I'm just your boring average ex-account who wasted a lot of his youth playing fantasy RPGs (Role-Playing Games), specifically Dungeons & Dragons and Stormbringer/Elric, originally for outside Philadelphia PA who turned to computer graphics as an artistic outlet. I spent 30 years from the mid 80's to late 2012 living in Palm Beach County FL (North Palm Beach to be specific), working for not-for-profits in the social service and health care arena, but suffered a health crisis due to undiagnosed diabetes which had me in the hospital for 5 months, cost me part of my left foot, and has taken several years to recover from. I now live in Milford DE to be near family. My diabetes has left me with advanced renal disease, forced me to start dialysis, which I can fortunately do at home, but has me locked up for an hour four times a day (which allows me plenty of time to keep up on my gallery comments), but I still have a fair amount of independence and my health issues aren't nearly as bad or inconvenient as many others are. Most of my work is inspired by those fantasy RPG campaigns I wasted a lot of my youth on. I tend to post series of images with rather lengthy narratives that add up to short stories, or chapters in on-going tales. Thank you for your interest and attention!
Update:
Due to a very seriously broken ankle and shin I've been stuck in a wheelchair for over a year with an external fixator on my right leg, but I'm still managing to get by on my own.
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Comments (21)
SirRonmit
Booo!! .. Been there .. I now keep backups on my RAID just in case .. Hope you get back soon!!!
Tim N
zaqxsw
Thanks... I do regular backups but they don't cover the actually programs or the data files for all my purchased products! The last time I had to return it to HP to be repaired and they include a form to ask if you want your data saved... What a waste of time!
Echidnaean
Good luck sorry to hear that! :(
zaqxsw
Thanks!
eekdog
The hand me downs I use are HP, my main crashed a few months ago, had 80 % on a external that was not connected when it took a dump. I can get most lost poser files but all the 8 months of art are gone exceot for here. Had no popper scooper to help. Bummer drag for you also, get a x drive and back up monthly. I didnt.
zaqxsw
Thanks... I have an external drive that I back up to daily, so I shouldn't have lost much of my work... It's the program folders, which include all my purchased products that don't back up... I've tried ever thing I can think of to include them but the back up just refuses to do it!
hashdoc
Bad to hear! Hope you will be back online soon!
zaqxsw
Thanks!
Kordouane
I sympathize, I also went there, I made a custom-made computer so I wouldn't be bored anymore, good luck and a lot of patience to you
zaqxsw
Thanks!
ironsoul
I fell out with HP sometime ago so my sympathy and hope it is resolved soon.
zaqxsw
Thank you!
zaqxsw
Before I went back to HP (i.e. Hopeless Products) I decided to take my PC into a local shop that I trust and they told me that the drive is "deader than dead"... They can't even access it at all! So rather than continuing this cycle of stupidity I decided to upgrade to a solid state drive as well as install a back up program that can create a complete mirror image of my drive. It will take about a few days to get the hardware and then I have to go through the process of reinstalling everything (again)... Which took months last time and I still lost dozens of older products... So here I go again!
goldie
This is terrible news. Glad that you do have a backup though. I have a used HP for now (my Gateway was just too old and lies dead as a door nail). And, yes, HP is crap. I only paid $60 for mine and using it as a stop gap until I can get a new one. I hope next year I can afford a new 64-bit computer so I can handle 3D graphics better. I just hope my HP holds up until then. I have 3 Toshiba externals which are such a godsend. Much luck with this terrible "exercise." Reinstalling stuff is such a PITA. Will miss your wonderful stories...
zaqxsw
Thanks... I strongly suggest you look into the backup software that lets you mirror you drive into the external drives... Especially if your using an HP!
dogpinshadow
My friend, build your own...it's less expensive than retail. That way you know exactly what you have and what programs you want! GOOD LUCK!
zaqxsw
Thanks!
