[AT] computer problems

[Larry D. Goss]

I figured a thumb drive wouldn't do what I needed, George.  They're
limited to around 4 Gigabytes.  So last Father's Day, I went out and
bought a 160 Gigabyte external drive that I can move from computer to
computer to store images on.  The price was $130.  I'm doing a heck of a
lot of digital imaging, and some of the files are getting a bit hairy.
It's not unheard of for me to generate an image in the 800 Megabyte
range -- too big to fit on a CD disk. I have a wall map that I'll take
the time to scan one of these days. Using my HP 4670 scanner and the
software that comes with it, I can merge a whole bunch of smaller scans
together to make one image out of dozens of individual files.  I'm
scanning an 1863 World Atlas (folio style) using six scans per map.  The
software merges them together seamlessly and automatically.  In case
you're wondering why I want such a big map, the wall map shows every
county in the US -- location, boundaries, railroads, canals, county
seats.  I need that for reference when I'm working on genealogy.  The
World Atlas gets down to every township in the whole country as they
existed at the time of publication -- complete with the name and
location of the town center.  That's also invaluable information.

I go to tractor shows, stand in one spot, and snap a bunch of pictures
of what I can see.  Then I have the computer merge them all into a
panoramic image that I can pan around on and view the scenes close-up. I
wish I would have known I could do this when I saw the Dain on display
up in Iowa a few years back.  With that capability, I could have stood
next to it and taken a series of shots with nobody else between me and
the tractor, and then stitched them together on the computer.

Look for the external hard drives to be on sale at your local
electronics store during the middle week of June again this year.  I run
mine through a UPS at all times, but I also "hot plug" it from system to
system at will.  Since I don't have an operating system on it, I'm not
bothered by the specter of boot up problems.

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of George Willer
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 8:40 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] computer problems

Cecil,

I just received my new thumb drive yesterday and played with it a
little. 
It's an amazing device!  They call it a thumb because of its' size.  It 
plugs into the slot on the back of your computer and becomes another
drive. 
Why this is important (among other reasons) is that you can get one to
copy 
all your files to and then remove it... and even carry it on your key
chain. 
Now your backups are safe.

My son Joe introduced me to them when he was here for Christmas.  He
showed 
my his that he says carries all the files for his universities web site,
all 
the information for the radio station he manages, and all his personal
files 
from several computers.  Just plug it in and go.

I've been moving hundreds of files to it from my PC and then plugging it
in 
to my new laptop.  INCREDIBLE!

I just got a small one... 256 meg, and it only cost delivered about $80.

George Willer


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cecil E Monson" <cmonson at hvc.rr.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 5:48 PM
Subject: [AT] computer problems


> I don't know if I mentioned this on the List or not but Tuesday
> of this week, we had a power outage where the power went off and then
> popped back on for a split second before going off again. The computer
> had just started to re-boot when it went off the second time.  It
raised
> Cain with my computer and all I got when I tried to turn it on was
> first a blue HP screen, and then a black screen with the words
"Operating 
> system not found". Not a good thing.
>
>      I found out in checking my manuals that XP Home has a partitioned
> drive and the boot recovery program is on the hard drive. XP Pro has a
> provision to boot from a disc but not XP Home. Oh, it comes from the
> factory supposedly with a disc but you never get it. Must have
something
> to do with a bulk license to install XP or something.
>
> I had just about given up when my wife said she had heard that
> a young local guy was pretty good at restoring crashed computers and
not
> too expensive. So, I called him and ended bringing him my computer
this
> noon. He had it an hour and a quarter and called saying he got it to
> boot and was going to run it over the weekend to make sure it was OK.
>
> So, I got lucky this time. FWIW, I have a UPS power supply and
> had inadvertently mixed up the power cords for the monitor with the
one
> for the computer several weeks ago and had no surge protection on the
> computer at all - just on the durn monitor. You can be sure it will be
> plugged in the right way when I get it back. Must be CRS setting in
> early.
>
> On a tractor note, I have all of my tractor photos and files
> on the second hard drive on this computer and it would have been a
real
> blow to find out I lost them all. Like I said, I got lucky this time
> and everything is OK.
>
> Cecil
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
> 


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