Things that might keep a person from blogging

And this time it isn’t being (barely) out of the country.

• The database for the ERP package not coming up
• Email problems, at work, that have never happened before
• Saying to yourself, "Even though I’ve solved the user’s problem, I can make her computing experience so much better and safer by applying the latest XP patches. And it will only take a minute." And then spending four hours undoing whatever it was that caused the PC to give you the silicon-equivalent of the middle finger. (Despite this unfortunate experience, I’m still a proponent of applying patches as they become available.)
• Trying to sort out why your Netware Server has decided to quit doing nightly backups. (This seems to have been a conflict with the antivirus package.)
• Trying to sort out why your NT Server has decided to quit doing nightly backups and spending two nights, after hours, with the server down, playing "Let’s try" with Quantum tech support. This came after a previous night’s foray into piddling with things sans Quantum’s help. (I’d eventually — and why I didn’t think of this first place, move the drive from the Novell Server to the NT Box … and everything worked, though the Novell box went backupless. This suggests the drive might be bad and when, the next afternoon, the Quantum tech said, "For the drive in the Novell Server, lets try …" I wasn’t in the mood to play Russian Roulette with our data and I told the guy to close the case. I’ll buy another tape drive. [I'm not upset with the Quantum tech guys -- just the script they have to read from.]
• Reinstalling Windows XP on my work computer. I could tell by the way the morning was going I wouldn’t be at my desk much and decided to do the reinstall. All my data is backed up to an attached drive … except for stuff that isn’t terribly important but I wouldn’t mind keeping anyway, and it is in another partition of the notebook’s drive. I lost all the not-terribly important stuff (though I’d have liked to keep it anyway) and I’m not sure where I made the misstep.
• Wondering what’s up with Tiger Woods. Sure, this only took about five seconds of my time, but it all adds up.
• Going to Home Depot. I have a project going on at home and seem to be incapable of buying everything it is I might need on my first trip to Home Depot. The project, with or without trips to the hardware store, is tying up all my evenings (that aren’t tied up by Quantum tape drives).

You know, there was a lot more of the work-related IT stuff, but I’ll be darned if I can remember it all. It sort of all jumbled together into a giant what?-not-this-now! pile of blur.

[FWIW, I’m posting this from work, at 8:30 p.m., while I wait for a huge file to transfer so I can work on a server. I’ve already taken a Production PC apart and I’ve got an upgrade working on another PC. IT work looks a bit more glamorous on TV, doesn’t it. It isn’t always about finding back doors in software or taking over spy satellites.]

Similar Posts:

• There are two types of hard drives
• Network Storage II