And I don't mean Binary Coded Decimal.
I recently set up a test machine with a dual-boot XP/Vista configuration. Being the cautious type, I went to make a disk image of the Vista side. That is the side I would be using for testing, and would need to be able to quickly and easily restore it to a clean state (e.g., not have to tediously reinstall Vista each time).
I first tried an old version of DiskImage. Nope, won't run off an NTFS drive and I have no floppy in that machine. Toss the CD and recycle the manual.
Next tried a 2003 version of Norton Ghost. Things seemed to go well for a while, but went south really suddenly. I believe that it choked when it tried to deal with the Vista BCD (Boot Configuation Data) stores. Toss that CD and recycle that manual.
Trying to then reinstall Vista failed repeatedly because the reboots kept trying to reboot a corrupted operating system. I couldn't get to the BCD data from the XP side until some Googling turned up EasyBCD, which saved my sorry butt. Now I'm re-installing Vista.
I think I'll next try Ubuntu with PartImage to back up the disk image. I've paid Symantec enough money over the past few years.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Cassandra, Take a Bow
I've always considered myself a realist. Some may call me a pessimist, but many of my predictions have turned out correctly. I don't like being seen as negative, so I do try to lighten up a bit. This led to an amusing incident at my current job.
After telling my boss a number of times that I thought an expectation was too optimistic, I decided to tell him the legend of Cassandra (because I was starting to feel like the prophet-not-listened-to). After I told him the story, I told him (jokingly) that I considered myself the Cassandra of my group.
A couple of days later, my business phone rang. I get very few calls on that line, since my group tends to use GTalk if possible. I therefore get a higher percentage than usual of wrong numbers. I was in the middle of debugging something, so I was focused on that task rather than the phone call. I picked up the phone and someone said, "Is Cassandra there?"
I almost hung up, but decided to be polite and ask the person what number they dialed (expecting that it was a wrong number).
It was my boss. Given my past history with him, I should be careful what I ask for, because he does have a keen sense of humor.
After telling my boss a number of times that I thought an expectation was too optimistic, I decided to tell him the legend of Cassandra (because I was starting to feel like the prophet-not-listened-to). After I told him the story, I told him (jokingly) that I considered myself the Cassandra of my group.
A couple of days later, my business phone rang. I get very few calls on that line, since my group tends to use GTalk if possible. I therefore get a higher percentage than usual of wrong numbers. I was in the middle of debugging something, so I was focused on that task rather than the phone call. I picked up the phone and someone said, "Is Cassandra there?"
I almost hung up, but decided to be polite and ask the person what number they dialed (expecting that it was a wrong number).
It was my boss. Given my past history with him, I should be careful what I ask for, because he does have a keen sense of humor.
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