No Computer for a WEEK = *UNHAPPY FACE*

Guys.

What the actual heck? I feel like I just got back from the stone age.  Or time traveled back to a time where businesses were run with a pencil and note pad.  Maybe even carbon copies.  Because oh.my.gosh, our computer died.

died 

I can't--even-- just, whaaaat.

Well.  It was like 10,000 years old.  I'm pretty sure the Windows 7 screen was in hieroglyphs.

So.  I just spent a WEEK without access to our bank account, except through my phone screen (thank God for Android!!).  A week with no access to our over 4,000 customer names and histories and info, except to sit and stare at the zip drive which I SO WISELY zipped off our dying old computer before it completely gave up the ghost.

Noooooo

I have been hand-writing schedule stuff on a printed-out schedule, with an actual pencil.  I have a notebook full of notes, schedule changes, reminders, order changes, payment info, and customer requests.  I think I actually have a pencil behind my ear right now.  I have a stack of receipts and a hand-written "check register" that I tried to reconstruct using only my phone/bank/account online and my razor-sharp memory.  (Which means, I have no idea how much money we have/don't have.)

Nothing worked beyond this screen

My biggest dilemma was that I use a program for customer scheduling and data that integrates with Quickbooks, and Intuit kindly stopped making it and didn't replace it with a newer, better program.  It just...doesn't exist any more.  And the old version we use...doesn't work with Windows 8.  It can be saved as a spreadsheet-type file and probably reloaded into some new database (read:  SUPER PAIN IN THE BUTT CHORE OF A LIFETIME), but the bad news is: there is no way to transfer all the history/notes off that program and into any other program, except to manually go into 4,000+ names and click on each history note and copy/paste it somewhere to transfer to a new program.  Thanks Intuit.  I owe you one.

And we have 12 years' worth of notes.  For over 4,000 customers...multiplied by the speed of light and the centrifugal force of x/pi + a divided by one really frustrated business owner, equals....

aaiiiieeeeeeeee   *faints*

So naturally I have been moderately to severely freaking out for the past 6 months, while our old laptop limped along and randomly sometimes just refused to start (at ALL).

Knowing this was coming, I (see above) WISELY zipped everysinglefile off the old computer during its last attempt to live, onto a new zipdrive, so we didn't lose anything.  So, other than completely (and I mean really) freaking out that we might be losing our notes as described above, we were safe.

Being relatively sure that 12 years of my carefully recorded notes were lost to us forever, but not our actual customer list, I dragged my bereft self into Best Buy last week to the sound of a mournful dirge, and asked the Best Buy Geek what to do.

He looked at me like, DUH, and said, "Just buy another Windows 7 computer."

* O__O *

Me:  What?

Him:  Yeah.  Just go online and order another computer with Windows 7.

Me:  You can DO that??

Him:  Uh...yeah...

Me:  *nothing*

Actually, I may have hugged him, or at least high-fived him.  And added him to my Christmas card list for the rest of his life.  

Long story short(er), I ordered a Windows 7 computer, all my programs loaded, all our backup files restored, and I am not ashamed to say I actually cried a little with joy when I saw all of them again last night.  Kind of like stepping out of a time machine and realizing you're actually home.  Land!!

Huge cleansing sigh.

So, the good news is:  I bought us a couple more years before we have to revert back to the above paragraph where I get to freak out about losing our customer info AGAIN.  Only then it will be like 15 years' worth of data...*starts to hyperventilate*

Focus, please.

In the meantime, I missed reading blogs and commenting on them, because typing comments or blog posts on an Android screen is like a special kind of punishment, so, YAY I'M BACK.

I can't even TELL you how glad I am to see my familiar old work screens again.  I'm thinking I should buy about 4 more of these computers to cover me until I retire...



P.S. Anyone looking for a really boring job building a whole new database and then transferring about 5 billion history notes into it, one by one, in about 3 years, please raise your hand.

My new favorite picture IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD EVER