quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
When I came back home, yesterday evening, my computer was working again.
I have no explaination.
Nekomancer-the-Cyber-Cat probably fixed it...

The hard disk has absolutely no problem.

Windows XP must have had a nasty hiccup.

Now I'd better backup everything, just in case...

The moment an HD blinks on me, I consider it at risk and not really trustworthy. I've been lucky a couple times already with drives that fail, then resurrect long enoguht to back up crucial files, and then die for good.
HDs are relatively cheap today. You can never have too much disk space.

But there is no way to know if the problem didn't just originate from Windows being confused with his system files, after a violent reboot.

I don't want to sacrifice these 30GB unless I have proof that they shouldn't be trusted.

I dunno if i ought to have put this in another thread, but...

I am in the process of choosing my first notebook computer. I am buying this for a three month job in the Grenadines, so the first criteria is that it be durable, as I'll be on all manner of planes, trains, autos and boats.
The second thing I am looking for is a superb display monitor, as I'll be relying on it to display slideshows and sell my photos to a captive audience.
The third objective on my laptop list is that it be able to burn many cd's very quickly. Like 500 in a day.

Any suggestions from the pros oot there?

Apple's all feature durability and superior screens. Panasonic makes a line of tough notebooks. I think Acer does also.

For the CD burning, I would get an add-on external burner. Not sure your criteria, why so many CD's per day? Are they 500 copies of same data or 500 unique discs? If you are making copies, some sort of duplicator system might be worth investing in, one you hook up to the laptop, send the data and it burns, prints and stacks for you... If they are all unique, I would still get an external burner, it's easier to replace if it goes bad than the internal one on the laptop (also you save wear and tear on the laptop internals from all that hot burning you'll be doing.)

The burning is really where I'll be making my $$. I am to be on a ship whit around 700 guests, and at the end of the week as many as 500 of them buy a cd of the pics we have taken. So it really wont be 500 a day, but we'll be burning the midnight cd's on the last night of each week...I was thinking an external'd be the way to go there...

Apple is really what I want, but the price you pay for that quality is a little out of my range...I have a while, but I also have other equipment I'll need to get.

Well, if you can afford the Apple it's the way to go. Maybe an Intel chipped iBook will be out by the time you're ready to part with the cash. I think if you look for any of the rugged, durable laptops where durability is a selling point, you'll find their actual performance specs to be too low for comfort, and the price points to be comparable to an Apple anyway.

thats kinda what I've been noticing.

One thing that sells me on Apple's.... this guy told a story of how his daughter picked up his coffee and poured the whole mug into his Powerbook. He quickly turned it off, held it over the sink to drain it, called tech support. They said let it dry out and turn it back on, so after a few hours he did and it worked just fine. Being on a cruise ship (?) you'll want something that can weather spills....

Yeah...this is the ship I've been assigned to. It's an old one, built in the mid 50's in France...not the most waterproof vessal in the sea, but big enough to do good business on.

It's looking like I'll be scouting out an apple...

looks fantastic.

I am totally stoked, but have a lot of gear to come up with...at least they're paying airfare, room and board...

I've used some Panasonic Toughbooks and they're rugged as hell and amazingly capable. However, they're insanely expensive, and you can definitely get a good ibook for the same or less money.

It's funny, I am kinda a lotek-
I haven't had a new 'puter since '95.

I've been digging things out of the trash since then and making them work, postmortem.

Having a new computer is going to be neat.

quote:

Originally posted by boogerhead:
Yeah...this is the ship I've been assigned to. It's an old one, built in the mid 50's in France...not the most waterproof vessal in the sea, but big enough to do good business on.

It's looking like I'll be scouting out an apple...

Boog; you have read "The Ship & the Storm"; right?
Really, I fucken' mean this...........

LN

I have read it, and know some of the family members that were involved...

Polly Burke is the lady that hired me.

I figger, if it's my time, a fuggin hurricane is the most dramatic way to go out.

but, more importantly, all the photogs survived Mitch.

Just checking, that book scared the shit out of me.

Keep dry

LN

life's too short to be scared of death....

as long as my equipment stays dry I am happy.
My first two weeks will be spent getting certified as a scuba instructor, so my being dry won't be a regular thing...

quote:

Originally posted by electric dragon:
life's too short to be scared of death....

absolutly! I won't pass up a once in a lifetime experience because of the fear...

quote:

Originally posted by electric dragon:
life's too short to be scared of death....

If you are not afraid of death.. then what else is there to be afraid of?