90. Minor Setback

I’m horrified that I’ve not been able to do any productive Internet Marketing work for over two weeks. After the clean installation of Windows, my PC is almost back to how it was, but not quite. I still have to download all the Firefox plug-ins again, and I might have to use Open Office, instead of MS Office, as I have a further 24 threats to MS Office, that no-one is able to sort out for me.

I also took two weeks off work for the last part of August and had all that trouble with my PC. It’s not as bad, however, as taking two weeks off work then becoming ill, as has happened to my friends.

I went into the Apple shop in Cardiff last week, to buy those spongey things for my ipod’s earpieces (the only thing I can afford from that shop!) but I came out wanting an iMac. I can dream. The sooner I get back to work, the better.


I had to hire a car and drive four hours to a funeral last week, so I had to cancel two photography jobs, and do them this week. I also didn’t sleep at all the night before. I think it was because I was scared to death of scratching the hire car, and them taking the £200 excess off my Visa card, making me go over my limit.

Sadly, I’m not like most people when it comes to sleep. I can’t just sleep more the next night to catch up. It often takes a good two weeks to get my body clock back to normal. But I’m hoping I’ve done it in one week this time.

Despite the lack of production, I really could not have done any more work than I’ve been doing, so I’ve still earned all four of my stars every day. I am today however, revising my daily routine to include time to review how well I’m sticking to my IM plan. I have been doing it once a week, but I think I need a more rigorous shake-up, as I need to be working faster. It may not work, but it’s worth a try.

The funeral I went to was Mike Blacktopp's. I’m glad Mike is no longer suffering with Motor Neurone Disease. He could no longer speak or move for the last six months of his life. But he was very inspirational. Before his death he managed to raise over two and a half thousand pounds for MND, the Motor Neurone Disease Association. You can watch the official video of Mike’s charity skydive, Here.

88. 30DC put on hold

My hard disc seems to be corrupt, so I can't do a complete copy of it. For several days I have not been able to right click on my temp files to get rid of them, or delete them in any other way. What happens is, Windows Explorer either freezes, or just instantly shuts down.

Now it has got even worse. I cannot delete, copy, rename or do anything else with any other file or folder!

The only way I can copy a file is to left click on it, and click 'copy this file' on the left, then it gives me a box for the destination.

Also, whenver I go into any boxes like System box within Control Panel, the whole PC just freezes.

I've been on the phone to Microsoft for four hours on Wed and six hours on Thurs, and he's phoning me back again today. I've tried two offline complete scans, and four online scans.

He wants to make a new username, transfer everything across, then delete the old username (with corrupt files). I have transferred some files myself and tried to use Windows Explorer in the new user account, but it still won't work.

So I'm not confident that his plan will work. He's been a tech for years and has never come across this problem. My PC won't even let me do a System Restore - at all!

So I just want to get everything I need to put on a new computer, via my external hard drive, but I’m not sure that’s possible. I already looked at iTunes in my new user account, and three years worth of songs are gone. I don't know how to get to keep them. Most were paid for and downloaded, and I don't have them on CD.

I’ll just be spending the morning trying to salvage what files and folders I can before the MS tech rings me back.

To cap it all, I was still only on Day 23 of the 30DC before all this happened. I'm still able to watch some videos, but my system is so unreliable, I can't do much work at all.

Still earning all four stars, every day, as I've been doing ewverything I can. Non of this disaster has come about through laziness!

I guess I tempted fate by saying on Tuesday that I love my life - that'll teach me!

87. Thirty Day Challenge Day 28

Here’s something I only just found out. When looking down the list of StumbleUpon’s list of categories for websites, I noticed that one of them was ‘learning disorder’ – not ‘learning disability’, or ‘learning difficulty’ – so they obviously use a different term for it in the Sates. And I’ve never used ‘learning disorder’ as a tab for this blog. Learning, learning all the time. I love my life.

I was still behind on the 30DC, and manged to add Google Analytics to my main niche blog. It took a while finding the video, then finding a forum post that amended the instruction from a Tumblr blog to the blogger blogs, then I had to sign up with Google Analytics, and then put the code into the special box within my blog. so I had to have all these windows open at the same time, whilst I slowly but surely managed to do what turned out to be a one minute job. It just took slightly longer to learn it that’s all!

Had our weekly team Skype call, but Asbjorn couldn’t make it this week. Got Pauline set up with Google chat. My blog is now number 60 in Google, down form 45 yesterday. Hope it moves up or I’ll never get any traffic.

Spent way too long answering emails, and on the phone to Microsoft again, trying to sort out a malware alert.