IT Saga Continued

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

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 :(

Most Likely to Be Asked for Directions

While waiting for the train last night, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a well-dressed woman making a beeline for me. Turns out the Chinese tourist wanted to know which is the nearest station to reach Geylang. When we got onto the same train carriage, she even asked for directions to a steamboat restaurant in Geylang - I didn't know this but advised her to seek help from the MRT station staff.

Coincidentally, while I was walking towards my office yesterday morning, a woman stopped me to ask for directions to Hotel Intercontinental.

And these are not the first of such encounters... I have noticed that strangers would invariably single me out to ask directional questions from the crowd of people waiting at the train platform or bus stop, waiting to cross the road o walking down a street.

While I do answer all kinds of enquiries (including such directional questions) during the course of my work, it is interesting that I'm been asked such questions, even after office hours.

If there is a contest to vote for the person most likely to be asked for directions by strangers, I would be a likely champion :)

Murphy's Law

According to Wikipedia, Murphy's law states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. The saying is sometimes referred to as Sod's law or Finagle's law which can also be rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment".

Although it's not Friday the 13th, but Murphy's Law seems to be at work here. While trying to email a report via office intranet from home (it's my rest day today but gotta meet some deadlines), my laptop suddenly gave a critical alarm that only 3% of battery is remaining. Was quite puzzled as I've been using AC power, not battery power. Next thing I know, my laptop started shutting down..and yes! I didn't save my work...ARgghh! Later, I realised there's electricity failure in the whole block of flats, but it's not obvious as it's daytime.

Since my laptop is down, I consoled myself that I can re-type everything as I have the main points written down. So, I went out of the bedroom to make a cup of soothing peppermint tea.While in the kitchen, I heard a huge "Bang". Apparently, a strong gust of wind caused my bedroom door to be slammed shut AND locked! So there I am, stranded in the living room, with no handphone, no keys to get out of the house, no money.

Luckily, I was able to get hold of a locksmith to unlock the door. As the lifts were out of order (power failure, remember?), the poor chap has to climb all 16 flights of stairs (I happened to stay on the top) to do so.

All I can be thankful is that, it could be worse...yeah, imagine if I need to go to work...

My office is shaking

While feverishly typing at the office PC at 7.10pm, suddenly felt the whole building to be shaking. My chair, table & even the ceiling on the 8th floor seem to be trembling badly.

Called my colleagues who later discovered from a http://www.channelnewsasia.com/ report that Singapore buildings swayed after an earthquake measuring 7.9 hit Indonesia. Apparently Indonesia has issued a tsunami warning.

Felt some more tremors today. Really hope all will be well for our Indonesian friends.

First Posting!

Been meaning to blog about stuff (yeah, join the new media phenomenon called Web 2.0) but somehow never seem to get started...

Life's like an adventure.....so it's like falling down the rabbit-hole in "Alice in Wonderland". So, this'll be the name of my little space on the blogosphere (for the time being, until I get tired or inspired...)

Do give your comments...so I'll be inspired to continue blogging lah..