A Quick Update...

[Comicality]

 

SO...My computer is still repairing and saving files to a secure location right now as you read this. And it is a **LOT** of stuff!!! Like I said, this update pretty much wiped my entire laptop clean of everything that I've done for the past two or three years, so I'm recovering whole terabytes worth of material at the moment.

So far, all of the pics have been saved, all of the downloads, all of the documents, and all of my music, are now in a safe place. However, the VIDEOS are taking forever! I've been recovering videos for three days straight now, and it's only about half way done! Just over six THOUSAND of them! Some are just short clips short and movie trailers that I was making for the site, but a majority of them were full length movies and Netflix series, and they will definitely take some time to retrieve.

The BAD part is...this Microsoft update has screwed my system up to the point where it is really REALLY slow! And that is making this process take ten times longer than it should. But the only way to fix it would be to uninstall and reinstall the entire update from scratch in the hopes of fixing it so I can speed up the process of getting my files back in order. But updating again may actually corrupt and overwrite the very files that I'm trying to save. So...it's sort of a no win situation for now.

But I AM still here! And I try to (slowly) get my email to load up every few days or so. So I'm listening! I just want to get this over with so we can get back to business around here! Cool?

The videos are the only thing that I'm waiting on now! Once they're done being moved to a safe location, I'll dive right back in to where we left off! So hang in there with me for just a little bit longer! And maybe we can put the site back in motion as early as Monday morning!

::Fingers Crossed::

Love you all! And I'll talk to you soon!

[Shadow086]

Yeah, you might as well not have a computer at all when Windows updates decides to run. It's so incredibly frustrating, but at least your files are still there.

[rj777]

Hi Comsie, you should not have to be going through this again. I hate to see you being frustrated and wasting your time and talent on PC issues. I don't know how much a good backup laptop would cost for you for your specific needs, but I would be happy to kick in $50 and I am sure that there have to be at least 100 of us loyal fans that could do the same.  I bet that Myr would configure a good set up for you if we all ask him nicely.
So lets see If we can get a commitment from 100 of us Fans and support Comsies incredible stories and raise him $5000.

[Daddydavek]

Wouldn't it be easier and more convenient to use an external hard drive to load all your files?

Amazon has a Western Digital 8 terabyte drive on sale for $140.00.  I doubt even Comsie has more than 8 terabytes to back up... It uses a USB 3.0 connection for fast transfers.

https://smile.amazon.com/Elements-Desktop-Hard-Drive-WDBWLG0080HBK-NESN/dp/B07D5V2ZXD/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=external+hard+drives+for+pc&qid=1564271125&s=pc&sr=1-9

[rj777]

Hi Dave. I agree that there are a lot of options for protecting Comsies data.  I don't know what kind of set up he has been using, but I know that this is not the first time he has had computer issues. I know that if I were a writer, I would have more than one PC and probably back up everything to the Cloud and regardless of what city I am in at the moment, my creative data is always safe. I don't know that Comsie needs nor wants 5k.   I was suggesting that a guy with his talent should not be dealing with these kind of issues.  I know that he said he spent money he was planning to use to go back to Chicago and now had to be used to save his data.  I used the 5k number to show that just a handful of us fans could help him out.  Even if it were only 2 dozen of us I am sure it would help Comsie out.   I hope that Comsie has the cash app on his phone or if not it is simple to download.
Its really easy to send money now a days.
Dave, being a native St. Louisan like yourself, I feel like Comsie being raised a couple hundred miles from us on the outskirts of Chicago is almost like family and how could you not love a guy that can write like he can.

[Shadow086]

I'm not an Apple fan myself, but at this point I think Comsie should look at getting a Macbook. Sure, it would suck to have to relearn how to do a lot of stuff, but I've never heard of Macs having these ridiculous data loss issues and general update-related problems that Comsie has with Windows 10.

[Comicality]

((Hugz)) THANKS for understanding, you guys! MWAH!!!

I really do appreciate the effort, but honestly...if it was a 'money' situation, I'd defenitely be dancing for nickels at this point. ::Giggles:: Unfortunately, this is a 'techie' thing. I'm being FORCED to take an update that I don't want or need...and even when I turn the automatic updates off...Microsoft makes the older version so unuseable and so glitchy, that I HAVE to take the update in order for my laptop to work at all. I'm sort of at their mercy, and there's nothing that I can do about it. So even if I had another laptop, I'd be plagued with the same problems, regardless.

But I am SUPER flattered by the offer rj777! Kiss! You've got me blushing now.

I actually do have stuff saved to an external hard drive, and I'm saving everything again to that same hard drive. It's about 2 TB, so I should be ok. However, I do take full responsibility for not saving my stuff elsewhere more often. I guess I'm not paranoid ENOUGH??? Like...imagine if you were walking down the street with a close friend of yours...and he just wrapped his hands around your throat and started CHOKING you! LOL! And then, people were like, "Well, you should have been wearing a spiked collar or something! You need to be more paranoid! You should have just 'expected' that someone you trusted was going to randomly try to choke you to death and ruin your life. YOU'RE the idiot, here!" That's how it feels. 

