October 28, 1999
Dear Everyone:
“Jeannie’s” computer is kaput.
I took Oberon (may he rest in peace) to the computer doctor on
Monday. The doctor called me
on Thursday and reported that he had determined that the problem was
damage in the boot
sector of the
hard drive. Those of you
who know enough about computers know what this means.
For those of you who don’t know enough about computers, this it
computerese for
R.I.P.
The computer can’t boot up if it can’t read the
instructions in the boot sector.
These instructions basically tell the computer how to start
itself up. The doctor was
able to start Oberon with a bootable disk in the A:\ drive, then was
able to see the C:\ drive.
We thought we might be able to salvage the
database that
“Jeannie” uses (used to use) to track her jobs and expenses.
Unfortunately, the database is just the tiniest bit too big to
fit on a diskette.
And attempts to compress the file so we could copy it failed.
The machine kept going to the boot sector to look for
instructions on how to use the compress feature.
At present, Oberon is pretending to be a very large
paperweight in
the west bedroom. In time,
I’ll find a garbage can large enough to accommodate him.
In the meantime, I’m monitoring “Jeannie’s”
email just in case
someone, who doesn’t know that her computer is dead, tries to send her
anything important. So far,
it’s only been family sending stuff I already get on my own ID and print
out for her.
As for getting her a new computer…
“Jeannie” used Oberon for three things:
Solitaire, email and the database.
Since her email is under control, and since recreating the
database will involve a lot of work, she’s not inclined to run out and
buy the first PC she sees.
Instead, she’s researching among her fellow
court reporters,
finding out what they use and which software program might best fit her
needs.
Meanwhile, at my office…
I spent a great deal of last weekend at the office.
By cutting the imports down to smaller, bite-size pieces, and
feeding them to the system one at a time, we managed to avoid the kind
of system crash we suffered the week before.
This is good news, although it may mean I’ll be spending a lot of
quality time with the computer on weekends.
On the plus side, I can read in between feedings.
I actually finished The
Wars of the Roses that “Frankie” sent me for my birthday.
Now it’s on to The Princes
in the Tower.
And I finally managed to complete that “drop
everything and do this” mini-project of drawing a detailed floor plan of
the various Records Centers.
So now I can go back to the somewhat calmer mini-project of figuring out
how many of the 3400 people in our current system actually exist.
Many are actual customers who frequently have boxes checked out
to them. And many are actual
customers who, for whatever reason, have left the Company and darn-well
shouldn’t be getting any boxes checked out to them anymore.
And then there are the “pretend” people that have been made up on
the fly to accommodate some special request.
One example of this is creating a second ID for a special
customer who needs the boxes sent to a different location than usual.
This is OK, but we really need to get a handle on
it before the conversion to the new system.
There’s no point in bringing over people who haven’t been around
for years. What I like about
this mini-project is that it doesn’t require wandering up and down the
length and breadth of the warehouse with a library cart, counting
shelves and boxes. This
project I can do at my desk, with the CD-player headphones on, listening
to the soundtrack from Evita.
Until the next crisis arises, of course.
Everyone have a safe and Happy
Halloween.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |