Ed Bilodeau

This weblog had moved: http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/

# Notice (Oct 19/05): So ends my stay here on Blogger. This morning Google implemented an anti-spam 'feature' that forces me to answer a challenge phrase when I want to post to my own blog. No notice of the change, nothing. Worse is that it doesn't even work! I type the phrase, submit, "An error occured", post deleted. Damn you, Google. Chances are I will revive my blog somewhere else, sometime soon. I'll post the new coordinates here as soon as they become available. (BTW, I'm unable to post anything to my RSS stream, so I'd appreciate it if readers could spread the word and ask people to take a look at this notice)

Update (Oct 19/05, ~noon): After a frustrating few hours (and not just trying out alternatives to Blogger), I've decided that this is a good time to take a break from all this. A day? A week? Who knows. But I need to step away from it before I pass a heavy magnet over the whole mess.

Update 2: According to this post, the reason I'm seeing the CAPTCHA (challenge phrase) is that Blogger has classified my blog as spam. Thanks. User for five years and now I'm spam. I searched the Blogger site, but there is no mention of how to get the spam flag turned off. There is also no way of contacting anyone at Blogger. Wow. Spam they say I am, so spam I must be. Maybe it is time to take a break.

Monday, August 01, 2005

# Not what you want to be greeted with on a Monday morning:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

In just over two months, my laptop's hard drive has died once again. Last time, there was "nothing wrong with the hard drive", which translates into "the utility that IBM provided the support desk with did not detect any problems with the hard drive."

Actually, I have a sense that it isn't the hard drive that is kaput, but rather whatever looks for the hard drive that has run into difficulties, especially if I leave my laptop to fall into hibernate mode on its own over the weekend.

I've already made the necessary inquiries: do we have any old desktop PCs laying around? (we do: an old IBM thinksomething that is even older then my 3year old laptop) Can I have a new, reliable PC? (no answer on that, it will prob take months).

My last file backup? Friday morning. (God bless Syncback) Data lost? Yeah, a few photos, and all the stuff I don't back up, like MP3s. My OPML list from my agregator prob isn't up to date either.

Can I access my backup files? Of course not! They are on a file server which can only be accessed from a PC that has gone through the laborious process of having Active Directory install and configured for me. ("They are working on roaming profile, sir, but I don't think they have it working yet.")

While this does complicate my day (and probably my week), it isn't a show-stopper. I can access web/email/webct from the library, and my priority work for today is to correct student projects, which I don't need a computer for.

Ed Bilodeau

Monday, August 01, 2005

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