October 27, 2009

Reason #58 Why the human body is superior to the computer.

I’ve been feeling pretty awful lately — a bad headache, a low-grade fever, nausea. Yesterday, since it wasn’t a teaching day, I took the day off. I stayed home in bed and slept. Between naps, I ate pasta, drank ginger ale, and watched youtube clips from the Big Bang Theory. (My celebrity crush used to be Dana Carvey, but now it’s Jim Parsons.)

This morning, I woke up feeling better, able to tackle a long day of classes and meetings. Before I left the house, I switched off my laptop, figuring I’d let it rest for the day.

When I came home, I switched on my computer, went to check a document, and realized that once again, ALMOST ALL MY FOLDERS WERE EMPTY. Unlike the human body, the computer does not heal itself.

Once again, I pulled all the data from the back-up on my external hard drive — and then called technical support. The first two people I talked to didn’t know what was going on, but then I talked to someone who seemed to have a good guess. I told him that the only folders that weren’t deleted were folders I’d created recently, and he said it was most likely a permissions problem. So we tried changing the permissions on all the newly restored folders.

And now I’m typing with my fingers crossed.

6 comments:

YourFireAnt said...

Hmm. I've fixed computers by letting them rest. Stereos too. Maybe you didn't let them rest long enough. The guy I once lived with and I discovered that when our turntable [look that one up, youngsters] conked out, if we put it into a closet for awhile, when we took it out again it would be fine. Later on, it worked for computers too. I don't know about laptops or wireless.


You'll be glad to know, the word verification is Conat

Kyla said...

Oh no! I hope it works out.

Elias Alfred McQuaid IV said...

sounds like a virus

jo(e) said...

I keep telling you, Elias -- MACS DON'T GET VIRUSES!

BerryBird said...

I'm definitely with you about Jim Parsons -- he's dreamy.

Anonymous said...

Macs don't get viruses, you just have to replace them every year or so.