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The Mad Schemes of Dr. Tectonic [entries|archive|friends|userinfo]
Beemer

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[May. 12th, 2005|12:01 am]
Beemer
I lost most of my day to data recovery. Not caused by hardware failure or anything like that, oh no. No, it was due to good old-fashioned Microsoft Windows Suckage™.

See, if you drag a bunch of files from one window to another, then realize you wanted to copy them, not move them, and hit the "undo" button, it undoes the moving of them into the new folder. But it doesn't undo the moving of them OUT of the first folder! That's right, it DELETES them. Entirely. Not moved to trash -- just deleted, wholesale. Somebody remind me why that level of UI maldesign is not grounds for criminal charges? 'Cause it oughta be.

Happily, I was able to find a fairly inexpensive data rescue program that recovered all the files with no problem. I probably could have done it much quicker, but I was feeling paranoid and let it scan the entire drive to make sure it wasn't missing anything, and it took a very long time. But I got my data back!

After an scant hour or so at work finishing off the stuff I was working on yesterday afternoon when the company's website fell over and made it impossible for me to continue, I met zalena and we went off to the tea house near Ideal Market to hang out for a bit. She handed off a couple Moomin books to me, we chatted, and I had boba tea (the kind with tapioca pearls in it). It was a pleasant antidote to computer woes.
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Comments:
[User Picture]From: thedragonweaver
2005-05-12 01:04 am (UTC)
That's a nasty little thing to find out.

Side note: I've just gotten word that a legal DRM program called StarForce does the whole information "protection" thing by basically screwing over your computer and messing with your registry so that your little silver discs are ALL highly suspect (when they read at all) and, God forbid you burn anything... and, of course, uninstalling does nothing of the sort. Apparently Ubisoft is currently using SF. Just an FYI, 'cause it's apparently a major pain in the ass.
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[User Picture]From: goobermunch
2005-05-12 05:50 am (UTC)
Given that StarForce is a gaming related DRM program, I doubt that it's very likely that dr_t will encounter it that often.

--G
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[User Picture]From: goobermunch
2005-05-12 05:52 am (UTC)
Especially since what it does is make the games non-functional while you have burning software active.

--G
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[User Picture]From: kisken
2005-05-12 07:14 am (UTC)
Moomin books? As in Tove Jansson? I've never met anyone else who knows of those books!
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[User Picture]From: dr_tectonic
2005-05-12 07:30 am (UTC)
The very ones! I now have two of them -- Moominsummer Madness and The Comet in Moominland!

*Glee!*
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[User Picture]From: kisken
2005-05-12 07:36 am (UTC)
Strike me pink!

I was telling Thomas about these books just the other day (I saw my old and sad copy of Comet in Moominland on the shelf). I was trying to explain Moomin and Snorkmaiden and Sniff and Snufkin and the Hemulens and I think he thought I'd gone mad.

*Glee!* indeed!
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[User Picture]From: thedragonweaver
2005-05-12 01:12 pm (UTC)
Not only do I remember the Moomins (I think I had the Moomintroll in Winter and the one with the Hemulens and the "King of California" which always cracked me up), but when I was eight and we had a Japanese exchange student, one of his group had a T-shirt featuring... um...? I don't remember offhand. The one who used to greet people with "Cheerio", another hilarious thing to an American child.
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[User Picture]From: melted_snowball
2005-05-12 11:46 am (UTC)
Many years ago, when I spent a summer in Finland, I got hooked on the Moomins. Not only that, but there was a Moomin diorama exhibit in the library in Tampere. It was most cool.

Since my main Windows use is actually as a VMware installation, I tend to do most file maintenance using Linux shell commands. It makes life much better. Sorry to hear about your little piece of hell.
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[User Picture]From: dpolicar
2005-05-12 07:50 am (UTC)
That behavior is so profoundly wrong I would refuse to believe you if I didn't believe you.
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[User Picture]From: ng_nighthawk
2005-05-12 12:38 pm (UTC)

Dude. . .

Curious, I just tested this--a bunch of small text files, then the entirety of the UT2004 install files (I was looking for stuff I wasn't afraid to lose).

It worked fine. Cannot reproduce.

Sorry dude, but um. . . you're wrong. Something else was going on there. Or you're not using XP with service pack 2?
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[User Picture]From: dr_tectonic
2005-05-12 12:45 pm (UTC)

Re: Dude. . .

I am not, in fact, using XP with service pack 2.

I'm totally willing to believe it's a bug they fixed a while ago. What boggles me is that it's a bug that was allowed to exist anywhere outside Redmond.
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[User Picture]From: ng_nighthawk
2005-05-12 12:56 pm (UTC)

Re: Dude. . .

Ah, well then, my test is meaningless. Ignore me.

I suppose I also get a bit defensive, not because I love microsoft, but because using Unix on an everyday basis is this strange thing that I know people do and generally find more productive but I can't imagine doing myself. . .

It's true. I fear what I do not understand. And I leap up to defend the mechanisms I use to cope with that. :)
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