Sep 1, 2008

Computer Frustrations

I think we've all been there more times than we care to recall, but computer trouble has plagued the last couple of days for me. At the end of April I took it upon myself to buy a new PC to provide more space for projects, replace a dvd drive that didn't work, and to generally just improve my computer experience. Fast forward 4 months and after a weekend of a corruptive virus, a messed up hard drive, and a relatively new monitor literally just shutting off and not turning on again . . . that system is toast.

I was away at a wedding this weekend, also acting as videographer, and the thought of having to deal with my computer when getting back into town was a thorn in my side. Getting back and realizing that none of the anti-virus software had worked, mixed with the monitor just dying led me to scratch the whole system and act on my frustrations impulsively.

So here I sit at another new computer in just months, although I have to say it is beautiful and thanks to Back-to-School sales it was a steal. A few more bucks and someday I'll invest in a Mac strictly as an edit studio, and a PC for the rest.
In all I was only without my computer for about 3 days, but it's a wake up call as to how dependent I am on it. It's not just a personal computer, but it's also a neccesity for my day job to edit and review productions I'm working on. I instantly fall out of the loop when email, msn and facebook aren't an option, and not having my blog or youtube account sends me into creative withdrawl. It's the problem with having a machine that performs so many functions, as soon as it doesn't work you're lost. Had I not been a kid playing with toys at the time, I might be more curious as to how people got by without the internet.

Oh well, everything is getting back to normal now. The new computer has 80GB more space than the previous one, I upgraded to a newer version of my editing software, and rebuilding my iTunes library is actually kind of fun. Yes, I am searching for the glass half full side of this experience.

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

You've got my sympathy...it has happened to me waaay too many times and always at the worst possible moments...if you've got stuff on the toasted hard drive, I've used a pricey ($1,000) service to recover 100GB of files I thought were gone forever (notebook and server and backup drive crashed, all in the same week). Drop me an e-mail if you'd like the contact info.

Good luck, glad to see your glass is half full.

Roxy

Editing Luke said...

Thanks Roxy. I'm lucky because I had the bulk of my essential files backed up on an external hard drive. I bought that purely because of situations like this, and I agree, the computer always fails when you need it most. For as much as the old system messed things up, I've recovered faster than ever before; learning from experience no doubt :)