Tag Archive | computers

Evil Through the Looking Glass

Dec30

Through The Looking Glass

Dealing With The Black Screen Of Death

My Queen’s hard drive went deep six on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s been that kind of year for us. At first I thought that it was simply that the OS got borked, because I put in a Knoppix disk and could see the hard drive. In fact, from Knoppix she backed up her important files. What ensued next is my odyssey through the looking glass to reinstall Windows 7 on her machine.

The first thing you do on a factory install of Windows 7 is to attempt to boot to the recovery console, check the disk and repair the OS from the backup copy on the drive. Unfortunately, the option did not show up for us. Booting every other possible way, safe mode, safe mode command prompt, minimum display resolution, etc… they all resulted in the same condition. A black screen with a movable mouse pointer. I know that there will be people searching this later so I wanted that phrase in the article. If they come here first they will know how to fix this and they will know just how screwed they are. Continue reading →

How To Backup Your Blog!

Aug13

Don’t Lose All That Hard Work

We often think about backing up the data on our computers, but how many people think about backing up their articles and pictures on their blog?  What about the comments and discussions? What would you do, if something happened and you lost all that work? It can happen, by accident, by virus or by changing to a new host. Not everyone helps you port your old blog to your new one.

If you use WordPress for your blog, you’re in luck. There’s an easy way to back up your blog and keep it safe. And you don’t even have to be a techno-geek to do it!

If you’re running the newer versions of WordPress, you have a Dashboard where you can create new posts, update media, add or manage your links, pages, comments and feedbacks. Here where you customize your appearance and plugins, you’ll also find a menu item for the WP Tools. That’s where you’re find your back up utility.

You should back up your blog at the end of every week. You can put an appointment in your calendar to remind you to do this every Friday afternoon. That way you’ll schedule the time for it and a reminder. It only takes 10-minutes, if that, and you’ll have peace of mind knowing you can recover all that work if you have to. Continue reading →