I don’t think I could ever get bored looking at tilt-shift photos. This is one of the most exciting sites I’ve seen in a while. It’s give you a smooth and sleek interface where you can create you own tilt-shift photos and it is swaaeet! Thank you Kevin Kelly for the link.

 My boyfriend showed me this website today via Reddit. Click around and enjoy, you’ll be busy for hours! I believe it was inspired by the Tenori-on, something I could easily see my younger brother playing with. If anything, it’s at least pretty to watch! Oh, and this also gets Nerdtron Award #4!

Hey hey! I know, it sure has been a while, huh? I am in between places right now and so I have been interne-less. It’s quite sad, and I’m lucky to still be alive.

My new love seems to be video game art. I’ve painted a few pieces myself, but I’m no Donatello. I wish I had the talent to maybe knit my own sweater or knit my dog a sweater, but I don’t. If I did, maybe I wouldn’t be a nerd. However some people out there are super talented. Lucky them. Take a look at their cuteness here.

I would totally buy this Luma Plush. Awww! It would look perfect in my apartment.

I love Valentine’s Day! And it’s not cause I get flowers and candy, but because I have an obsession with hearts. Valentine’s Day is joy overload for me!

Another thing I love is this collection of valentines from 4 color rebellion.
There are three years worth of free to use and print valentines for the nerd in your life.
Valentines from 2006
Valentines from 2007
Valentines from 2008

My favorite:

Readers,
I Love You! Thank You and Happy Valentine’s Day!
♥Rachel

Working tech support, I see it all the time. Hundreds of pictures and hundreds of hours of work gone in a second. It sucks! Most of us have been there. If you haven’t, you will. It doesn’t really matter how old a computer is, hard drives crash. Causes can be anywhere from malware to bad hardware, it just happens.

Preventing Data Loss
Best thing to do, backup. Maybe once a week or even more, depending on how much you use your computer. Having stacks of CDs/DVDs kinda sucks. It’s also pretty time consuming. The easiest way to backup data is to get an external hard drive. Preferably a solid-state hard drive, but for right this is more of an expensive option. When getting an external hard drive try to ignore the software included with the drive. Why? Well there are a few problems. One, compatibility issues with Vista. No shocker there. Two, (with some software) once you backup your data using the software you need to use the software to retrieve it, and there could be compatibility issues there as well. Windows’ Drag and Drop should work just fine.
Another awesome way to back up data is to use online backup. Mozy and iBackup are two big companies people seem to be happy with. I personally, haven’t used either.
Creating a Disk Image can save a lot of time and hassle as well. Many computer companies ask you to do this the first time you boot up your computer. Ha! That rarely happens. You can find a list of software to create one here. Again, this is another method I know about but haven’t tried myself.
With some computers, RAID is an option. If so, you may want to try RAID 1 or RAID 5. The problem there, if you get a virus, it’s on both drives. So you’re best off using any other option.
One last piece of advise here. If you ever hear a clicking or grinding noise coming from your hard drive, back up your data ASAP. Your hard drive is very likely going to crash.

Recovering Your Data
If you didn’t back up, there still might be hope. Reinstalling Windows is the answer a lot of Tech Support agents may give you off the bat. System Restore, chkdsk /r, and Repair Install are three steps to try before any Windows reinstall. Alas, if you have to do a dreaded reinstall, be prepared to give away hours of your life. First, you have to format your hard drive. Second, you Install Windows. And third, you need to install drivers and software. It’s a lot easier said than done. Some computer companies may have an Image CD or an Image Partition. Using these will save you lots of time. Yummy! The image usually contains the OS, drivers, and programs that were installed on your system when you bought it. You can also use that Disk Image I mentioned earlier.

So you’re a photographer, you just did a wedding and now your hard drive has crashed. You didn’t backup. Uh oh, you’re screwed! Those pictures are priceless and you have to get them for your customer. Okay, this might not be you, but if you do have extremely valuable data on your now hosed drive, is there any hope? Yes! Well, maybe. There are companies out there who will charge you an arm and a leg to use their special little machines and software to read your hard drive. Companies like DriveSavers then back it up on a flash drive, DVDs, ect.
If you’re a computer savvy person, there may be a cheaper route. Sometimes the file system is too corrupt to boot to Windows, but that doesn’t always mean it’s too corrupt to recover your personal files. Start out by buying a hard drive case. Then place the pooped hard drive in the case and plug it in just like an external hard drive and try backing up your data to the internal drive. Or if you have access to a similar computer model to yours, you may be able to sit that in the system, set it as a slave drive, and retrieve your files that way. Now that you have recovered you data, installed your new OS/hard drive, and put your data back on your computer…please please back-up-your-stuff!

Be Grateful You’re Not This Lady
Engadget reported about a lady named Raelyn Campbell who is suing Best Buy for $54 million dollars. The problem started out as a simply little fix. She bought her computer at Best Buy a few years ago along with a warranty from them. She took her laptop to them with a broken power switch. They told her it could take a few week. All was fine and dandy. Turns out, Best Buy (or what is Geek Squad? Not sure) lost her laptop and all of her data. Oh snap! How did they comfort her? A $900 gift card! Pfft! Long story short, still no laptop, still a huge lawsuit. Moral of the story? Hmmm…maybe back up your data or something like that?

[soapbox]I may have been trained by Dell and work for Dell, but none of the above is endorsed by Dell. The tips given here are things I have picked up from working on computers from multiple brands. Hard drives from computers crash all the time. It doesn’t just happen in Dell’s. Besides, Dell doesn’t even make hard drives. They use drives from Sony, Toshiba, ect.[/soapbox]