© Brad Mangas
Ok, a little rant time. But first, A word from our sponsor. Sorry had to put that in it just popped into my head. Doesn’t that look goofy here on a blog. Wonder how long it will be until things like that actually happen on the world wide web, actually they are happening now at some sites. Time wasting adds popping up making you either watch them or try to find the skip ad button to click on. Is it just me or do they irritate everyone?
But seriously first I will mention this image of one of the spring beauties in these parts, the spider wort. Yeah kind of a funny name. The young leaves and stems are edible and the Native American Lakota’s made a jelly like paint from the flowers used for decorative purposes. So go out and gather some young leaves and stems and make yourself a spider wort salad! Yumm Yumm. Actually it probably is good and now that I have learned this I may just do it!
Think I’m going to have to make category for some rants and pet peeves here, sometimes I just need to get them out. I typically don’t try to pass on a negative opinion so I will keep this to more of a reminder and my thoughts on this subject.
Photography in the computer age – what a wonderful thing for us digital camera photogs. Take as many pictures as you want, fill up those flash cards delete them take more put them on the computer and have at it, no problem. Until, one morning you set down at your trusty pc or mac, and yes I’m including mac’s here because like it or not they are not immune, maybe just take a dose of stronger antibiotic or something but things can, do and will happen.
A little bug seemed to have found it’s way to my computer Sunday night. Ok, quickly little side note. Why are issues with a computer refereed to as a bug? Well here’s the answer. When the electronic age starting coming about many years ago some of the first components to be used after the transistor tubes where relays. A small electro-mehanical device that has like a little switch inside. One time as the story goes this piece of electronic equipment was malfunctioning. When the technicians, or scientist or whoever starting troubleshooting the device and components low and behold they found a bug, the insect kind had made its way inside of a relay and was preventing it from working. So from that time on until the end of time we will have computer bugs! So there ya go a little tidbit of maybe useless knowledge. Back to the story. Things were fine when I used it late Sunday, then Monday morning, umm not so fine. No internet, so I thought but quickly found out it was an issue of Firefox (my choice of browsers and should be yours too!) not starting. And shortly there after found out bridge or photoshop not starting. Hmm I said to myself in a jolly voice. What has happened? Does anything work. Quickly answered with a big fat, Nope. I use a registered up to date version of an internet security package and it is scheduled to run every Sunday night. Not only had it not ran, but it had been totally disabled and would not start either.
Ok, I’m not going to drag this out with all kinds of boring details but I will say. I didn’t have to panic much, knowing all my image files are backed up on 2 external hard drives so whether my computer worked or not I was relatively sure I wasn’t going to lose and images. So was the case, but the last couple of days has been spent getting my computer back up to snuff. This was done by being able to boot up in safe mode and first removing the security software, yep to fix it I had to first remove the protection from it, it had really be jacked up. And not only that but it wouldn’t reinstall properly at that point. With it removed I was able to get most functions back in working order such as internet access. So the first thing I done was to go out and grab a recommended free version of an anti virus package which happens to be (www.free.avg.com) downloaded, installed and ran perfectly and removed some nasty things from the system. I highly recommend this free download. Now my complete security package is reinstalled along with the free avg software for a double does of crime fighting fun both scheduled to run daily but will probably back it down to weekly if things seem to go ok the next week or so.
The moral of this little story: Always be prepared! Do what is recommended by others when it comes to proper backups, proper protection and proper maintenance of y0ur very necessary computer in the digital photography age. Prepare for the worst and more than likely you will not have to experience it.
