My computer is dying on me so I won't be around for a short while. Will be here more regularly soon, post-engineer - I hope.

See you in 2008!

Phil

2008?!

Awww, no.... :cry:

John

I own a computer wizard who owes me dearly!!!! Too bad I couldn't ship him to you on consignment until he was say..... 21????

Good luck!!! PM me if he can help!!!

Carol

Thanks Carol,

Can you put him in the back of a freight truck? I'm sure I could intercept him and find a use.... :)

This machine only boots up once in every twenty or so tries and I've no idea why that is. I was lucky in being able to log on at all here, normally I can't even get this far. Weird....maybe its possessed.

I'll have to post hundreds of messages now I'm logged in to make up for the next couple of weeks. (I can just feel everyone groaning in advance....)

Phil

Mr. Phil dude, not sure if you run antivirus software or spyware cleaning agents, but start at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ (free online virus scanner of your PC) and/or http://www.lavasoft.com to download a free spyware thingamabob.

See you in 2008!

Phil

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

J

Thanks, Tony, I think many of us could use something that finds spyware.

Nancy

I run AdAware 6 on a regular basis to get rid of spy ware and it always seems to pick up 20 - 40 items...

:(

I am up over 1500 items on Adaware...yikes! :shock: Yep, gotta run every anitivirus thingy there is !! (those programmers have to much time on their hands, writing all of these hacking files)
Good luck Phil !!! I was hacked into last week, and it took a geek four hours to redo the system...

Phil, I hope you get back online soon. We'll miss your humor until then.

Melissa

:sad: I think that this is the end for me for now. My hard drive is packing up on me, it took over an hour to boot up this morning and two hours to do the same last night. On top of that, the machine sometimes crashes for no obvious reason, causing me to try to try boot up all over again. Each day the problems get worse.

Until I can get this sorted out I will probably hardly be online.

Phil

:goodbye: :ammonite:

:sad:

Argh. (Which I intend to be read as something much more profane.)

This is horrible news Phil! Sounds like your PC is a piece of Argh.

Ohhh Noooo....Looking back I see you had issues with it in November.....Best of luck to you Phil....Again....I offer computer whiz son.....I'll ship for free!!!!! But you'd have to keep him awhile....Anyway.....Good luck!!!!! Could we ship you a harddrive?????? And I second the dell!!! They have some great deals going on right now......

Thanks for the offer Carol, I'll pay for the postage and packing for your son to come over willingly!

By chance I've just managed to log on, but I've had to do a complete system restore from scratch. I've lost all my old e-mails (inc. some articles from Steve), and many of my documents, pictures, applications and saved music. Even now this machine is acting erratically and is prone to switching off at random intervals.

So I can only apologise again, I have no idea when I can get all this sorted out, but please don't take silence from me as a bad sign, it's merely a temporary, albeit major, technical hitch.

By the way, I found two excellent 50 mya sharks teeth on the Isle of Sheppey off the Kent coast today. Someone I met there showed me a fantastic fossil nautilus he had found just ten minutes before, typically I did not have my camera on me so I've no photo to show you all. Maybe next time, whenever that is......

Au revoir,

Phil

Phil,

I third the Dell, although if you want to cross-over and join us heretics on the other side, my Mac G-5 (we've always been PC folk, but the industry standard for SFX, graphics, or animations is definitely Mac, so we joined the betrayers to stay competitive) hasn't let me down yet. Of course it's new, so that might be why...

Hope to hear from you again soon!

Erich

Hi Phil,

Hope you find an alternative PC to work on while you get yours fixed.
Computers are a real bother when they're not working right.

All things being equal, I'd pick the Mac!

Nancy

Man -- hang in there, Phil! I think it's traumatic to lose a) Internet connectivity and b) valuable data as you have.

Let me know if / when you'd like me to re-send any old emails you sent to me or the staff, or that I sent to you / the staff. I keep a complete archive, going back to the last millenium.

I'm a Dell guy as well, Dell is a great company and my machine has been terrific. Don't think you can go wrong w/ a Mac, either.

I wouldn't worry about losing anything I sent you - I probably made it up anyway :wink:

Reminds me ... owe a few people a few parcels. Hmmmmmm. Thankfully I have some time on my hands now - finally!

Phil,

If you go Mac, you might consider the new(ish) Mac Mini. It's just a wee aluminum box containing a hard drive, optical drive and all the necessary ports. Plug your old machine's monitor, keyboard and mouse into it, and voila. It's the least expensive of the Macintosh line. Macs are very reliable, and enjoy a certain level of viral immunity (Microsoft platforms are a much more inviting target).

Good luck with all this, and I'm very, very sorry for the lost data. An awful feeling.

Your pal,

Clem

hey phil...

maybe this is a dumb thing to say.
maybe it isn't.

i'm not too sure.

fact is...i check in on you guys(yes...i'm still lurking out there)from the library.

inconveinient as that sounds...it IS an option.

good luck! =)

Phil,

I'm going to agree with Clem on this one, definitely. While I love our giant-screen G5, the main reason we went with this one was strictly a matter of being able to see more detail for animation/art purposes. It certainly cost more than we would have liked to spend, but unfortunately it was what we needed. Good luck, and hope to hear from you soon!

