By Christmas Eve, I had the computer back, this time with a nearly empty 500 GB hard drive and an operating system that is a few years old. All of my third party applications, including hard-to-replace packages like PhotoShop and my OCR and HTML editing software are gone. Rebuilding the applications is tricky enough but then there’s the overall content of the old drive – photos, home movies, documents, songs, compositions, records…the list goes on and on – that’s one of the biggest blows from this whole affair. I should have learned my lesson years ago when I had a big scare with my OS upgrade and I did start backing up content from that point forward. But my backups just weren’t done regularly enough to save everything. Or even half of everything, for that matter.
Now, adding insult to injury, I’ve recently been notified by the folks who run the server for greeklish.org that they will shut the server down for good in the near future. Maybe even the very near future. They're running blogware that hasn't been updated in about two years. Someone from the company told me today that I am one of a handful of people still using it. Moreover, the tech support guy advised that if the server was to crash or something like that, they have no idea how, when or if they would try to restart it. So the website is running on outdated software and an old, unmaintained server.
Exactly when the shutdown will occur is unclear, but it will happen. So it’s final: greeklish.org – my home on the web since 2005 – is slated for imminent extinction.
I had a feeling this would happen when the company that originally sold me the domain split its holdings in 2008 or so. I have issues with the way things were handled back then and I have a few resentments about how things have gone down recently. But I really don’t have time to waste grinding axes. Onward…
It’s been a good run and it’s almost always been fun. We’ve used this space to share big and exciting news and a sad story or two. Overall, though, life continues to be overwhelmingly good. Losing some files and having to shift around content is an inconvenience that I certainly could do with out but then again, if this is the worst thing that happens to me today, tomorrow or the next day, I think I’m doing just fine.
In the near future, I’ll carve out a new spot on the web and move some of the best content from greeklish.org over there along with the complete Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Archive as well as some new and improved features and sections. It’ll be good. Really.
The future is unwritten. Aluta continua!
Mike B. 12-28-10