I write thousands of words a day. I take notes. I save pics and videos. Do I save them all elsewhere just in case my computer shuts down on me for no reason at all? Nope. But that's my fault, I guess. I don't know. I'm trying to get better. I just wish I could trust technology to not do this to me every few months. It sucks. Grrrr!

Now I HAVE heard about the Cloud...but I don't save stuff there. That's one thing that I really AM paranoid about, because my stories have erotic content. And that hasn't worked out so well for me in the past. In fact, if it weren't for Myr and GayAuthors, the Shack wouldn't even be online right now. I was saving all of my stuff to Tripod at one point, and they decided to purge all gay content from their server...and I lost EVERYTHING! With no warning whatsoever. The site, the stories, my notes...everything. So saving my stuff online with a 3rd party host is kind of an itchy process for me. The Cloud might randomly decide they don't want my stories on their server anymore and...'blink'...gone. 

But, all things aside, I want you guys to know that I'm in good spirits! I really am! And I'll post stuff once everything is downloaded, protected, and my laptop's update is fixed and functioning normally. Promise, k?

Right now, I've saved 3692 video files out of 6072! Which is more than half! And once that's done, I'll have access to everything and will start posting again as soon as humanly possible!

Thanks for being patient with me through all of this. You guys are the best! And don't worry...as inconvenient as all this might seem, it's far from being as tragic as I thought it would be at first glance. So I'm thankful. Hehehe!

Seezya soon!  

[MrM]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:28 AM, Comicality said:

((Hugz)) THANKS for understanding, you guys! MWAH!!!

I really do appreciate the effort, but honestly...if it was a 'money' situation, I'd defenitely be dancing for nickels at this point. ::Giggles:: Unfortunately, this is a 'techie' thing. I'm being FORCED to take an update that I don't want or need...and even when I turn the automatic updates off...Microsoft makes the older version so unuseable and so glitchy, that I HAVE to take the update in order for my laptop to work at all. I'm sort of at their mercy, and there's nothing that I can do about it. So even if I had another laptop, I'd be plagued with the same problems, regardless.

But I am SUPER flattered by the offer rj777! Kiss! You've got me blushing now.

I actually do have stuff saved to an external hard drive, and I'm saving everything again to that same hard drive. It's about 2 TB, so I should be ok. However, I do take full responsibility for not saving my stuff elsewhere more often. I guess I'm not paranoid ENOUGH??? Like...imagine if you were walking down the street with a close friend of yours...and he just wrapped his hands around your throat and started CHOKING you! LOL! And then, people were like, "Well, you should have been wearing a spiked collar or something! You need to be more paranoid! You should have just 'expected' that someone you trusted was going to randomly try to choke you to death and ruin your life. YOU'RE the idiot, here!" That's how it feels. 

I write thousands of words a day. I take notes. I save pics and videos. Do I save them all elsewhere just in case my computer shuts down on me for no reason at all? Nope. But that's my fault, I guess. I don't know. I'm trying to get better. I just wish I could trust technology to not do this to me every few months. It sucks. Grrrr!

Now I HAVE heard about the Cloud...but I don't save stuff there. That's one thing that I really AM paranoid about, because my stories have erotic content. And that hasn't worked out so well for me in the past. In fact, if it weren't for Myr and GayAuthors, the Shack wouldn't even be online right now. I was saving all of my stuff to Tripod at one point, and they decided to purge all gay content from their server...and I lost EVERYTHING! With no warning whatsoever. The site, the stories, my notes...everything. So saving my stuff online with a 3rd party host is kind of an itchy process for me. The Cloud might randomly decide they don't want my stories on their server anymore and...'blink'...gone. 

But, all things aside, I want you guys to know that I'm in good spirits! I really am! And I'll post stuff once everything is downloaded, protected, and my laptop's update is fixed and functioning normally. Promise, k?

Right now, I've saved 3692 video files out of 6072! Which is more than half! And once that's done, I'll have access to everything and will start posting again as soon as humanly possible!

Thanks for being patient with me through all of this. You guys are the best! And don't worry...as inconvenient as all this might seem, it's far from being as tragic as I thought it would be at first glance. So I'm thankful. Hehehe!

Seezya soon!  

I store most of my work on ICloud and they don’t review anything there. Those that read my stuff know that it can get quite racey. If all that you have is above board and not in any way illegal in the US and A then no one is going to bother you. ICloud’s simply a network drive to store stuff. They don’t have ‘community standards’ other than whatever standards the law insists upon which covers your local drives too and, these days, ALL of that stuff is subject to investigation if the Gob.ment decides it needs to screw with you. The sucky thing about ICloud is that you have to subscribe with real-live-money if you want to expand your share space. You get a rather large amount of space when you sign-up, but any more than that you have to pay for.

I agree with @Shadow086 that Apple is a better way to go. It isn’t as good as it once was, but it’s rate of degeneration has been much slower than that of Windows. Each new version of Windows that comes out I lose shtuff. I live in fear that if my autobackups fail that I’ll lose work. It shouldn’t happen to a dog.

I’ve not had these issues with any of my Apple products and ICloud is cool because it allows me to access my stories from anywhere on any of my Apple devices. So, the only excuses I have for being slow in writing are personal issues like illness, writer’s block, idiot roommates, and indolence.