I really do enjoy a good blonde joke and this has got to be the best blonde joke ever.

Once again, my computer failed to recognise the hard drive, this time for several days straight. I took the computer all apart and made sure the connections from the drive to the mother board and power supply were secure, put it all back together, but the results were the same. Lucky for me, my son's room resembles a supply closet from a computer chop shop, and he was able to quickly find a spare connector cable for me to try. Meanwhile, all this lifting and shifting is really getting to my back, especially the part about doubling over the compute to screw things into the backside. The importance of many of my peripherals such as printer and local network begins to plummet. No matter, the problem was not with the cable.

Day Two. I manage to borrow a spare hard drive from my son on an extremely short-term basis. I had never removed a hard drive from a computer before, but having nothing to lose is very empowering. I popped the new one in, powered up, and the drive showed up just fine. It wouldn't boot, my hardware was too different from last boot, but it seemed to prove that the problem was with the drive. I put the old drive back in, put in an order for a new Seagate Barracuda, booted up with a live Linux CD and enjoyed a few rounds of Gems Game.

Today. My new hard drive has been shipped, it should be here Tuesday. That works out great for me since I have the day off on Wednesday. Also, my old drive has decided to work again. Perhaps it will function as a backup drive.

This morning when I woke up and booted my computer, I was given a black screen and the message: No operating system found, hit F1 to search again. There was even a cute ASCII diagram showing where F1 could be found. It didn't help. I even booted with a live CD and my hard drive was not showing up. I have been at work all day and won't be able to try again for a couple of hours. I do wish I was more into the regular backup thingy.

It was a day off without the 'Net. I had been having some problems with dialup but today it went away and refused to come back. I called support after trying a few times on two computers. The first tech I talked to told me my modem drivers were outdated. I mentioned that Ubuntu is only four months old and has all the latest everything but he was not impressed, even after I told him it was a form of Linux, ya know, not Windows? The second told me to remove one of my Internet protocols, and the third gave me an alternate number to dial that did not work at all. I called the tech here in town and followed his suggestion to call the phone company; they were aware of the problem and were already working on it. I was able to dial up again early in the evening.

Ok, so Windows has no security, and I am trying to use Ubuntu. It comes with Firefox. Why does Bloglines not work?

**update-so today Bloglines works just fine, hard to say whose fault that one was.

It was another goofing off day for me here, and not in the usual way because Bloglines was down for much of the morning. I did some work on this site, can't you tell how much better it looks? Ok fine so the design ain't all that innovative but it is original and you should be able to find your way around without too much trouble. I do have more design ideas in mind, so maybe by the time anybody reads this the website will look all smooth and pimped out and this post will come across as just a tad snobbish. A girl can dream, right?

Dries visited one of my websites today, a genuine brush with greatness for me I am sure. I did happen to donate a pittance toward the purchase of his new computer, and he was also gracious enough to thank me personally through e-mail. While the amount I gave was embarrassingly small compared to the benefit I have gotten from the Drupal project, if everyone who has enjoyed the software would give just a token then Dries could have that computer easily, and something for his lovely bride as well. I wish them only the best.

And now for a word to those who do not enjoy the Drupal as much as I do: Fine. Use something else. I was put off from Drupal at first because I had read that it was too difficult, and perhaps overkill for a small site. Once I found the courage to try it for myself I was overwhelmed with the possibilities. Discovering where to find a few obscure menu options is trivial when compared to fighting a monstrous CMS that is designed to do a certain thing and only that certain thing. Sure Drupal has it's quirks but it is nothing that can't be dealt with. It is all part of the adventure.