A hedgehog summer romance

...or did you know your pc can't live without floppy discs?!

The art market report is ready and wants to be posted so badly, but since it's going to be published (partly) on another blog as well everything's got to be synchronized...So I continue testing your patience!

Meanwhile, let's have some romance to start the week with: two hedgehogs meeting in my garden under the lemon balm and the oregano yesterday evening (you can just about make out the other one under the lemon balm at the right):

I heard a short screech like a little pig outside and went to see what it was, with Assepoes. And there they were...funny little creatures. They really can't be buggered at all... :-p

And I almost finished my two other summer projects: install a rocking chair in my living room (thus having to rearrange the whole living room, causing me to make a new computer desk, moving the goldsmithing workshop to the kitchen, installing another book case and a cd case...)
Well, it worked! And it's awesome. Pictures sure will follow (once I cleared the floor of books and music scores...)(ooh: found someone who sewed yummilicious new covers for her "lillberg" couch -the same as my rocking chair! and it has cats! :-D If I ever find time I'd do the same; for now the seats are perfect for me in their off-white covers and embroidered cushions and a cosy sheepskin...)(and Assepoes and Shelley love it and have become total couch potatoes!)

Then of course I had to do something with my computer. It's been going slower & slower for months and driving me insane. I have been doing all the usual cleaning up; defragmenting, registry cleaning, antivirus and antispyware, but it didn't make so much of a difference. So last week I went by a computer shop to hear if they could do something. True enough, they could reformat the hard disks so I could start over with a clean slate. Literally. Then I did some websearching and found out I could do this just as well myself.

This weekend I put everything on my external HD, checked and double checked and was ready to do the formatting. But...

Since my Windows XP setup cd is outdated (well d'oh, it's 4 years old) the newer, updated version wouldn't allow itself to be overwritten by it. Right. (then wat's the use of a recovery cd after all?!)
No problem: I configured the BIOS's booting preferences so it had to accept the cd nonetheless. Nope, wouldn't work -it took me a bit (see, I'm not all that technical really) until I realized I don't actually have a cd-rom drive: I do, but it's external, connected via USB. And because it is USB my BIOS doesn't know it -drives on USB connections are apparently too novel a phenomenon for my poor old BIOS.
So I searched for BIOS updates and learned they can be found, either for a price or at great risk of killing your system. Hmm...

So I've been trying to find a way around that, and found only this solution: install (so buy) an internal cd-rom drive (dvd reader/writer/whatever) and go hunt for floppy disks. They're needed for booting the pc, the internal cd rom for the set-up of either Win XP again or Ubuntu (belgische site)(I plan on experimenting a bit). So when it comes down to it, your state of the art, newest of new computer still prefers good old floppies to anything else...

I do hope I can find some -found a few dusted ones but not enough of them: you need 6 of them for booting.

It was fun though having to use DOS-commands again. Makes me feel 16 all over again...LOL!

And while I'm at it, I'll put it some more RAM as well. Look at me being all nerdy! :-p

So I'm going to do some shopping today, and I hope I can find some cheap things, because upgrading your old pc almost costs as much as one of those mini pc's now... (I'm eyeing the superslim and pretty EEE desktop, but it will be a while before it lands here in Europe...)

And I need my trusty old computer to be strong and happy before the new school year starts...You see, I'm going back to school. Yup, library school. Become a proper librarian now (at least I have my role models: the Librarian and Rupert Giles).

The reason? I lost my job at the KANTL. Probably. The colleague I'm replacing half-time comes back to work nearly full time again, and the chances that I can stay in perhaps another function there are slim...so that's that.

It made me cranky for a while (I got the news the day after the Art Market, so that was a cold shower!) and I'm still not happy about it -but I'm making it my chance to go back to school full time -starting with one semester- and who knows, I might even graduate someday! ;-)