What a month ....

so far :-(


Last Friday my entire hard drive crashed. I couldn't believe it.


My daughter raced over to the Apple Store in Denver and brought a new one up on Wednesday. Meanwhile I took the old one in to a place here in Steamboat called "MacRanch" and a very patient, persistent and bright young man named Chris retrieved all my files from the hard drive ... and we thought all was well.


We got the accounting program and all its data back up and running on the new computer... retrieved the software for the mailing list, though I had to rebuild most of the data files ... and we thought all was well. All the data files for the new and archived charts, as well as the web site were rescued and in their proper places and I breathed a big sigh of relief.


Unfortunately, none of my Adobe application files would load on the new computer. So, though I had retrieved all my data, I couldn't access any of it :-(


Apparently the new computer also has a new operating system that the Adobe programs haven't quite caught up with. After a very, very long, stressful week and many hours on the phone with Adobe Support, it still wasn't working. I had really pretty much given up. Went to bed last night saying to myself, I'll just deal with it tomorrow.


This morning I got up and gave it one last try. Inserted the Adobe CS4 disk in the new computer's drive and tried loading a few programs. They loaded!!! Then a few more ... and they loaded too! And now, knock on wood, they all seem to be functioning and stable.


Whewwwwwww.


The only glitch ... the old program I used to build and upload my website will not function on the new operating system, so I need to convert the web site into a new program this weekend and I will be back to normal. It will be a long weekend. It was a long week.


So, if your orders were a little slower going out than usual, you will know that we were struggling to salvage a whole computer system and all the data that accompanies a small company at the same time we were trying to keep up with orders, keep inventory stocked and keep kit manufacturing on target.


I think we did an okay job of getting through this. I have a great big hard drive sitting on my desk and an automatic backup program is doing its thing every hour on the hour. I have learned what is critical to back up and what is not. I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about computer operating systems and programs and how and where data is stored.


I want to thank my daughter for her help and support while all this was going on. She went above and beyond ... traveling to Steamboat from Denver with a new computer, sitting for hours on hold with Adobe Support systems ... filling orders and cutting fabric and making runs to the post office while I struggled with programs that wouldn't load and data I couldn't find. Without her, I would have been inclined to give up the ship ... but she kept it steadily moving forward in very turbulent waters. Thank you Hana. 


Wish me luck this weekend getting that website converted! It's the last thing that needs to be done to get us back up to "pre-crash" speed.


Cynthia