I Think I Heard a Crash…
I think there is one quote that is most apropriate when talking about my adventures with computers:
“Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ‘em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp…”
- King of Swamp Castle, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The first computer rolled off a moving truck and came home with a big dent and water damage. The second one had a major hard drive crash due to a couple really nasty viruses plus the modem card exploded. I reverted the whole thing back to the last day that I had backed up the system and then exactly a year later, the same thing happened again.
According to Storagepipe Solutions, 1 in 12 computers will experience a hard drive crash. I don’t think I was polled for those statistics. As you can see, I had one crash very literally and one crash twice figuritively. To most people, lightning doesn’t strike with such tenaciousness. Also, it happens to also be that sometimes when you go to rely on your backed up material, it is not always there or hadn’t updated properly. There is not really a way to know for sure. It is not like bread where you can poke your head in to check the progress of it or know that it is done aside from the timer. More often than not, however, it is just not knowing how to do it properly.
Online Backup and Email Archiving is the way to go for some folks, especially if the information is critical, the programs disks no longer exist, and a myriad of other reasons. In fact, the computer may even not exist in a usable state, like in my history. In fact, there are a few individuals I know that have vast collections or are in the curatorial field who no longer have records of many items because the sole hard drive that a particular lot number was on had a major crash. The photos and historical documentation is gone forever, or at least the database that matched the item and the documents is gone, leaving a mess for someone. They would have to go through numbered boxes where the numbers no longer mean a thing. I think I am going to be wise and do it sooner than later before history…especially yours…is lost!
Uncovered Gem: The Barretts of Wimpole Street
I love the movies of the 1930s. There were some pretty psychological stories before the studio codes went into effect. One of the more mainstream films that I had never seen was the Barretts of Wimpole Street. The story of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and Robert Browning didn’t immediately appeal to me in the first few scenes, as I thought it was going to be a maudlin love story (or a chick flick). Norma Shearer is supposed to be deathly sick and looks beautiful and perfectly made up…that is one of the suspensions of disbelief one must have in watching older films. As the film went on I became very enthralled.
The story is not just about Elizabeth and Robert but it is more about how a controlling person can crush someone, and even snuff the life out of someone one professes to love. One really pulls for Elizabeth, Robert, and Henrietta. In real life, Mr. Barrett forbid his twelve children to marry. In the film, he doesn’t quite get redeemed in the end. That may have been a whole other movie and not the purpose of the tale. Here are two clips. The first features Norma Shearer as Elizabeth, Charles Laughton as Mr. Barrett, and Frederic March as Robert Browning. The second also feature Maureen O’Hara.
The movie also serves as a step back in time to fashons that suggest the 1840s in London as an added bonus.
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