:: The Wendy House ::

Normal service will resume in mid October

W.

My laptop is empathizing with my health…   …after I pressed the power button this morning…  …first it ‘whirred’ reminiscent of an electric ’saw’…   ..then this is what it said to me in a small font, centre screen… 

operating system not found

Dad knowingly said ‘the bearings on your hard drive have ‘gone”

Doh.  Lost my bearings…

Wendy

<boring entry>

Initial set-up:

• old desktop replacement HP laptop runnng XP SP2 Professional (Tinkerbell).
• combined wireless base-station router (gateway?) connected to a DSL modem.

Problem space:

• Recently Tinkerbell started making disturbing ‘whirring’ noises intermittently. Scared the kitties. Spooked me. A ‘tap’ on the side stops it.. …but its a mystery…
• Tinkerbell could provide a useful resource on trip to the UK, homes with wireless networks and limited access to PC’s…

Requirements:

• Back-up digital music & photographs ‘outside’ the laptop.
• Storage accessible over wireless network (don’t want to plug it into my laptop).
• Easily add a photo-quality printer to the Network.
• Cheaper than replacing Tinkerbell.
• More storage than I currently need.
• No complex labeling and filing systems to manage (e.g. burning and maintaining a complex CD catalogue).
• Opportunities beyond my & the kitties current imagination…

The solution is not immediately clear to the the kitties and I.

Research:

• Searching online stores. Reading descriptions of Network thingy’s. Trying to work out what those descriptions meant and if they were good for the kitties and I.
• Verified research by asking specific questions of a store assistant (Fry’s).

Implementing the solution

• Purchase a network storage drive with printer-server (photograph attached).
• Follow instructions. Everything set-up ok… …then…
• changed the name of my remote storage folder…. ….things got too messy to describe here… …in time, i managed to ‘recover’.
• Searched XP help for ‘Back-up’. It wasn’t helpful. Later discovered it would have been helpful if I’d typed ‘backup’.
• 3hrs copying files from laptop to the remote storage - I havent got much ’stuff’ yet!

Now Tinkerbell can ‘pop its clogs’ any old time. I can save for a light-weight, pretty, kitty-fur-repellant, replacement laptop. A small object of desire rather than a whirring functional brick!

Meanwhile, the brick will come to the UK with me. That means you’ll get more ‘verbose’ blog entries than if I used my phone…. Hooray! After all, it is all about you.

<boring entry finished>