Alt som kan gå galt går galt
og alt som ikke kan gå galt, går galt likevel
[RED ALERT]
This
rather cryptic title is the Norwegian equivalent of the
infamous Murphy's Law.
This Law, being of a Universal Nature, applies to digital
photography as well - of course.
So, just 1 hour after returning my review sample of the
D200 and having started to collect the image files onto
the file server for my review, my Linux-based local mail
and file server crashed. Totally. Kaput. Gone.
I've been assessing the damages brought to bear from this
incident and see that I might be able to consolidate at
least some of the test images from alternate sources.
Since these files were so early in the image workflow,
they had not the bullet-proof backup support (presumably)
valid for the finalised images. A pity and lots of work
that needs to be redone, but it seems doable and I've
"only" lost about one week's worth of
post-processing.
Then, having established that my test images had suffered
a disasterous blow but should be recoverable to a some
extent, I began looking into the mail system and found to
my dismay that the local mail client not only had
downloaded e-mail messages from the central server, it
had also, diligently but unnoticed, deleted the messages
as well. So in effect all e-mails for the last 6 months
have disappeared into the big cybernetic void. Those
included all requests for tutoring and field trips, plus
the details for a pending sale of images to Oxford
University Press (hopefully their Book Editor will
inquiry for images not received as promised in a day or
two).
At this stage of the affairs I did the only sensible
thing, left the digital mess behind and went to help
myself to a mint Nikon S3 "2000" rangefinder,
still in its unopened box. Set me back a cool $ 5.000 but
helped lift my spirits above Ground Zero level. Now is
time to grab some beers and listen to high-volume
psychodelic rock music. Eventually, tomorrow dawns, but
that's another story.
So, I
have to slide the publication date for my D200 review
towards the end of January, 2006. Sorry but such things
do happen. And yes, I do have RAID disks, but even these
do obey Murphy's law. What annoys me the most about this
disk crash affair isn't the crash itself, because I have
experienced quite a number of them the last 5-6 years and
due to my backup routines and RAID arrays, never lost
data. But this time I did, because I hadn't tested in
depth to ensure that the setup was working as it should.
And of course, now I'm looking at a computer mess instead
of focusing on writing the review of D200.
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