Erich

:sad:

I guess that this is a bad error message to get on the home PC

"Primary Master Hard Disk Fail"

.... and no matter how many times you turn the thing on and off .... it doesn't advance past this message (in other words, it doesn't seem to want to fix itself).

Phil, looks like we're in the same boat ... am now restricted to checking out online during the day.

dont you think it is a good time to buy another computer. also get norton antivirus it is absolutely the best virus protection out there

I saw this on my computer monitor once:

"COMPUTER OVER.
VIRUS = VERY YES."

wot no Phil ?
what are we going to do ? :cry:
who am I going to talk rubbish to ?
'spose there's always Sir Steve :twisted:

Keef

Amstrad have some quality products :lol: or could try Alba !

Tempting providence maybe, but I think I'm safe to say I'm back. One new motherboard and hard drive later, thank goodness the machine was still under guarantee. Thanks for all your advice above everyone.

Where does one begin to catch up? So many interesting posts to read!

Shanlyn's pc got hit hard too...but it is older anyway, so time for a replacement...glad to hear you are back online, it hasn't been the same without you !!!!
greg

Aw, Greg, thankyou! It's funny how much one misses a PC when one does not have one. Indeed, to a Luddite like me it still seems strange how quickly one starts to take e-mail and the internet for granted for banking, shopping, social arrangements etc (and buying rubbish off ebay).

My television packed up last week too. Without that and the internet I was forced to seek solace in the pub. Such a shame.

Welcome back, Phil. We've missed you.

I figured you were busy encouraging Chris Eccleston not to quit "Dr. Who." Oh well.

Clem

Glad to have you back, Phil. We missed you!

Nancy

oh, so are you SURE your computer is OK. Cause garentees thingamabobs seems to be very sloppy at best in HK, took them 4 months to change the wires in my toaster. :hmm:

Wait, here's something you guys might seem funny:
my computer has 101 spyware. Really, the adware is running on my computer as we speak...um, type.

wtg Phil, I've been pining !

Keef

Thank :cthulhu:! TONMO.com without Phil was like a baked potato without sour cream and lots of pepper.

It's nice to see you back online, Phil.

Melissa

now, THAT, was an outpouring of love !!!! Second beer's on you, Phil !!!!!!

g

Phil,

So nice to have you back with us! I'm hoping the pub doesn't miss you too much, though - it might put a strain on your local economy! :grin:

Erich

Welcome back Phil!!!!!! Guess you don't need computer whiz son anymore...... Oh well.....I had hope!!!!! :mrgreen:

Carol

Awesome! Welcome back Phil! This better not be an April Fool's joke... ;-)

Welcome back Phil,

Just in time for the discovery of living trilobites (http://www.trilobites.info/) :shock:

Just in time for the discovery of living trilobites (http://www.trilobites.info/) :shock:

:tomato:

Now I'm questioning everything that happened here yesterday. Did Greg really get a mug with an octopus on it? Did John really find H-bomb squid? Did Steve really post a photo of Bruno in a speedo?

My world is collapsing.

Clem

hi phil, welcome back...

what did you think of Dr who then?

Did Greg really get a mug with an octopus on it?

Yes.... kind of a bribe since the octo design was, ummm well.... his...

and I am currently drinking out of it again, as I type !!!! YEEha!

Phil, PHIL, You out there somewhere?

Phil, PHIL, You out there somewhere?

I'm trying, really trying!

Computer is fixed, so far so good. BUT now I have an appalling phone line that constantly crackles and buzzes. It's definitely not the phones themselves but I'm sure is the line itself. Connection to the net is sporadic at best, I can only connect for a few seconds, if at all, and then get booted off very quickly. Even for this message I've had to write it in Word, then copy and paste it quickly before my connection fails. Fingers crossed it'll be repaired on Wednesday morning.

As you can imagine, this makes using the net very fustrating indeed, hence my silence!

You know, it really isn't my year for electronic devices. Even my television is now strobing RGB in pulses making it very difficult to watch, this was caused by the engineer who had come to fix a sound problem. Just maybe next doors cat is emitting EM pulsewaves out of pure spite to disrupt me and my house; wouldn't put it past the hairy git.

Oh and Colin, I thought the first two episodes of Dr Who were excellent; and all the rumours point to the series getting better too. It's just a pity Chris Eccleston has stepped down so soon after just 13 episodes which casts a bit of a cloud over the whole thing. Still, I hope whoever takes over is a strong enough actor to carry it; it'd be such a pity to see the new series cancelled after all these years waiting.

I think its to be shown in Canada tomorrow night, so I hope you watch it, Um....

I have done so. Not bad, although I did sort of get the impression that some of the stops had been left in. I'm quite eager to see the next episode, and I'd love to see another few seasons (what's this about Eccleston? :sad:). If anyone with sufficient pull at the CBC ever reads this, I'd like to suggest airing some of the old episodes in the general temporal vicinity of these new ones.

:drwho: