Yeah, it's another disasterous start to a new year.

I got a new external hard drive for my birthday and got it installed with its included backup software - late yesterday.

And (I'm sure just because of that) today my PC's hard drive melted - just before the back-up planned for today.

Luckily I've saved all my bryce files to the old external hard drive, but the newest presets are totally gone - nothing is recoverable from the melted drive at all.

Fortunately the PC is still under guarantee.

This is sounding ominously like a bad start to the year, (again) what with both of us currently suffering from the flu (and all through Xmas), and my husband's new camera having to also go away to be fixed (white balance is totally knackered).

But at least no family member has died - which is what happened the previous Xmas - it's really been an extraordinary last few years, what with my young healthy nephew dying suddenly on the football pitch, my father in law dying after 4 years of serious illness after Legionaires disease, my dear uncle dying painfully of cancer of the spine, my granddaughter spending time in hospital with meningitus. (thankfully she at least recovered)

But... what's gone wrong with things?  Is there an ominous comet threatening us in the skies?  Have I unwittingly done something really bad?  or is it one of those cyclic things?  Things have been falling apart around us because soon things will take a big step forward and our luck will change?

Cripes, I hope so. 

So if anyone has any loose good wishes they need to use up - I could really do with some, before things go any further down the pan.  I'd really rather not loose any more relatives.

Thinks a bit... or any more electronic equipment either. Lol.

Oh, and please don't ever wait until tomorrow, back-up now!

fran... cheers.. there is a saying that goes...without the downs, you'd never be able to recognize the ups!
you haven't done anything wrong.. this is just life..and how it goes. we all have our downs. i began my new year by crying thru it all.... yup.. 11:59 onwards..was crying.. long story..and it ain't getting better.
look at it this way.. you'llg et yourself a new hard drive, you'l get to make more presets, maybe better thanw hat you did, etc. yes...thank your blessings for what you have and will have.
cheers - and hey.. have a cup of hot water with lime and honey...

Hang in there Fran..
I got shingles (chicken pox) 2 weeks before xmas and because its highly contagious..I had to spend the holidays alone, except for the phone...and I still have to stay in for at least another week.
I think its just life..and it happens..it isn't anyone's fault.
I noticed that lots of us in the forums had our share of bad luck going into this year.
Anyway..sending you lots of good thoughts and energy..

"Joy to the world was a beautiful girl but to me Joy only meant sorrow..." -from Neilson Schimelson. Yep, a lot of family and friends have died during the last seven years, the price of everything keeps going up with no recouperation in wages. - now the hours keep going down too . . . They say we're on the virge of a resession here in 'merica(I think that's putting it lightly) and our governator, the 'Honorable' Arnold Swartzawhatever wants everybody in California to PAY what will probably amount to well over $500.00 a year for what he hopes will become manditory health insurance. I'm short on  my rent this month, I'm half starving and I'm on the virge of giving up my cat to a friend because soon if my misfortune continues, I won't even be able to feed her - to say nothing of my internet connection or my auto insurance and I really need new clothes (and a vacation to say Jamacia for a couple of months). I could also stand to get some dental work done. So it's not just you . . . but strangely  I don't care about all that  because as Jimmy Rogers sang: 

"you can be happy if you've a mind to."  

Have faith and everything good will come to you...=)

Ummm, Mr. Mouse...
I believe that line was from a Roger Miller song.."you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd"

I was a big fan. :)

Attached Link: http://www.mwscomp.com/sounds/mp3/brghtsd.mp3

Annie:
Jimmy Rogers - Roger Miller; sixpack of one 2 quarts of another.  Yeah you're right but I always get those two guys mixed up  . . . now there were these three  girls back in the 80's who I went  to the local roller rink with once or twice who were collectively known as ' the buffalo girls'  which seems to at least in my mind, disprove the theory that you CAN'T rollerscate in a buffalo herd.  Now who was it that did "King of the Road"? Jimmy Dean ? That seems a little more appropriate to my current situation anyway.

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/johnny-cash-and-roger-miller-king-of-the-road/3470033266

erosiart: 
after hearing that Monte Python song I'm now officially depressed (and I was doing so well too.)
Just kidding - it was a hoot ;well not a hoot perhaps but it was ok ; well not ok maybe but it was
 alright ; well not alright possibly but it was acceptable; well I better quit while I'm ahead
or perchance just breaking even well probably not even breaking even but I'm running out of synonyms . . .  

:lol:
and  to think i was whistling it thru my blues last nite...
sheesh.

i need to eat more chocolates......

