Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I have to complain. I mean, even more than usual. I'm panicking now because the computer that I have been working on (not the laptop, which still only has Wordpad, but my regular big at-home one) can only communicate with the outside world via floppies. And lately it's been messing them up from time to time.

So today, just to make sure I didn't make the trek all the way here for nothing, I put copies of all the documents I have to turn in/email/print out on three (3!) separate disks.

Well, all three of them are suddenly unrecognizable by the school computers. I am going to freak out if all this huge stuff that is due today is trapped inside my computer at home, unable to be turned in. Completely aside from the fact that I wanted to spend the day editing a hard copy of the paper before I turned it in, which is the whole reason why I came in to the lab to print it out. (And email the other assignment I finished at 6 this morning.)

Mocking voice of lab computer: "This disk is not FORMATTED. Do you want to format it NOW?" Arg!!!

Dammit, dammit, dammit!!!
Posted by at

7 comments:

Mark said...

I have completley lost faith in floppies.

You can't even trust a freshly opened pack to keep your data for long. I think the problem is in the fact that floppy drives get used so seldomly nowdays that when you do have to use one, it's full of dust.

I tend to either email stuff that I need to my GMail account or dump it on my web site so that I can access it from work.

The USB memory sticks are a good alternative to floppies if your machine has USB ports.

3:31 PM
liz said...

Yes... no USB, no printer, no internet @ home. Floppy control! Hence panickment.

(Oh, yes--there's the Syquest drive on it, too, but I can only use that for backup storage, for obvious reasons.)

Despite crowded computer lab managed to fight my way onto a computer that read ONE of the disks and saved the day in that sense. Even gmailed the stuff to myself, which has lately become my backup storage.

Now to go home and add data from all the pdf files I just downloaded, to the gigantic paper!

4:42 PM
argotnaut said...

You may be able to get a place like Kinko's, a graphics service bureau, or a print shop to grab the stuff off of a Syquest cartridge and burn it to CD for you. I don't know how common they are these days, but it's a possibility.

8:40 PM
Mark said...

You could also try network your Laptop & PC. A serial cable should do the trick and setting up a direct conection isn't much of a mission.

3:04 AM
liz said...

Yes...my local "UK geek" is supposedly going to attempt just such a networking at my place tonight. We'll see.

If it doesn't work, then I will probably try that Kinko's option. Good lookin' out.

3:09 PM
argotnaut said...

Attempting a NETWORKING at your place, huh? Is that what the kids are calling it now?

9:27 PM
liz said...

Well, now, mind out of the gutter, young lady!

(Anyway, if that's what I meant, I wouldn't have said "attempting"!)

1:03 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)