); you put it into Bill, and Bill doesn't boot - take it out, and he does.
* Trent's hard disk is fine. Though it appears the Win95 install that's taking up half its space is corrupted.
* Bill can only handle two hard disks at a time. Or at least, with his current cabling. Oddly, the one you'd expect to be designated for a secondary CD drive is the one that you have to plug the second hard drive into; and I haven't found anything happy to exist on the one that you'd expect to be the secondary hard disk.
* I haven't been able to prove that Trent's CD-ROM and Floppy drives work or don't. Plugging the floppy drive in gives the literal result "Lights are on but nobody's home". The reading light stays on (green) while the power's running, but the OS doesn't detect the drive. The CD-ROM requires some extra cable that I haven't been too enthusiastic about pulling out of the working parts of Bill.
* Bill's CD-ROM drive motor is nearing the end of its life - eject the tray and it gets halfway then does its best to pull itself back in, except
* If you insert a Puppy Linux CD in during boot, he spits it back out and refuses to read it. I haven't got around to testing with any other discs as yet.
...Hey, it's better than fighting with C code. "Why am I using a pointer to a pointer to a pointer? ...Because it won't compile if I use any other combination, that's why!"
-Mmaster |
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| I have speakers. They make sound. This is good. |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|11:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | gleeful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Take On Me, A-Ha | ] |
Connor has had several issues.
* His powerbox fan doesn't appear to be spinning. Joy.
* He believes that folders are really some type called "acpConvert", because I installed some stupid freeware program that hacked my right-click menu.
* He can't play DVDs in 5.1 sound, because his codecs were essentially incompatible with all of the media players I had installed. ...And he was incapable of playing subtitles.
Today I spent several hours downloading a different set of codecs (50MB over a 3KB/second transfer rate is less than fun). And then quite some time grovelling under the desk (and, seperately, behind the computer) to mark each of the speaker cables correctly, since I was sick of having no idea which one was which. After installing said codecs (and tinkering a little with the settings), I discovered to my delight that both audio-visual problems were solved: I have subtitles, and surround sound.
Unfortunately, the tradeoff is that the stereo sound is negated - so I only get the sound out of 5.1 and not 9.1. *pouts* But it's still awesome.
I skimmed through a variety of different movies to verify this: The Wizard Of Oz, The Princess Bride, Walk The Line, Rent... I freaked out Rob by randomly quoting lines from Rent songs at him without any context.
Life is good.
Parents and I went to the Dog Training Intructors' Christmas party. I just got home now. I drank most of three jugs of Coke, though Kathleen helped a little. I don't think I'm going to get to sleep tonight.
I think I'll go and skim another movie or seventeen to revel in the glory of sound and subtitles. Or maybe just read till I'm no longer hyper.
-Mmaster |
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[Nov. 13th, 2006|06:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | calm | ] |
| [ | music |
| | It's Too Late, Evermore | ] |
Tristian's working very hard at suicide. Sigh. I'll have to take him to the Sony shop tomorrow and see what it will take to get him fixed. Vaguely more annoying is that despite my best attempts, when I was pulling him apart I lost one of the screws to CompSoc's floor. I found ten cents while looking for it, though.
Today's exam was scary, in that it was one of those ones that feels much easier than it should be - and it makes me afraid that there was some major trick in half the questions that I just didn't notice.
There was probably something else I wanted to write, but I'm sure it'll wait.
-Mmaster |
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| Put that thing back where it came from or so help me! Get thing away from me you guys! |
[Nov. 3rd, 2006|11:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Put That Thing Back Where It Came From, Monsters Inc | ] |
Today I accomplished very little. But I had a good day. I'm tossing up as to which is more essential.
I lazed around at home, then did a handful of domestic tasks before heading in to Uni. I tinkered and procrastinated, accomplishing nothing despite my best intentions. Chris and I went shopping; he bought some RAM, I bought two fans for Connor - and then we went and picked up some groceries for me, since I had no milk and stuff (I later realised that I should also have purchased dog food).
We hung out in the ProgSoc room for a while, then he came over to help me install said fans. As I've publicly admitted multiple times, my knowledge of hardware is minimal; I don't really trust myself near the inside of a computer case. Not that that really stops me, sometimes (as Bill and Trent, my two old, moderately non-working machines can attest)... But I mostly have the sense to stay away from things that I'm liable to break.
They didn't supply particularly useful screws with the fans - about a centimetre long, with no nut. We skimmed the laundry shed for potential replacements, and ended up picking some less than perfect alternatives. I'll have to head to the hardware store at some point (probably after parents get back). Meanwhile, there are multiple long screws using blutack to hold them on and protect people's fingers from the sharp points.
I have this feeling that Connor's going to end up on one of those tech support rant groups with the poor tech saying "And the fans were held on with blutack. Blutack!!!!"
After the fans had been attached, and Connor was verified to still turn on, we went and played Desert Demolition. It's such a short game. We were tempted to drag out Bill and Trent, but they were hidden behind a massive pile of boxes - stuff from the offices of both my parents, since Dad retired and Mum's contract finished just before they left. We decided we were afraid that if we tried to move the machines behind the boxes, that something would fall on us.
Pizza for dinner (Yay for actually having food in the house).
And then Monsters Inc., because I've had random songs Mike pipes up with playing through my head for the past couple of days.
At this point, he was looking totally out of it, so I sent him home. I hope he gets some reasonable sleep. I think the fact that he's not sleeping well is contributing to the fact that he's sick.
On that note, I probably should go crash, as well. I'm mostly better, except for the cough that remains, but lack of sleep definitely doesn't help the process.
-Mmaster |
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[Sep. 19th, 2006|05:45 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  irritated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The dog barking | ] |
Dammit, I broke Photoshop Elements. Every time I try and "Save for Web", it gives me an error message. *grumbles*
1. Restart program (Failed)
2. Restart machine (Failed)
3. Reinstall program (Worked, thank goodness) (Gave the illusion of working, then gave same error) (Apparently it just hates half the files; I can copy-paste the image and it saves. Sigh...)
4. Yell at machine (Failed, but made me feel better)
5. Reinstall program, ensuring that any relevant registry keys are deleted
6. Cry
7. Give Connor the reformat I've been threatening for a while
Let's hope it doesn't get to 7, eh?
-Mmaster |
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