St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

…but I’m sick. Woke up pretty miserable with what I think is the beginnings of a cold or flu. Yuck. Hopefully it will pass as I keep sticking those Zycam things up my nostrils. LOL

So, yes, the laptop is fixed. No thanks to Dell. I managed to fiddle enough and the repair FULLY worked. I often wonder what idiots follow their directions and lose everything. Pisses me off. So, everything is on the external which is now hooked up to the desktop. So, I have networked that and can now just work off the external files and not feel bad! I spent all night last night going through email. Lordy – took me forever. I still need to go through some that I thought I’d keep just to make sure. I had way too many. From two computers ago! Now to clean up my other files – organize better – follow my own rules! Which I’m bad at. Unzip, throw the zips away, rename files so they are easily recognizable. Yadda Yadda.

I’ve also been busy downloading podcasts for photography and adobe stuff. Fun stuff there. I love that it’s all free on iTunes! You should do a search. Amazing stuff there!

And, I thought I’d share a couple of those pictures I took last weekend of Andrea even though I’m not done with editing all of them. Still trying to figure out how to get my photography website up again. Anyhoo – here they are. The blue one is one where she’s wearing my sister’s prom dress. We didn’t think anyone could fit something that small! LOL

Then, of course, we took pictures of Pirate – isn’t he sweet? Look how big he is!!

I have to thank Tiff for the lens recommendation! Love it! We shot in the worst lighting at 10 p.m. at night too…thank God for my LightSphereII!

Oh, and did you know that it’s Dani’s birthday next month? I have donated a $30 gift certificate as a prize for one of her events! Go check it out!

And, rumor has it that Gina Miller is releasing something tomorrow from me and her! Oh what could it be????

Well, the Windows Replacement CD arrived today via DHL. Okay, point for Dell for delivering on time as promised. I ran the repair and things appeared to work fine. That is until I noticed that the wireless connection was telling me something about a missing adaptor. So, I opted to reboot the laptop and see if it still had that error. Only after I rebooted, I lost the entire Windows Task Bar at the bottom of my screen. What the hell? Where did it go? I rebooted again – same thing. I tried changing my display properties, nothing. So, here I go, calling Dell again. Hey, did you know it takes nearly 10 minutes to actually get human contact there? Talking to a computer that keeps saying, “I didn’t understand” is not fun – especially when I have the same issue talking to their human support! Give me a break. Luckily I had a better speaking person, however, he was a little bit of a mumbler. He tells me, “OH WINDOWS IS CORRUPT! MUST RESTORE!” – uh, hell no turd wad! I can see my files on my desktop – I KNOW they are there and I WANT my files! I end up pissed at this guy because he seems to be getting me nowhere that I hang up on him after I tell him it’s ridiculous that a laptop less than 2 months old has this problem. I didn’t even download anything that day! So, my brother and I attempt to fiddle around and oh, guess what? We find the control panel and are able to get the task bar to show up again. DURRRR, dumb ass support! Can you believe him? So, I hooked it up to my external and did a backup of my fonts, emails, and MY Document files as well as my presets for Photoshop. Those are all that were on there really that I needed. I hadn’t had this laptop long so most of my goodies were still on my external (as they probably should be). Now, I’m re-running the repair to see if that fixes it and if not, I’ll restore. I’m no genius here, and neither is my brother, but think how many people that really don’t know anything about computers call Dell. They go ahead and restore – without considering other options. My next computer will be a MAC!

Okay, so I was pretty vague on that last post with what happened to my computer, etc. I’m sitting here on a desktop with 256 MB of ram while I type. Lovely, huh? LOL

Well, Sunday, I was working on some photos when I thought I had better reboot my system. It had been awhile and I could tell that Photoshop was starting to drag a little. So, that I did and while I was waiting on it, I walked away to do something. When I came back, there was this blue screen with a stop error. I tried rebooting as it recommended first. Same thing. I was fuming. Finally after about 20 minutes of trying to reboot and try safe mode, etc. I opted to call Dell’s technical support. What a mess that is. I get someone that can not speak clear english at all. OY! I must have asked that woman to repeat herself five times for everything she asked. I even asked her to please transfer me to someone that spoke more clear english, but she refused!!!!! I’m already upset over everything as it is, now I have to deal with someone that I cannot understand? Look, I’m all for people in our own country coming from diverse cultures, taking on jobs and being a part of the freedom we have here. But, when our own companies begin outsourcing overseas to save a buck – that pisses me off. Especially when it’s PHONE SUPPORT for US customers! I digress…now, they tell me after running several diagnostic tests that I should insert my Windows CD to try and attempt a repair. They believe my Windows has corrupted. Yes, lovely to hear when your computer is less than two months old. So, come to find out, in all my stash from that box they sent me…no Windows CD. Nope, they didn’t send me one with my laptop! So, she says, well, we can do a restore. Uh, no way sister. I’m not losing the few things I have on here if I don’t have to! So, she is sending me a replacement CD to attempt the repair. Right now, if I have to restore it won’t be the end of the world. The only things that I’ll lose are my emails. Things I continually save and save and save. Pretty important things. I’ll live…I’m sure. But it will make life harder for when I need to redownload software I’ve purchased and don’t have my codes, etc. I backed up all my latest kits, which I try and do at least monthly. Fonts – that will suck. As I’ve purchased some, but I believe that I can get those easily again. It just creates more havoc than anything. So, let’s all put our well wishes out there that it can be repaired. I’m hooking up the external to the desktop so I have no excuses in the future for not backing up more regularly. I’ve also switched my email to Yahoo’s premium services so all my accounts can be accessed online in one area. No, I won’t get all them immediately but that could be a good thing. Less interuptions I suppose.

So, that’s my update right now…not on the computer as much since it takes forever…but will update you more when I know more.

Okay, I’ve got several problems…

1 – for some reason we’re getting error messages here on the blog – it wouldn’t let me log in before, but it just did…not sure.

2 – my computer is dead. my brand new laptop (yes, two months old) it’s dead. don’t ask. there is potential for it to work again – but i won’t know for a few days. if not, i have to restore the entire thing – losing everything on it. which may not be a lot in quantity, but it is with some important documents that I need.

anyhoo – if you need me, you will have to email me directly – i have no email addys. i am going to try and just stay offline while this is occuring until I know more. i’m going to attempt to handle some of my pdw duties, but i need to assess things still.

my email is holly@hollymccaigdesigns.com if you’re looking for me.

This woman is amazing! She’s installed the widget stuff in this theme! YAY! Now, I don’t have to go altering some other theme. Just change my graphics monthly! Thank you to Kylie. Kylie does web design, store fronts, blog stuff….you gotta look into hiring her for stuff. I’m tellin’ ya, you won’t be disappointed, plus, she knows the digital industry! She got my Wimpy Player up, but it’s playing auto, so sorry folks. It’s now 2:15 a.m. and I am too tired to go into it all and add the code to change that again. So, listen to some Queen, or just hit the stop button. I have been doing photos tonight and editing. Oh, Andrea let me play – man, these are some awesome shots. If I just had studio lighting they would be perfect. Plus, cutie Pirate shots too. More tomorrow. I must go to bed. So very very tired.