Machine talk

I would talk about politics today (this being Saturday and all) but it's not much fun. And maybe a bit boring. So I won't.

A couple of days ago a friend called me because he had a computer problem. It's to be expected, these things happen. In this case, it was a real problem and one which I could not resolve over the phone. He had a dialog box pop up on bootup that said something about a missing .DLL file. Specifically, STString.DLL which turned out to be moderately important but not critical. As far as I have been able to figure out, it only impeded some backup system of Dell's.

This is unimportant except to point out that my friends tend to contact me about their computer problems. That is strange in a way because I am only moderately knowledgeable about computers. I have put a few together from parts and I have done some (very) minor programming. I have a basic understanding of their operation. I credit/blame AT&T for this. They got me interested in them and gave me some training on them. Not on microcomputers (what are now called PCs and Macs) but on some specialized mainframe types. The size may be different and the purpose specialized but the basic architecture is very similar. And I fell in love with the beasts.

Still, I am more knowledgeable than most of the people I know and I know when to be cautious. Which is all you really need to know. That and to pay attention to changes. Do that and you won't have any real problems. At least, none that could be prevented. You cannot predict a hard disk crash nor prevent it, all you can do is prepare for it by regular backups. And if you aren't using some kind of backup system, you are walking through a minefield... blindfolded. Trust me. I have gone through a hard disk crash without a backup. Very expensive when you need that data.