Yesterday was a beautiful day — the morning was especially so. I went out for the walk in the vineyard with Tasha, and the light was crystal clear, there was no wind, and not a person was stirring except me. Tasha was frisky and smiling. Yes, dogs smile.
Unfortunately, I didn't take the camera with me on the walk. Before I left the house, though, I had taken the photo above (looking out the kitchen window) and the one below (looking out the downstairs bedroom window). The sun was just getting ready to rise in the east, and the moon was setting in a hazy sky toward the west. The moon was visible through the bare branches of the linden tree in our back yard.
Later in the day, I noticed a pretty sky at sunset (below). Walt was out doing his walk with Tasha at that hour.
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AND... In the morning, before I went out at 8:30 or so, I had taken my computer apart, opened up the case, removed the machine's old display adapter, and installed the new display adapter. Opening up the machine meant unplugging the six external hard disks I have connected to the machine, four on USB3 ports and two on external SATA ports. That's a total of 16.5 terabytes of space, and it's where I store my tens of thousands of photos as well hundreds of films (English- and French-language movies) and TV series and documentaries that I don't want to lose.
When I restarted the machine, it took a little longer than usual to boot up, as it was figuring out how to work with the new display adapter. But it started just fine. Then I had to download and install new drivers for the ATI card. That also went smoothly. At that point I vacuumed out some dust that had collected inside the computer case over the past couple of years. I reconnected everything. I was nervous about whether or not all the components would work together again, but I needn't have been. So it's all good news.
I dropped my mobile phone (old Nokia thing) it broke into three pieces but did not work till later after recharging the battery. To fiddle with these things like you have done leaves me in awe!
ReplyDeletePhotos are super.
You've done that kind of computer surgery before, and I admire you for that. I can remember, years ago in San Francisco, after we found the right screw driver, you got my Mac laptop wide open to install something the kind of which I have no recollection. But you were successful, apparently! Hooray!
ReplyDeleteI started working on computer hardware the way I do when I worked at SPC in Mountain View way back in the late 1980s. And I do remember opening up your Mac laptop. I think it was to install more memory. Recently I had to install a new screen on my Windows laptop, after the guy at the computer shop in Noyers damaged it (I suspect it was them).
DeleteYes, you're right, that's certainly what it was.
DeleteYou were smiled on by the computer gods!!!
ReplyDeleteNow that my computer is working better than before, and has been vacuumed out, I feel less urgent of finding and buying a new one.
DeleteSuccess! Lewis likes to do things like that also. It takes some patience and know how. Your turkey barley soup looked delicious yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThe turkey soup was one of the first things I ate when I started getting my appetite back last week. It was a good clear broth with a lot of cooked vegetables and well-cooked turkey.
DeleteWoo hoo!! Great news about the successful installation!
ReplyDeleteReally nice photos, too. I heard something on NPR about Mars and Antares being aligned in such a way right now, that we are getting extra orange in our sunrise, in these days of January right now. Here's the quick explanation. And, I think they played the audio portion on NPR.
Oh, my link didn't work, so here it is:
DeleteHere's the explanation--click here
Merci, Judith! I enjoyed reading your link on Mars-Antares ! Mary in Oregon
DeleteYes, thanks Judy. Very interesting.
DeleteBeautiful pictures as always Ken. Your computer reworkings are a little over my head. But very cool that you are able to store so many movies on drives and not have to rent cloud space!
ReplyDeleteI do the same and store movies and personal data on external drives because I do not trust the confidendiality of cloud storage. It is enough for me that said data is/are accessible by third parties on my computers!
DeleteI don't use the cloud because I'm afraid of the lack of privacy. I just don't think our internet connection is fast enough. Upload and download could take a lot of time. This is one of the disadvantages of living in the country rather than in a big city. All my databases: French-language films, English-language films, TV series and documentaries, as well as so many photos, are redundant. In other words, my 650 GB of photos are copied to three separate external disks, so if one fails I won't lose much, if anything. Keeping everything backed up is a challenge.
DeleteI must be the least skilled on the computer of all of the rest of you! Well done, Ken! So glad to see such happy morning sunrises!
ReplyDeleteMary in Oregon
Well, I have to say that I went for a walk in the rain yesterday afternoon with Tasha. This is the rainy season, after all.
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