RodS
OUCH!!!! I hate it when that happens!! Looks like the HD has gone south on you.. The computer I used for about 7 years of creating the TNA series was an HP. Never really had any issues with it until the C: drive died on me. I stuck a new drive in it recently, and it fired right up.
If you think HP is bad, try a Gateway... 😧😬
I got burned a couple times a few years ago by not backing up stuff.. Now I'm totally anal about backing up. Reinstalling all those runtimes would be an epic PITA!
zaqxsw
Thanks!
K_T_Ong
Don't you just hate it when things like this happen? If it's any consolation, know that I've been in that sort of situation before as well. Several times.
Hope all your gear gets fixed up real soon. Bear with it and take care!
zaqxsw
Thanks!
Pitch_Black
Sorry man, Hope you can work it out,
zaqxsw
Thanks... I should get my PC back from a local repair shop soon ( I didn't trust HP to fix it this time even though it's under warranty, since they clearly screwed it up last time), but last time it took me three months to reinstall everything and I lost dozens of older products that were no longer available from here and Daz3d! So I have no idea when I'll be able to start posting again.
anitalee
:(
zaqxsw
Yeah it's a bummer! However the good news is I got my PC back yesterday afternoon so I will not be without it all weekend... The bad news is now I have to reinstall Poser and ALL my data files, which tools months last time!
Ceili
Dang zaq! So sorry to hear this! I have my program files and accompanying project accessed from an external source from my computer to avoid this...you only have to have it happen to you once (I know...BTDT!)
zaqxsw
Thanks... Unfortunately this is twice for me... But I did learn my lesson this time... I got a backup program that completely mirrors my hard drive onto my external drive, instead of just backing up my documents like most do!
Axeye
I lost a dual raid drive computer. Since both drives were being written to simultaneously, no one could get anything off the drives. I also had a hard drive freeze. A company in NY managed to get most of the files but all the programs (and their passwords, serial numbers and codes) were lost. So, my heart goes out to you! Best of luck, and don't give up hope!
zaqxsw
Thanks... I've been able to reinstall Poser, Office and PaintShop, as well as all my DAZ content because their "download manager" allows you to do it in bulk, but you have to download and unzip each file from here one at a time... at the rate I'm going it will take weeks to get everything back... and then I still have to deal with other vendors like Xurge3d.
shadownet
Bummer! In my opinion HP makes decent peripherals but I long ago abandon any hope for their computers. Sorry to hear this has happened. BTW the DAZ downloader should also install the downloads (at least for Daz 3d content or any that has been set up to work in DIM). Make sure you have the correct install file path set up in DIM. Earlier this year I did a clean install on my computer and found it very fast and easy to reinstall all my Daz Studio content.
zaqxsw
Thanks. Yes, I learned last time that the DAZ Install Manager puts everything in a folder called "My DAZ 3D Library", so I just put all my content there and linked that Library to Poser.
tuxedomask
You could do what I do and keep all your files on an external drive .Use you computer only to run your programs and then when this kind of thing happens its not such a problem.Same goes for your work files save these to the external drive and then nothing is lost .
zaqxsw
Thanks for the great suggest... My only fear would be the external drive failing then... I've installed a backup program that completely mirrors my hard drive to my external drive so I have evening in both places now... Halves the chance of a problem... I'm also shopping for a new off site backup service since Carbonite clearly does not want you restoring files from their site... and what good is backing up your data off site if you can only pull it back in 10 GB bits that take 12 hours to download each! I actually have most of what I need to restart work on my latest series back and running!
IceDragonArt
Ugh. Been there done that a couple times myself. I've had to recreate all of my custom categories twice now. I currently have two external back up drives. Just in case...
Artienne
Awesome work!
jpiat
We have a tradition of self assembling computer here in France... I never bought a computer... only parts...
zaqxsw
That might be a smarter approach... But I wouldn't know where to begin... So far (knock on wood) my new hard drive is holding up!