But wait there's more:
although I usually like both kinds of music Rock AND Roll these old standards always seem to cheer me up. Notice that I included Jimmy Dean and Jimmy Rogers (unfortionately I couldn't find any actual Jimmy Rogers on UTUBE but You'll get the idea especially after watching the Eman vid. )  [

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR9dDdUmdtU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR9dDdUmdtU)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuFDsdrkvmM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFZLXVZkkbg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn481KcjvMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGvCMruyjVg

You'll have to forgive this guy I think he had too to drink much.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMtdWoZqXSo

and this one has special meaning to me - hope you like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEo8poVlQrM

Be of good cheer,
-TJ (Oh man I know I'm gonna be embarrased in the morning -if I don't crash the Pinto into the pimento that is.)

Attached Link: http://my.earthlink.net/article/str?guid=20080104/477dbd50_3ca6_15526200801041910623512

Relax, I never Think and drive!, besides my Subaru has never been (to my knowledge) North of the 38th parallel - let alone Toranto ... and it can't even get out of it's own way (100? I wish !) . Come to think of it there was that time I didn't drive it  for three days and when I drove it again all the gauges worked and it ran a lot smoother for a while. You don't think? Oh ... no! 

Funny, it's when you think things are goingfine for yourself that you realise that some people are a lot worse off than you are. Kind of bings you back to Earth or Mars.

I hope things look up for you BM, I really do, my friend.

Here's a Cheerin'up song:

Sung to the tune of
Bright Side of Life, by Monty Python

Bryce Side of Life

Some renders in life are bad,
They can really make you mad,
Other members just make you swear and curse,
When you're chewing your life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle,
And this'll help things render for the best,

Always look on the Bryce side of life.
[whistling]
Always look on the White Line of life.
[whistling]
If your model is Poly rotten,
There's a step that you've forgotten,
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're file is in the dumps,
Don't be silly chumps.
Just Curse your Pute and whistle. That's the thing.

And, always look on the Bryce side of life.
[whistling]
Always look on the White Line of life,
[whistling]
For life is quite absurd
Drac gets the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Your Entry didn't win.
Give Your Forum friends a grin.
Enjoy it. It's your last chance, anyhow.

So, always look on the Bryce side of death,
[whistling]
Just before your PCs terminal breath.
[whistling]
your Monitors a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Your  PCs a laugh and it's death a joke. It's true.
You'll see it's all a show.
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And, always look on the Bryce side of life.
[whistling]
Always look on the White Line of life.
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling...
I mean, what do you have to lose
You come from nothing
You go back to nothing
What have you lost, nothing]
Always look on the Bryce side of life!
[whistling]

ICM.. i wrote that out.. and this is what bikermosue had to say to it.. (couple replies upwards...)

'erosiart: 
after hearing that Monte Python song I'm now officially depressed (and I was doing so well too.)
Just kidding - it was a hoot ;well not a hoot perhaps but it was ok ; well not ok maybe but it was
 alright ; well not alright possibly but it was acceptable; well I better quit while I'm ahead
or perchance just breaking even well probably not even breaking even but I'm running out of synonyms . . .  "

lol.....

FRAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! where are you????????????????????????????????

Ach!It's just the time of year..Long dark nights and horrible weather make me depressed.When Easter arrives I'll be far more ebullient and able to cope.

I have to say that 2007 sucked big time as I lost 4 relatives.One was into her 101 st year, one had a degenerative disease similar to senile dementia,the next was the widow who had been battling cancer fo 3 years and seemed to give up after my uncle's death.The last was the most tragic,my cousin's wife.They didn't marry until their 40's and  finally adopted two wonderful children.They had only been married 15 years and this summer she lost her battle with stomach cancer leaving my cousin with two teenagers to raise on his own.

But as life is a road that we can only travel in one direction I guess that we can only look to the future and hope that the next year will be a good one for ourselves and all the rest of the human population that live on this planet with us.

Me? I'm right here reading all this and almost choking to death what with laughing and trying to sing.

Husband just came in wanting to know what the awful noise was (it was me trying to sing "The Bright Side of Life" - in between coughing and spluttering).

You guys always cheer me up, so thanks my friends, that's a nice shot in the arm.

Sometimes you just need a little boost.  And Rendo is the place to get it.

aw.. we just make a great team.
cheers...

Well, I´ve always thought that this forum was something special... but I never thought it was this special. Thank you ICM for cheering things up

YW....and Rosie for the soundtrack.

Thanks Bryster - I needed that !!

ICM: 
very punny!! Although I never enjoyed that particular song a good parody is always welcome ! ! !

