Back Again.

[Paul]

Sorry, been AWOL for about a month. Bloody Microsoft auto installed an update that killed my computer. I thought re-installing a "restore point" was done through the BIOS menu. It isn't, and it was a month before I found out I should have been hitting F8 instead of F12.

[PrimeTimer]

Ah, those infamous Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap that they call "computer updates". Life's a b**ch sometimes and then some. But believe it or not (lol), glad you are back and relatively in one piece. You are still in one piece, aren't you? Or did this whole computer thing make the brain explode? Did you get moved into a new place or get any help with that? I wish I could help people. I mean really help. I use to be able to but I'm no longer good at packing and moving boxes and stuff. Hope you have help and that the next place is a better one.   

[Michael Murphy]

Microsoft updates have always been a full employment guarantee for tech support.  That’s why I us Apple computers, pricey but easy to support. My wife uses a iMac that must be 7 or 8 years old, my main computer is a iMac that is e years old and when tax return comes in I am buying a new iMac.  Backups are doe automatically through time machine.  In my opinion the windows system is a kluged upgrade to the 640 k dos systems from the beginning of pc’s.  Apple scrapped there original os 2 times from then to arrive at OS X.

[kristina]

Hello Paul,
So glad your computer has not been beaten and that we have you back here again.
Best wishes and seasonal greetings from Kristina.

[Simon Dog]

You wanna talk kludge?   Windows alternate data streams (ADS) are an abomination designed solely for compatibility with Mac HFS.  Not being an Apple person, I have no idea if HFS is still in use.    This also causes me to wonder how many backup products actually include any ADS that is present (the system I worked on 20 years ago did).

So, in effect, Apple caused Microsoft to add this kludge that persists in NTFS to this day.

[lulu836]

 I thought re-installing a "restore point" was done through the BIOS menu.
 

          

[Michael Murphy]

My kluge comment refers to at the os level the handling of low memory address space used to handle hardware interfaces. Windows still used 640 kB as of windows 7.  This leads to over lapping address spacing causing far increasing complexity UNIX variants including osX using use virtual memory regions to provide far vaster low memory area making device management far simpler.

[Charlie B53]

This laptop is my only machine running Win 10, all the others (4) are still XP.

I have a cloned Hard drive for each machine sitting on the shelf just in case I, or anything hoses any of them.  Just swap the drive and continue on.

If, or should I say WHEN, Windows hoses this Win 10 I may not put that cloned drive in.  I could just as easily swap in one with XP on it.


I do have a Linuz drive.  But I haven't spent enough timem with it to really learn how to use it much at all.  So it pretty much gathers dust on the shelf.

[MooseMom]

I hate computers, I really do.  They are the one thing in this world that renders me willfully ignorant.  Most of the posts on this thread mean absolutely nothing to me.

I came down with a cold a few months ago that, for reasons that are boring, just got worse.  I was on my computer sending an email, the first time I had been able to gather the strength to type, and I was holding a cup of tea.  And yes, you guessed it; I was so trembly that just a bit of tea splashed onto the keyboard, and I had one dead computer.  Someone is making shedloads of money by making us so dependent upon these things.

Anyway, it's nice to have you back, Paul!  How are you doing these days?  Any plans for Christmas?

[Paul]

You are still in one piece, aren't you

One piece, but a damaged piece. Tried to change a light bulb a few weeks back, the stepladder collapsed under me, and broke my right arm. Am now typing left handed as the right is strapped up and plastered.

Did you get moved into a new place

Still not moved. Still in the place that the French would call a "trou de merde".

Anyway, it's nice to have you back, Paul!  How are you doing these days?  Any plans for Christmas?

Due to dialysis I am spending Christmas alone in the "Trou de merde" with a turkey TV dinner. Normally I spend Christmas with the family, but it is impossible to get back in time for Boxing Day's dialysis ( Boxing Day is a holiday here, trains not running). This will be the first time in my life that I have not spent Christmas with at least some of my family.

As to how I'm doing: Not very well to be honest. Depressed and mostly sleeping.

[MooseMom]

The trains are not running at all on Boxing Day?  Southern Rail is a disaster.  Ugh.

Do you still do dialysis in that building on the roundabout down at the end of Riddlesdown Road?  I was around that way a few months ago and tried to see if the clinic was still there, but I drove too quickly around it to be able to see.  Anyway, every time I passed it, I thought of you.

I am sorry you have the holiday blues, exacerbated by the rigours and restrictions of dialysis.  Is there any way you could maybe meet up with some members of your family for a New Year's celebration?  Would that be something you could look forward to?

[Paul]

Do you still do dialysis in that building on the roundabout down at the end of Riddlesdown Road?  I was around that way a few months ago and tried to see if the clinic was still there, but I drove too quickly around it to be able to see.  Anyway, every time I passed it, I thought of you.

I am no longer dialysing in Purley, but the clinic is still there. You won't be able to  see it from the road because it is on the top floor. Might see ambulances outside though, if you arrive just before or just after a session.

Incidentally, did you know that Michael Bublé has a house close to that dialysis center? Always thought that if I ever met him I would say "By the way, I used to wash my blood just down the road from you." Then walk away without explaining further.

I am currently dialysing in St Helier Hospital, as my line (cannula) is playing up and they felt it safer for me to dialyse where there are doctors on call.

Is there any way you could maybe meet up with some members of your family for a New Year's celebration?  Would that be something you could look forward to?

I had a Christmas dinner in the local pub with my sister on Saturday. Since I broke my arm and find shopping difficult she has been popping over about once a week with groceries. Kind of her because it is about a two hour journey in total, each way.

Hope to visit my father in the New Year. But it will not be until late January or early February because in the first few weeks of January I have an appointment with a nurse, an X-ray, (hopefully) the cast on my arm removed, and an operation to stop my heart going phhht.

To be honest, what I am looking forward to most is meeting my father's new dog. A border collie.





 

[MooseMom]

I had thought I remembered you saying that you were dialyzing at St. Helier, but I thought that maybe it was only on a temporary basis and that you'd be back in Purley in due course.  For how long will you have to be at St. Helier?  You've been there for a while, haven't you?

I didn't know that Michael Buble lives near Purley.  That just seems odd to me.  Surely there are better places!

We don't want your heart to go phht, so it might be just as well that you have to wait a bit before you meet dad's new dog!

[Paul]

I had thought I remembered you saying that you were dialyzing at St. Helier, but I thought that maybe it was only on a temporary basis and that you'd be back in Purley in due course.  For how long will you have to be at St. Helier?  You've been there for a while, haven't you?

Yes I have been there a while and yes it is supposed to be temporary. The problem is that they cannot work out what is wrong. I often cannot manage a pump speed above 200, sometimes 150, without the machine beeping and halting dialysis because either the venous or the arterial have gone out of the guard range.

I didn't know that Michael Buble lives near Purley.  That just seems odd to me.  Surely there are better places

Apparently there is one of those gated communities full of millionaires in Purley. Who knew? I would have thought that no one with any money would want to live in what is effectively part of Croydon (voted "scummiest place in Britain").

I would guess (but don't know) that Bublé has more than one home, in more than one country.

We don't want your heart to go phht, so it might be just as well that you have to wait a bit before you meet dad's new dog!

I don't particularly want my heart to go phhht either, however the main reason I'm having the operation is to get considered for a secondhand kidney. At the moment they are too worried that the heart will go phhht during a transplant to even consider putting me on the list. I'm told that after the operation they will continue with the tests and might (n.b. "might" not definite) put me on the list.

[Riki]

I didn't know that Michael Buble lives near Purley.  That just seems odd to me.  Surely there are better places

Apparently there is one of those gated communities full of millionaires in Purley. Who knew? I would have thought that no one with any money would want to live in what is effectively part of Croydon (voted "scummiest place in Britain").

I would guess (but don't know) that Bublé has more than one home, in more than one country.

I know he has a house in Vancouver, and one in LA, and probably one somewhere in South America, because that is where his wife is from.