April Fool's Joke

Part 1: April Fool's

There were a fewApril Fool's jokes that were funny yesterday. For example, Google announced a Google Romance beta with their patented SoulMate Search (TM) and Gamespot announced World of Starcraft. LOL.

But, what happened to me was definitely not funny! As if a victim of a series of twisted April Fool's prank, everything important I have had suddenly stopped working! For one, our TV which we had for 5 years has stopped switching on. And then, and brilliant idea I had to re-partition all my disk drives resulted in a complete wipe out of ALL my data files, including the stuff in other disks. That's 200GB of data ladies and gentleman! NOT FUNNY. To add to the insult, Nisak's mobile, a Sony Ericsson K750 refused to function or be charged.

I am completely frustrated. The TV is now cast aside to a shadowy corner of our house, too old to be financially viable for repair. As for Nisak's phone, after a bit of tinkering, surprisingly it began to work again and I'd even asked Nisak to look for a new one. Finally, it couldn't be helped, I had to yet again, reinstall WinXP.

After having to reinstall WinXP so many times over the course of 2 weeks, there are a few lessons I've learnt (the hard way):

1. Installing WinXP on only 5GB of disk space is a BAD idea. WinXP needs lots of disk space to expand. As you all know, there are 2 main Service Packs required to patch all the previous vulnerabilities and don't be surprised if this takes a few Gbs of disk space. Furthermore, installing programs are probably more convenient if stored under the windows\programs folder.

2. Backup, backup, backup, backup, backup data!

3. ... and don't forget to defragment the hard drive once in awhile. Apparently, it doesn't really improve performance all that much, but it does help if a recovery is to be attempted when the data are all wiped out.
   

4. It's not a good idea to play around with Windows partitioning when you're busy. Best to do it after the exams.

Part 2: OpenSuse Linux

Reinstalling the nth time was not as painful as it sounds. As I'd done it so many times now, I have all the driver discs and floppies organized in a tiny box. (To you young ones: a “floppy” pronounced floh-puh-ee is an arcane, obsolete, abandoned technology used to store absurdly tiny amounts of data, unsecurely. Thank goodness the technology has been currently superseded by flash and optical media. Holographic drives are coming soon, maybe). Installing everything is now close to clorkwork to me.

What was painful, however, is undoing all the partitions fragmented across 200Gb.

With much labour, now my hard disk is better organised with:

1. 25Gb for WinXP

2. 10Gb for Linux

3. 75Gb for Organised Data

4. 75Gb for Chaotic Data (yet to be organised)

5. (yeah, I know, the above doesn't add up to200Gb and I don't know where the rest has gone)

Did I mention I'm now typing this on the Linux system. Thanks O-K for suggesting this, I chose to install OpenSuse Linux. Seriously guys, if you are a beginner, and would like to try Linux, use OpenSuse. The installation was superfluous, and I had only minimal fuss. What's so great was, the installer automagically tailored the system files of WinXP and allowed double booting, so it's a synch to load into either Suse, or WinXP. Also, the installer not only automagically loaded ALL THE DRIVERS necessary for display, audio and networking, but it also downloaded all the latest patches and upgrades during installation. Now, why can't Windows do that???

My friends if you want to try an alternative operating system, or you can't afford to buy WinXP or you have and old computer you want to re-use, give OpenSuse a go. It's easy to install, it looks pretty, and it's pre-installed with software for practically everything: Firefox browser, audio, DVD & video player, bittorrent, photo-manipulation, games and much more.

Here's the kicker: it's all free!

Part 3: A happy ending

The souls of my lost data must be crying in data heaven right now, but I've come to terms with it. My Windows XP is freshly installed, I'm happy with the new partition system, and it double boots nicely with OpenSuse. After wanting to try Linux for SO long, I'm finally able to.

That's what I call a happy ending ... or should I say, a happy beginning?

p/s – anyone has any suggestions for a HDTV?;)