I've also been tempted to write a list of woes, but I won't.  Other than to say that I have a dear friend who has been going thru one rough time after another, without seeming to catch a break. I hope that 2008 shapes up real soon for all. 
HUGS

Sorry to hear that... Mine is a bit more backwards.

The Hard drive in my PC went in December and Now I've got this annoying cold that has been with me for 2 weeks... the annoying part is..

I'm ok all day, than at night my coughing starts.. and keeps me away all night.. I keep a Tylenol Cold/Flu Sore throat syrup next to my bed.

Anyways... to keep more on topic.. I'm not happy with these hard drive failure situations.. not happy at all.. the thread I started might still be in the main page.. if you want to read more about what happened to me.  250GB Gone.

I was working on a Music Video done in Carrara... 6 Months of work down the drain.

6 months!  Cripes that's bad.

Thankfully I had hardly used my 500GB drive, and I should either get a new one - or they might be able to rescue the old info... not sure if I'd trust it with the old drive just reformatted though.

As a point of interest, my son tells me that in the near future HDDs will become 'solid-state', in other words just piles of ram-chips. Considering that memory-sticks or 'dongles' can now hold 4gigs, this is hardly surprising.

Yes, but flash memory has a life in terms or write cycles. After 250,000 (not sure but that's the number that I seem to remember) it can fail.
Was just doing some reading, the high end SSDs can have up to 1,000, 000 write cycles per block and some interesting features to make them last better. Not as badf an issue as it used to be.

I have no idea what that translates to in years  and I'm sure the bigger the better but I'd imagine the life cycle is as of yet less than that of a regular old fashoned hard drive ,  and even if the life cycle  is more there would have to be a constant source of electricty to keep data stored ie battery that when it ran down would lose all your data anyway.   

They do have 16GB Hard Drives that are based on Flash Memory... but currently they are very expensive and I dont know how many read/writes they could handle before failure.

New HD $5,399,000...  New state of the art PC $9,094,999,345,000  ...
stuff you read in this forum "priceless"

ROTFLMAO @ Skiwillgee

I have heard of predicted life over 20 years based on load levelling and other techniques. Btw, you would only need external power if the SSD is DRAM based instaed of flash. This is more suitable for IT with servers systems and UPS  capability.

Fran both my wife and i feel for you. Our christmas started out great until the wifes pc died and we both thought it was the hard-drive at the time, day later we get told by the tech guy we use it was the motherboard so off to the shop we went to purchase a new motherboard for her. Guess what they had no APG slotted motherboards so how comes the big $$ for a pci board, new ram and cpu for her..there goes our christmas plans in one day...

"Bryce side of death"?  hrmm.....

20 years? that's interesting ! 

The new hard drive is supposed to be arriving today - and despite paying for a "back to base" service these... people... want ME to fit it and re-install everything.

a) I didn't pay for that,
b) I'm sick - head swimming etc...
c) here at university I have no tools
d) I flamin' paid for it!!!

If it wasn't under gaurantee, and we had to buy one for ourselves, fine, that's for us to sort out - but this!!!!

I just wanna lie down and die!!!

Sorry, rant over... maybe.

 ICM, you should post that song as a Sticky to cheer everyone up.
I know how you feel Fran, I wrote a song once about bad luck and the chorus went (something like)

"Why me what have I done?
All I ever wanted was a little bit of fun.
Why me tangled up in knotts?
The only reply i get is....Why Not??

Basically I was trying to say that it is not our faults most times so chuck the guilt away and concentrate on getting to the goodtimes. Jen

Well..... looks around anxiously - the good news is tha PC seems to be working just fine - I might even dare to install Carrara 5Pro...

The bad news is that the Laptop has also decided to die on me.

I think quicktime killed it - a recent update installed badly and now it's blue-screened me for the 3rd time - I'm thus using the PC and trying not to even look at the laptop, much less turn it on.

I've ordered a new harddrive for the laptop, so when I take 'sickypoo' to my husband - he can fit and install that and then try to save what's on the dying harddrive - and as both of us are sick maybe by then we'll both be feeling a bit better... I hope.

Are human diseases communicable to computers I wonder???

I've not been out of the room in the last 2 days, except to the bins just outside the door, it's amazing how fast your bin fills with used tissues... eurk!

Two words: Grizsoft AVG7.5. 

One word: Kaspersky.

two more words: a fortiori.

Well, I had heard that most antivirus software around - the better ones, is either almost a direct copy - or else uses parts of - Kaspersky.

I started with AVG and worked my way through various other products until I got to Kaspersky - and stopped...

None of them however, will defend you if you download a file from what you believe to be a reputable company - and the file is somehow corrupted then or during installation.

And that's a lot more words... lol!