So in the last few days my DSL has just started fritzing out intermittently. No rhyme or reason, it's gone for a few minutes and then I click and it's back up again -- about fifty times a day. Rebooting the modem and router doesn't seem to make any difference. XP doesn't notify me when the connection is down, or admit that there's anything wrong ( Read more... )

It took me a whole week, but I am now in business again, with a brand-new computer (yay!) and the old one fixed. Turns out it was just the fan to the power supply, much as I thought, and that the hard drives were not affected, so I didn't lose any data. Although I do have a lot of reinstalling software and general tidying-up ahead. And, of ( Read more... )

As you can see (unless you're reading this off the LJ syndicated feed), I've just spent quite a bit of time updating the template for this blog to match my nice new home pages. In Firefox, everything looks spiffy, colors all matching and images behaving as they should; and if only I had resisted the temptation to look at it in Internet Explorer 6 ( Read more... )

I've just been through about 48 hours of not being able to post or even comment, and Blogger wouldn't let me post either, so I am feeling a wee bit vulnerable just now.

If it was a virus or a trojan as cesario suggested, I ran several scans and never found it. But this morning it got so bad that I couldn't connect to the Internet at all, so I restarted ( Read more... )

Sad news on my (lack of) online status in rjanderson_blog (direct link here).

So with just one episode of the new Doctor Who actually broadcast (and not only doing rather smashingly in the ratings, but already slated for another thirteen episodes and a Christmas special), Christopher Eccleston has up and decided he isn't going to keep playing the Doctor for fear of being typecast. Whoa, Chris, I understand the concern, but ( Read more... )

So I popped off all the keys and cleaned my keyboard thoroughly with rubbing alcohol, and then I gave it a few hours to dry. Tonight I decided to test it out by typing "the quick brown fox".

The result looked like this:

wxNo, I'm not kidding. It's really that bad. *weeps ( Read more... )

MY EYYBOAD IS DEAD & TS ALL MY FAULT A RRGH.

& yes iiiiiii diiiid trrryyyyyyyy cleanniing iiit.

Had a hard time getting to sleep tonight. Finally drifted off, only to be awakened by a shattering clap of thunder and the sudden, dread conviction that all fifteen newly edited chapters of my novel had been zapped out of existence. Worst. Feeling. Ever. Waited until the storm had mostly passed, and then leaped out of bed to check ( Read more... )

...I'm about to reformat my HD and reinstall all my software. If you don't see me for a couple of days after this, you'll know why.

On a happier note, I mailed off my original fantasy novel Knife to Major YA Publisher today. In 3-6 months, if all goes well, I should hear back from the editor who had expressed an interest in seeing the whole ( Read more... )