What a Week This Has Been

Last updated on 2012-12-10

I had two very traumatic experiences this week… but survived :-).
Saturday night my NAS decided to break down. A Segate GoFlex Home 2TB drive just started doing “clank clank” and me OBVIOUSLY with no recent backups of the information in the drive (all of my kid’s pictures, lots of movies, music…). Went to the shop where I bought it and was told “yea, sounds like the disk’s heads are broken. Nothing we can do. Want a replacement? its on warranty”. BUT I WANT MY INFORMATION BACK!!!. So now, almost after a week I have signed a VERY LARGE payment to a data recovery company for them to take the disk and recover the data (80% probability of success). Add to this the cost of the NAS and of the HD on which the old NAS’s data will be saved… there goes the paycheck.
So please, BACKUP YOUR DATA NOW!!!
On Monday I had my Ph.D. exam, on which 5 professors are taken from their desks and are forced to sit in front of you, understand the problem you think you want to solve and asked if you should go ahead with the research… I think it is the closest you get to a public stoning. One and a half hours of tough questions, answers, more questions, and so and so. Good new is that I passed. Even better news is that their conclusion was that I need to reduce the scope of my research.
Anyway, as Pumbaa used to say “You have to leave your behind past you”. So please… BACKUP YOU PRECIOUS INFORMATION, and only study a PhD if you are REALLY into it.