That (below) was, as I said, the main reason for neglecting my blog.
One other reason is releated to the fact that I've finally ditched Windows.
It's taken some doing, and it hasn't been an unmitigated success, of which more later, but the deed is now done.
About a million years ago, I used to have a Commodore Amiga, and whilst I was by no means ever a "techie", I used to have a bit of an idea what I was doing.
Then, after a about 10 or 12 years, Commodore finally pulled the rug out from underneath the Amiga community.
I think they actually went bust, but old Amiga fans will know that they were pretty unspectacular when it came to promoting the BEST home PC of the time, and if they were similarly proficient elsewhere in the business... well p***-ups and breweries come to mind.
But all that was a lo-o-o-ong time ago, and after getting some old gear from work, I knew I would one day replace the average and grossly over-priced OS from the Microsoft stable.
You see, not only was I an Amiga owner, but I'm also a Yorkshireman... and we are, shall we say... er... frugal.
In the dim and distant past was PD, or public domain software, which was available for all kind of games, tools, games, applications, games, creative software, games and indeed, if you looked hard enough, even games.
This was all written by spotty 15 year-olds with a degree in high-level programming from the University of Sitting-in-me-bedroom-24-hours-a-day, and it kept well-adjusted types like mesen* off the streets for longer than was necessarily healthy.
I mean, I could program a bit, but these guys were a godsend to the thrifty.
Of course, you pay a gazillion dollars just for the honour of having MS software fail as if not more often than other software, and I certainly wasn't prepared to fund the Seattle elite any more than I had to.
(Let's just be fair here and applaud Mr. Gates for his genuine philanthropy, which should be recognised and appreciated, but let's not forget, he does own the world, or something!)
So, back to my OS... I knew I was ditching and also the jungle drums suggested that if you ain't gonna buy an AppleMac (Yorkshireman Alert!!!) then why not go Open Source.
LINUX!!!
So, I got myself a set of Mandrake CDs (rather than download on 56K dial-up) and took the plunge.
And then panicked on the installation when it said; you're about to wipe everything - press yes to blow up the world, or something along those lines.
I persevered with Windows for a few more weeks, while in the meantime dusting off some of those long-forgotten brain cells that used to know a bit about computers, and tried to get the lowdown on Linux.
Then, about three weeks before Christmas I came across a Linux Format magazine that came with Red Hat Fedora 6 and step-by-step instructions on loading.
Not only that, but you could initially set up a dual-boot system, in case you forgot to archive something.
So... me and my good lady set a couple of hours aside, and started this new installation...
Only to find out that I hadn't got enough partition space for dual boot, and couldn't remember my admin accesses to change the settings!!!
I HAD to over-write.
GULP!
OK, get everything saved off that I'm likely to want to keep...
Done...
Attempt three.
We did it... we got there... we filled in some of the missing steps in the step-by-step instructions, and hey presto... new Linux OS!!!
Whoopee!!!
Er... hang on... my modem doesn't work.
Turns out, it wasn't a real modem, but a WinModem.
After a bit of swotting, a trip to PC World was called for, and fair dos, they lined me up with a Linux compatibale modem.
Which I plugged in... and... nothing.
For three days I wracked over this, before it finally occurred to me I had entered the wrong phone number!!!
Finally, finally, finally, I put everything right, and as you can see by these two recent posts, I'm back online.
But, as I said... is wasn't a wholly unmitigated success.
I distinctly remember save all my birding database records off as spreadsheets... but I don't as distinctly remember copying them to CD.
Either I've lost the CD... or... erm, oops... I've lost my data.
I fear it's the latter!
Ah well...
Oh yeah... and that same "CD" is the one my email address book is on... so to any of my buddies who read this, and still have my email address... would you kindly send me a message so I can get going again.
Technology... dont'cha jus' love it!
* for the non-Yorkshire fluent, this = myself
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3 comments:
I think I would have understood all that almost as well had it been written in Russian.
My translation would suggest you have done something very complicated with your computer which was much cheaper than simply throwing it away and replacing it. Impressive.
Sounds like you need to get out and replace those bird lists x
I really do... whether I find the elusive CD or not, I need to get out there again!
Welcome back, Dave.
I have a Redhat Linux programme that I keep thinking of trying myself. Been meaning to take the plunge for ages. Might try it on my old laptop one day.
Hope you find your bird lists.
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