T H E P E R I L S O F P A M E L A

Friday, July 13, 2001

Before I went to bed at 4 a.m., I set up scandisk to do a thorough scan, files plus a surface scan.  I figured it would take a long time, and I may as well be sleeping while the computer did it's work.

When I checked the computer scandisk log, I was anxious to see what it found.  It seems that someone canceled the scan at 6:47 a.m.  I wonder who that could be?

No, apparently that's not the problem.

I had PSP open and I had just finished a wallpaper project (it turned out great, btw), closed all the windows in PSP and emptied the clipboard.  I was saving each phase of the project to an open Windows folder.

As soon as I was finished with blogger, I was going to put the wallpaper on my screen to see how it looked, but first I wanted to finish with my weblog entry.

I pasted about Grandma from notepad to blogger and published it.  I opened another MSIE window to check the pages.  I was satisfied with the results so I closed the window.  I moved the mouse to close Notepad, blip, off went the computer.

So when the computer went off, I had open:

• Paint Shop Pro (PSP) - empty
• Windows folder
• Notepad
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (MSIE) with blogger.com
• and I was connected to the Net.

The tech person told me on the phone that the next time the power went off to unplug the computer for a full 30 seconds before trying to turn it back on.  I did that this time.  It worked or I wouldn't be typing this now.  Learn something new every day.  grin

The repair place called and said, "Your UPS has arrived."  Then we discussed the problems with the power going off suddenly.  "I guess you'll have to bring it in so we can look at it."

I feel like all this negative energy coming at me from all directions may be causing my computer to turn itself off in self defense. ;)

Although it's been running fine since Monday when I changed the power management settings to be on all the time.  I wonder if that was the problem?

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Since the Sunday night shut down, the computer has stayed on.  I have a new theory.  It's me.  I have some sort of electrical interference running through my body.  When I get near the computer for any length of time, the computer turns itself off in self defense.  Each episode of blipping off has occurred when I've been working fast and furious on some project.

The new UPS is suppose to be in tomorrow.

Monday, July 09, 2001

The computer shut down around midnight.  I (jokingly) accused Keith of putting a timer on it.