September 23, 2004

Disaster struck!

It was bound to happen... My PC crashed... It happened during an update of Windows XP (SP2 was the update). I ended up reinstalling XP, but to my surprise, XP no longer recognised my E-drive. Now you should know that I have 3 physical harddrives, each un partitioned. After the crash I could still use all 3 harddrives, but after the reinstallation XP no longer could see anything on my E-drive. It considered the drive 'unformatted' and asked me if I wanted to format it. Knowing ofcourse that during the installation I didn't do anything to it, and therefore assuming all data was still there intact, I said 'no'. Strangely XP never asked me if I wanted the E partition reset, neither did it tell me it would do so. Nonetheless I lost my E-drive. I am still trying to recover the data on it but I think it is a loss. It annoys me a lot as it contains a lot of photos, some of which I hadn't backed up yet. I didn't consider backing it up necessary as it was a separate drive and XP should have left it alone... 'should have'... but it didn't... *sigh*
Surprisingly support does answer my emails, but ofcourse after giving them a full detailed description of what happened, up to every single click, in chronological order, including information on what kind of windows CD I used etc, they still come back with a reply like I am a moron! They asked me if I used a recovery disk, because those disks format every harddrive on your system. That was all they said... So basically they hadn't read my email, so I asked them to cut the crap and just get to the point. I told them I'm not a moron as I gave them every single piece of info they would ever need or even not need! (short of my Credit card details ofcourse) I asked them if they could just tell me how to fix the problem and not try to hold me off with useless questions that they already have the answer of.
We'll see what happens...

Mean time, I still need to learn how to make something of my weblog. I want to insert pictures and add menus etc. If there is anyone that can give me some advice, hints or tips I would be very grateful!

Some good news: My holiday is only 1, well... actually only half a day away. On sunday I am going to Shanghai, China! I can't wait! I'm sure I can make some lovely photos there.

Mean time I found a very good blog: java-jive.blogspot.com
The images are amazing!!! When I find out how, I will add that one to my links section...

September 16, 2004

Closer to freedom...

Well, the week's almost over. Tomorrow the weekend will start, can't wait! LAst week has been most exhausting. At work I found out that some data had to be delivered to the supplier. An initial quick calculation showed that I wouldn't be able to produce the required info before the end of the month, as it would normally take a month, but surprsingly I managed to get most data togetehr in a day! Sometimes I'm even amazing myself!!! Though the work isn't finished yet, I have good hopes of rounding off my tasks before I go on holiday.

Ahh, sweet holiday... Just a bit more than a week and I'll be off to Shanghai. 2 weeks of nice food, and sightseeing. I can't wait!!! I still need to sort out some stuff this weekend though.

I managed to sell one of my guitars last tuesday. The guy came round to buy a Les Paul for his 11 year old son. He himself plays quite well, so he knew his stuff. He tried it out and I think it was actually adequate. Then he saw my other guitar, which I was also selling, and he tried that, just for fun. And he was sold immediately. He loved that guitar, and rightly so! I was actually quite sad to sell it as I loved that guitar as well. I was hoping I could sell the Les Paul, but in the end he paid more for the Yamaha (not a standard one, but custom made!). Though I shouldn't complain, I do miss it. I don't play very often, but that guitar was sweeeet... I liked it way better than teh Les Paul. Well, in the end it was just more practical. I mean, I will need the money and I can't take it with me when I want to move to Shanghai. I have a lot of junk to get rid of, so I should just let it go I guess. After all, to me it is more important to go to Shanghai than to keep a guitar I hardly play...

Soon I will try to post some pics, but first I have to figure out how to go about that best...



September 13, 2004

Where to start...?

Ok, this is my very first blog, so please be gentle...
For a while now I have wanted to create a Weblog, and I think this service allows me to do so. I wish I found out about this 4 years ago, when I started working in England!
During those 4 years a lot has happened that I would have like to share with you. Tough luck I guess, but it is possible that I still come up with some of the "adventures" I had.

Today I realised that I really need a holiday, and I mean REALLY really, because when I left I started making that sound Islamic women always make when they celebrate something. Come to think of it... it does sound rather much like my phone on my desk at work...
Well, 13 days left, and I'll be in Shanghai! Just for holiday this time, but I do plan to go there permanently. I'd love to work and live there for a few years.

I hope those typhoons and hurricanes are gonna stop sometime soon. Taiwan is still being pestered by one, and Southern China is suffering as well, not to mention Japan... Shanghai isn't suffering too much, but there's plenty of rain at the moment. It better be gone when I get there!!!

Well, it isn't much for my first entry, but I'm still reading up on all the tricks I can do with this weblog (sorry, I'm a bit of a website/weblog virgin...), more importantly, I'm hungry and I'm gonna get some food!