Dragonscale
Published Wed, Dec 8 2010 10:17 PM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet, Entertainment, Hobbies, Annoyances
I took the laptop to work today, to do some fidelity testing on a new piece of software I’ve been working on. So that left me with the old re-worked desktop machine at the apartment. More on that in a bit…
Near the end of the work day, my boss told me to “Go home and bend some wire.” That sounded like a bit of fun to me, but first I took another trip to Ace Hardware to buy a couple more steel welding rods. This time I got one with 1/2” diameter and one with 1/4” diameter. The 1/2” diameter rod turned out to be perfect for making some larger rings out of the 14 SWG galvanized steel I’ve been working with.
My original intent for the larger rings was to use them as “Queen” rings in another expanding circular piece of European 4 in 1 mail, from which I intend to build a mantled coif. I got started on that, but there’s much more work to go.
Anyway, I had another reason for choosing the particular size that I did. You see, there are some interesting mail patterns that can be made with more than one size of ring (oriental mail uses at least two ring sizes for example). Anyway, here’s a comparison of the new ring size to the old ring size…
Well the new, larger rings are almost the perfect size to make a new mail pattern that I’ve been interested in trying out since I heard of it… Dragonscale, so named because it allegedly resembles the scales of a dragon. This weave takes two different sized rings, like in the picture above (although the large ring is just a tiny bit too large based on the instructions I have). Anyway, here’s the sample patch of it that I made.
All in all, it was another fun project.
So, back to the adventures with the old desktop computer and the laptop. That last picture was taken with my iPhone’s camera (the others were scans made with my flatbed scanner). I wanted to import it (and another as well) to the desktop computer so I could put it into this post… well, wouldn’t you know once I connected the iPhone to the desktop computer and let the machine install the device drivers for it things started to go haywire.
I lost my network connection almost right away. Then iTunes wanted to use the iPhone at the same time Windows was trying to use it. When I went to import pictures from the iPhone, only 10 out of 156 were even found. And then…
… then I saw a really strange error message pop up from the task notification area on the bottom of my screen. A “delayed write” had failed to the file “D:\mft$”. This happened a couple more times. Then, out of frustration I restarted the machine. When it came back to life my “D” drive was no longer there. I have a few hundred gigabytes of data there, including invoices, time sheets, source code, and a bunch of other stuff… talk about frustration.
I tried firing up the laptop and connecting the drive to that machine – with no luck. The drive had “malfunctioned” and neither Windows 7 nor Windows XP would recognize it. And so it’s off to the Seagate web site to see if I can’t download the latest drivers for the device – and their “data recovery” tool – just in case I need to try to restore the data.
Fortunately, it looks like all I really had to do was power the drive down for a few minutes and start it back up. I’m running a diagnostic check on it now, but so far at least it looks like I haven’t really lost anything. Still, it gave me quite a scare there for a bit. I wonder how many DVDs it will take to back that drive up? Carbonite still doesn’t back up “removable” media, and I really don’t want to lose any of the data I have stored on it.
Oh… the other picture? Well, shortly after I returned to Salt Lake City from my last trip home, the sky was playing some beautiful games near the end of the work day. On my way back to my apartment from work I shot this with the iPhone. It seems I never have my “good” camera handy these days… I’m going to have to do something about that I guess.
There are some good things about being here in Utah… although I still much prefer being with my family. Hey! I get to go back next weekend and spend the rest of 2010 there. Now that’s a trip I’m looking forward to.
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David responded with:
 | Dragonscale, huh? Nice stuff. Sounds like a workout to me. And that's before wearing it. :-)
I've seen and heard of some weird stuff on mixed networks, but the "lost n found" drive thing not so much. A bit scary.
I used to take time at the end of a work day to catch sunsets. They're no so spectacular here in America's Third World County, and I've gotten out of the practice. Still, it looks like I'll see another sunrise this a.m. *heh*
Glad you'll be with family soon. Frankly, I don't think I could stand such separation for long. But a man's gotta do... |
Angel responded with: ltns!
 | hey Perri!..great to see ya again..the pic is stunning by the way!!! |
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