Computers

We still have a desktop computer.  It is a minitower and it is the computer where we do our serious work.  Something about sitting in an office chair at a desk.  Part of it involves having a space to spread out documents/books when doing work that requires serious references.  That, and the posture is less tiring when sitting for long periods of work.

Well, our minitower had issues.  It would not hook up to the internet.  I took it into "my computer guy" who cleaned it up and installed various cleaners, firewalls and such.  Then he took it for a test drive and proclaimed it "zippy".

I brought it home and it was an absolute dog.  I called him up and he suggested a restart.  The restart revealed that I had lunched the hard-drive transporting it home.  Eight hours of Auto-repair failed to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

Computers

I have been messing around with computers since I was in High School in 1976.  I went to Ingineerin' school where we were shown how to cook up our own software.  The thinking was that blind reliance on black boxes and other people's programming was the path to perdition.

The first fifteen years of my professional life involved fairly heavy (for the time) computer usage.  The last fifteen was the typical Excel and Word programs that every office weenie used.

My take on computers is that they are incredible tools but, in themselves, they are boring.  To me, they are a platform to run software.

Beyond that, even software is boring.  Software is merely a tool to manipulate thoughts....and data.

And data is their Achilles heel.

Data

My minitower has my tax data on it for the last few years.  That includes Social Security numbers, birthdates and other information needed to take out new credit cards.

Given the fact that most data is "erased" by snipping the directory, it undoubtedly has my credit card numbers and much other sensitive information pertaining to accounts in various financial institutions.

I trust my computer guy.  He supports various medical practices and HIPPA requires that he perform his job in a way that guards data.  I also know him to be a straight-up guy.  He has my financial life in his hands.

I wonder how many people realize how vulnerable they are when they take their computer to Billy Shade-Tree's computer fixit shop?  Not so many, I would guess.

Beyond that

I do not look forward to testing my data recovery disk(s).  I copied my Document Libraries before taking the minitower in but did not bother to copy anything else.

I do not look forward to trying to recovering my tax data for past years.

I do not look forward to reloading software or buying new.

My computer guy says he has some software that can vacuum up what is savable on the drive and transfer to a new hard drive.  I guess I will be finding out.

---Note---

I will be in Traverse City attending a funeral service on Saturday.  My younger brother's mother-in-law passed on.  You might be treated to a rerun on Sunday.