The first million years, they were the worst. The second million years, they were the worst too.

[scarfman]

Yesterday my laptop did the same failure-to-recognize-USB-device,-then-failure-to-restart thing as it did last month. I didn't realize initially that it was the same drill because this time it didn't fail to recognize the thumb drive, but the refusal to restart propertly till it'd been left alone for two hours gave it away.

This time there'd been no lunch hour in a cold car. I've been told before that Windows OSs can't be left on indefinitely, but it's been my habit on this machine to hibernate instead of power down so that Firefox doesn't lose my logins. I don't know how long it'd been last time since the thing had had a hard shutdown, but I know this time it'd been a week and a half. I'll have to stop letting it go more'n a week, and I'll have to set myself a reminder in my spreadsheet.

Comments

[laws-of-fizzix.livejournal.com]

:\ computer troubles are fun. I know mine sometimes randomly doesn't shut down when I close it, so it runs down the battery. I have to pull the battery out to shut it off, since it won't "wake" back up when I open it and push buttons -- oh, how much work I've lost that way. :\

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Dudes. Turn off the laptop and back away slowly. Every night = cold shutdown or you're begging for trouble. That said, I'm not sure this explains the failure-to-restart thing. Practice good daily shutdown hygiene and see if it keeps happening. Meanwhile, extra backups at every opportunity.

Don't most sites have a "stay logged in" option? I never have to log in at LiveJournal unless I've cleared my FireFox cache. I keep waffling on which sites I should set to log in automatically for convenience, against the risk that I could lose my netbook and you'll all be reading hijacked acmespaceship spam. Don't say I didn't warn you.

And OMFG, closing a laptop without saving files first? No no no no no no.

[scarfman]

And OMFG, closing a laptop without saving files first? No no no no no no.

Whoa whoa whoa! I never said that! I don't do that (unless something crashes mid-edit) and I didn't say I had. I only look stupid.

Don't most sites have a "stay logged in" option?

Yeah, but how secure is that?

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Not secure at all, hence my quandary. And my comment about not saving was in reference to laws-of-fizzix's comment but I was lazy. And really it's just my cry into the wilderness and not to anyone in particular because I DO keep running into people who don't save files for crying out loud.

I think we have been entrusted with technology (portable computers) that humans (somewhat evolved primates) are not yet ready to handle. Maybe the third million years will run smoother?

[laws-of-fizzix.livejournal.com]

It's mostly just GIMP that crashes it, and it's the only thing without a recover option. I don't suck at computers, I just suck at remembering that GIMP is a failcakes.

My icon would explain what happens when I realize I've been working for over an hour or so in GIMP and my computer fails at autosleeping. x-x

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Ack, thanks for the info about GIMP, I've been meaning to try it and now I'll be suitably warned. Love the icon. Did you do it in... GIMP?

[laws-of-fizzix.livejournal.com]

Nope, I stole it. XD

[sabremeister]

Besides sites remembering your logins, Firefox also does it. Every time I log in at a new place, FF asks me whether it wants to save the login details (it's a security option). Or you could save your logins in a protected file on a small piece of detachable hardware that you take everywhere with you. But as acmespaceship says above, it's best practice to save and shut down fully at least once a day.