Status and Support

[justTripn]

Hi, even though I'm not a regular story poster, I'm going to be helping out Elessar with story posting this week because he has a heavy schedule at school. If you have a story waiting in the inbox, please send it to me, justTripn by PM attachment. Thanks.

"Heavy schedule". Please. Applied aerospace engineering is a pretty soft option if you ask me.

It's not like it's rocket science! . . . Oh wait, it is.

[Alelou]

[justTripn]

Speaking of Stories. JT and I have to drop the story we started about ARcher, Trip and Malcom being charged with murder and piracy for stealing the warp coil and stranding the aliens with only impulse engines making their journey home years long.

We regret having to do this. Forgive us. My Eyes and JT's work load and home life apparently is a problem too.

SB

Ahh . . . yes, I feel very guilty. We do have an entire plot sketched out. I would rather say there is about a 5% chance this will ever be finished. Here is my problem: I'm feel too far removed from the episodes. I need to rewatch the episodes before I write again. Everything I've ever written has been done in some kind of frantic altered state where I can't about anything but the imaginary Star Trek Universe, or my little part of it. I'm not there right now (probably a good thing). So that is the real explanation. My biggest apologies to Silverbullet. I did start this story thinking I could do it.

[Transwarp]

Just got back from ten days of R&R with the family in India. My wife's brother-in-law lives in New Delhi (he works for Lockheed-Martin as a liaison with the Indian airforce), so we stayed at his place.

On the positive side, we saw some great sights (National Museum, Red Fort, Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Lotus Temple, Cows, monkeys and stray dogs. And the insane Delhi traffic. I even got some writing done (about a page and a half of a scene that had been giving me trouble. After a couple of aborted attempts that I wasn't very happy with, I finally hit on the right POV and sequence of events).

On the negative side, the hard drive in my netbook crashed (i think it was toasted by a power fluctuation), and I lost the above-referenced page and a half. My brother-in-law had an old netbook that he wasn't using, and I harvested the hard drive from that (only 160 GB vs. the 250 GB that crashed, but you know what they say about beggers and choosers). I reformatted and installed linux on it and I'm up and running again, but losing that page and a half is demoralizing.

Thankfully I didn't lose a lot of other files or data, but it's still a major inconvenience. I had my system set up just the way I like it (applications and updates and system settings), but now everything is back to the defaults. I'm getting it set back up, but it's slow going, and in the meantime I'm not writing. Aaargh!

Nothing's ever easy... <sigh>

[Cogito]

Sorry to hear that your PC may have trashed some precious trek fiction.

I've lost documents myself in the past and I know how much harder it is to write them the second time - and how depressing it is to do.

Since you're formatting and reinstalling and such I see you're computer literate so have probably already exhausted this possibility, but are you sure the drive is unsalvageable? Even if it won't boot it may be possible to mount it, and if the file system has been corrupted and won't mount it may still be possible to recover parts of the file system. But on the other hand if the spike resulted in a head crash, you're flogging a dead horse I'm afraid. :flogging-dead-horse-smiley:

[Transwarp]

Tried just mounting it, but no joy. The system BIOS won't even see it, so it's pretty much a lost cause. Makes a nice paper weight, though.

[Silverbullet]

Transwarp. Shame about your Notebook. I spent three years in New Delhi India. I could have warned you about fluctuations in the local Electricity. I lived on the American Compound so we had our own Generator to kick in when the local stuff got down to a certain point. That way people didn't lose Frozen things and other inconviences. I had a Desktop Computer and thankfully it never had any problems. Had we relied on the Local grid I could not have had the Computer running at all. too dangerous.

To give you an example: We received our Send ad Receive Communication transmissions from a Satellite that was pulled down by an antenna on the Embasssy roof. Some idiot in D.C. decided that we should be getting the transmissions through the Indians. Nothing but trouble and outages. Would be down for a day or more sometimes. We tried to get the D.c. people to change their minds but they were adamant that we should go through the Indians. they assured us that the problems would be cleared up. Still like that two years later when I departed post. apparently the Indians now have much more experience and are sharper so those problems have ended.

SB

[Cogito]

I'd have thought a notebook would be battery powered, which in effect gives you your own portable UPS and protects against brown-outs. But it can still be hit by spikes on the mains, and maybe that's what happened here. In that case all I can offer is my sympathy and encouragement as you trudge through the re-writing. I'd mention backups, but you know that stuff as well as I do I'm sure. As an aside to Silverbullet, I used to work for Inmarsat a decade or so back, so conceivably you were one of our customers?

[Silverbullet]

Cogito, This was in 1984. Little more than a decade. Many changes since then. Indians are probably one of the leaders in Computers now. Fact is, when I have gone to get a tech sometimes the tech would be Indian. Very helpful.

SB

[Dinah]

SavanaSahara sent me a PM at FanFiction.net, but her PM was inactive so I couldn't answer her. I thought I'd try to reach her here.

Yes, I'm trying to write again, but it's slow going. I'm working on the next chapter of The Briar Patch. I'd like to have it done before the end of the month, but since that's a little over a week away, that too optimistic, I'm afraid. It was never my intention to leave any story unfinished, but a combination of writer's block and the demands of real life put a serious crimp in my plans.

[WarpGirl]

Well goodness knows I've missed you too Dinah but I also understand how terrible it is trying to get back into the swing of things when you've been out of it for a while. So here's lots of good vibes, and just remember you have people who are patiently waiting and very happy to do so. It's always worth it.

My status: Well, Dis got me hooked on the Drabble challenges. So I've been neglectful. But I am working on the beast that is May We chapter 5. I have a feeling that I'm going to re-work the entire opening. TnT aren't behaving so I might switch the focus to something else...

[Transwarp]

Dinah,
Ditto what WarpGirl said, good vibes and all.

[Reanok]

Dinah I'm glad you're writing another chapter of The Briair Patch sending good vibes your way. I hope your muse will let you get your latest chapter finished.

[Misplaced]

Just popping in to say that I'll be moving in the next few weeks, so "Dark Echoes" is on hold for the moment.

Carry on.

[Cogito]

Just popping in to say that I'll be moving in the next few weeks, so "Dark Echoes" is on hold for the moment.

Carry on.

Glad to hear that it's only a temporary delay. Good luck with the move!