Office email system continued to be unstable, and even crashed at one point early this week. Technical officer has been really helpful in trying to investigate, isolate and resolve the bug. Keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last of the very disruptive IT bugs.
Two colleagues uncannily said the same thing on two different days: that I need to check my astrological signs to see if there's some cosmic explanation for the IT breakdowns. Personally, I take it as a sign for me to take a break from working hard at the PC :P
Friday, 19 September 2008
Friday, 12 September 2008
Bad Work Week
My affinity with IT or electronic things has hit a new low this week. Firstly, my office PC hanged last Saturday and when I tried to restart it, it keeps saying there's a "disk read error". After rebooting the PC umpteenth times at the IT Helpdesk's advice, the technical officer finally came this Monday. Turns out the entire hard disk crashed. Good news is that the data files in D:\ are recovered; really bad news is that C:\ is corrupted and all files cannot be recovered... and most of my work files all these years are kept there!!
Resigned to the fate that what's lost is lost, I set out to re-do and finish my presentions and papers due this and next week. But...the IT drama continued...I'm unable to amend or delete files in the new hard disk (files become "read only"), the spell check system in my office email system cannot work ... and I can't even send out any emails! The poor technical officer came again and did some adjustments for an hour. However, the next day, my office email system took a long time to login and to send outgoing emails... hence yet, another call to the very friendly, very effervescent Technical Helpdesk officer. This time, another 2 technical officers came to do much checking & testing for over 2 hours. Well, email speed is much better than yesterday but was still slow compared to pre-crash days.
C'est la vie! This is the best so far after a whole week of IT problems .... now keeping my fingers crossed that things will get better next week. The IT guy will come again on Monday to do further checks and I hope things will be resolved. I also learnt from the technical staff that it's better to store files in data drive in D:\ than in C:\, as C:\ is more susceptible to disk failure due to the programme files stored there. Of course, the most foolproof way is to store a backup of important files elsewhere - in an external hard drive, thumb drive, email etc.
And oh, did I mention that the lens of my trusty digital camera failed to retract and is now jammed? Colleagues have advised me that it may cost a lot to repair it since the waranty has expired. Might even be cheaper to get a new model...so here's another item to buy soon...
To play it safe, I'm posting and uploading whatever photos I have in the recovered files...coz hey, the chances of the website host being down wihout a backup server is much more unlikely, right?
The only remotely good thing is that ever since colleagues heard about my hard disk crash (bad news tend to spread like wild fire) have realised the importance of getting an external hard drive, and are now voting to get one as a staff welfare gift.
PS: My Philips hair dryer in cool bronze colour had a short circuit & abruptly died on Friday night, so it seems to affirm my theory that I have a disharmony with electrical or electronic gadgets this week :(
Resigned to the fate that what's lost is lost, I set out to re-do and finish my presentions and papers due this and next week. But...the IT drama continued...I'm unable to amend or delete files in the new hard disk (files become "read only"), the spell check system in my office email system cannot work ... and I can't even send out any emails! The poor technical officer came again and did some adjustments for an hour. However, the next day, my office email system took a long time to login and to send outgoing emails... hence yet, another call to the very friendly, very effervescent Technical Helpdesk officer. This time, another 2 technical officers came to do much checking & testing for over 2 hours. Well, email speed is much better than yesterday but was still slow compared to pre-crash days.
C'est la vie! This is the best so far after a whole week of IT problems .... now keeping my fingers crossed that things will get better next week. The IT guy will come again on Monday to do further checks and I hope things will be resolved. I also learnt from the technical staff that it's better to store files in data drive in D:\ than in C:\, as C:\ is more susceptible to disk failure due to the programme files stored there. Of course, the most foolproof way is to store a backup of important files elsewhere - in an external hard drive, thumb drive, email etc.
And oh, did I mention that the lens of my trusty digital camera failed to retract and is now jammed? Colleagues have advised me that it may cost a lot to repair it since the waranty has expired. Might even be cheaper to get a new model...so here's another item to buy soon...
To play it safe, I'm posting and uploading whatever photos I have in the recovered files...coz hey, the chances of the website host being down wihout a backup server is much more unlikely, right?
The only remotely good thing is that ever since colleagues heard about my hard disk crash (bad news tend to spread like wild fire) have realised the importance of getting an external hard drive, and are now voting to get one as a staff welfare gift.
PS: My Philips hair dryer in cool bronze colour had a short circuit & abruptly died on Friday night, so it seems to affirm my theory that I have a disharmony with electrical or electronic gadgets this week :(
Mid Autumn Festival
The Mid Autumn Festival （中秋节）falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which happens to fall on this Sunday, 14 Sep 2008. Traditionally, children will play with brightly lit, colourful lanterns of fantastical designs while families and friends will gather to enjoy mooncakes and pomeloes and sip Chinese tea under the full moon.
While hotel restaurants and pastry boutiques have come up with all kinds of innovative flavours (snowskin mooncakes with champagne, truffle, gold leaves , durian and even Singapore Sling chocolate fillings), my favourite type is still the traditional baked mooncakes with lotus seed paste and single salted egg yolk. However, my favourite activity is still looking at the bright full moon in the sky. Even though there is a full moon on the 15th of every lunar moon, there seems to be an added poignancy to the moon on this day.
祝你花好月圆, 月圆人圆!
Green tea & Pu'er tea flavoured mooncake (L) & lotus paste mooncake with single yolk (R)
While hotel restaurants and pastry boutiques have come up with all kinds of innovative flavours (snowskin mooncakes with champagne, truffle, gold leaves , durian and even Singapore Sling chocolate fillings), my favourite type is still the traditional baked mooncakes with lotus seed paste and single salted egg yolk. However, my favourite activity is still looking at the bright full moon in the sky. Even though there is a full moon on the 15th of every lunar moon, there seems to be an added poignancy to the moon on this day.
祝你花好月圆, 月圆人圆!
Green tea & Pu'er tea flavoured mooncake (L) & lotus paste mooncake with single yolk (R)Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Simple Pleasures
Indulged in a healthy pleasure last weekend. Bought some fat, juicy and very sweet Australian strawberries from the neighbourhood NTUC supermarket. Quite an affordable pleasure at S$2.90 per punnet of 250g, which contained 12 of the succulent fruit. Felt quite happy when eating it, as I love all things made of strawberry (strawberry shortcake, strawberry milk, strawberry ice cream, strawberry jam, etc.). It really does not take much to make me happy and life's simple pleasures are sometimes the best.
On another note, I'll have to thank globalisation and the myriad Free Trade Agreements to allow me to indulge in all kinds of fruits (including exotic ones), without the hassle of travel. Saw that the mass-market NTUC store is selling not just strawberries from Australia, but also blueberries and sweet prunes from the United States, kiwis from New Zealand, and dates from Egypt, Iran and Jordan - all at quite affordable prices for the ordinary household and consumer.
However, at 10, 500 Yen (S$138), this honeydew sold at a supermarket in Osaka, Japan is definitely an extravagant luxury. Believe honeydew is the most expensive fruit in Japan.
On another note, I'll have to thank globalisation and the myriad Free Trade Agreements to allow me to indulge in all kinds of fruits (including exotic ones), without the hassle of travel. Saw that the mass-market NTUC store is selling not just strawberries from Australia, but also blueberries and sweet prunes from the United States, kiwis from New Zealand, and dates from Egypt, Iran and Jordan - all at quite affordable prices for the ordinary household and consumer.
However, at 10, 500 Yen (S$138), this honeydew sold at a supermarket in Osaka, Japan is definitely an extravagant luxury. Believe honeydew is the most expensive fruit in Japan.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)