What an adventure. I can't remember a more stressful Christmas. But I'll spare you the details and get right to the computer stuff (unless you also read my Haphazard Musings blog, in which case I will expound on the details there at some point).

The first live test of the UPS (uninterruptable power supply for those not in the know) took place on Christmas Day (December 25 for those who are completely out of the loop). The short story is, I was working on a mock prototype - which is really a real prototype, but for a fake project - to present in a prospective job interview as an example of my work. I worked on this thing for three solid days and experienced probably the worst stress of my life (certainly evoking some very distraught emotional responses). The only thing that could have made things worse is if my computer had lost power in the middle of my work.

Having had quite enough of the intermittent power drops that come with living in this apartment, I recently installed a UPS (as you know if you have been reading this blog). Sure enough, while I was deep in my work - probably in one of the most critical moments of the project I was working on - the power in the shop went out. But this time was different.

The computer stayed on!

I didn't lose a thing, but I did panic a little. I had no idea how long the UPS could supply power (I still don't), so I began saving all my unsaved work. But, because I was scrambling in haste, thinking I only had a few minutes of power, I saved at least one file in an unrelated directory (and subsequently had to move it later, but that's another story).

The point of this story is that the UPS did it's job and saved my ass! My wife, who became aware of the power outage after our roommate informed her of the occurance (our roommate is the catalyst for many outages, since her refrigerator, microwave oven, toaster oven and who knows what else are all on the same circuit as my computers) anticipated that I might be going through the roof as a result. The power came back on before I had to shut down, and my wife came out to my workshop with a concerned look on her face and asked, "are you screaming?" I responded, simply, "nope - I have a UPS, now." She's the one who bought it for me, so she's the one to thank, but she said, "thank God!" Perhaps she just doesn't want to take the credit.

Time is a blur regarding the past few days, so I don't remember if it was that night or the following night, but I was still up hacking away around 3:00 am when a huge thunderstorm kicked up. That is rather unusual for this area. But, despite the UPS/surge suppressor, I thought it was best to shut down all the computers. After growing up in the Sonoran Desert and surviving many thunderstorms, I know better than to leave sensitive electronic equipment plugged in and turned on during the storms - including answering machines. So, down the computers went.

Except for my main PC.

I initiated shutdown on the Mac and it turned itself off almost before I could switch the monitor over to the PC (which is a simple matter of flipping a switch). I then initiated a shutdown on the PC. One has to wonder about these marvlous Microsoft Windows operating systems. It took forever to shut down. In fact, the storm was literally over (as far as the lightning part) before the computer finally shut itself off.

Anyway, I am now operating with more confidence, knowing that power failures are no longer going to result in lost work. My next step - and I may do this today - is to install a backup hard drive in my PC and mirror my data.

Speaking of data recovery... I reported in the blog recently that I performed a data recovery operation for a friend of mine who had an ailing system drive. He has since reported back to me that the recovery operation was 100% successful and that his system is now running smoothly and quickly "like the day [he] bought it" and that I "exceeded all [his] hopes." That's what I like to hear! It was a very gratifying feeling.

Last Wednesday (a week ago, already? Seems like yesterday) I went to the annual "junk exchange" at the Home Brew Robotics Club, hoping to get rid of some stuff. Instead, I was only able to unload one item (in trade for a CMUcam!) and came back with another additional item: a 20GB hard drive. Whoopie. Anyway, I have the hard drive connected to my PC, now, and it works fine. But, the thing is five years old, so I won't trust it to critical data, but at least now I have something to "play" with when experimenting with disk configurations or data recovery tools. I am half thinking about doing data recovery on the side for people - affordable data recovery - once I get my system all backed up.

I have another computer that I keep trying to use to learn Linux on and to set up as a replacement for the Linux server that I have now, but I just never seem to find the time. And the thing about the Linux server is that it just runs and runs and runs. If it dies, I won't know how to fix it. The thing stays on for months at a time, and I have no idea of its status, etc. In fact, as I sit here writing this, I am wondering if I even remember how to log into it. It is running "headless" (which means it has no monitor attached) and I don't quite remember what I had set up to connect to it (an ssh client somewhere?). And, what's my password?

That's the latest on the Computer Circus front. I have been hitting JavaScript pretty hard the past few days, but nothing really to report there. Just feeling the burn, stressing over the prototype I was making for the job interview. I think I nailed the job interview, by the way, so I may be working again, soon. If that happens, who knows when I'll ever have time to update my blogs any more.

Time will tell.

---

Speaking of time, a very strange thing just happened. I posted this entry to this blog and noticed the time on my computer was two hours behind. What the hell? I have also noticed that since my data recovery effort of a couple weeks ago, the boot up screen for my Windows XP Professional machine no longer says Windows XP Professional - it just says Windows XP - and the image looks old and grainy. Very strange. I have no idea what's going on there. There are bit mites in my machine! Get that backup going!