Wish me luck

[avevale_intelligencer]

In a little while, I will be trying to put the Countess's horribly neglected bike into the back of the car. This promises to be fun fun fun in itself, as I'm none too sure it will go in. I will then be driving into Bristol, a place I haven't been for ages and which I find daunting to navigate through, to take it to someone who may or may not be able to restore it to a usable condition so that we can pass it on to someone else, or maybe even sell it.

I may be slightly deranged. Good thoughts and such like gratefully received.

EDIT: well, that was absolute bloody screaming hell. I'd forgotten how much I really hate driving in Bristol. And when I finally found the place, the guy said the bike was too badly rusted and there was no way he could guarantee the frame was safe. So, time for a second or third opinion before we give up.

the_magician: thank you for the pointer. I think I can see Jan having some misgivings about letting her stories go on to a hard disc owned by someone she doesn't know, but presumably they guarantee privacy. I'll look into it and ask her.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The very clever Mr. sbisson has just pointed out the wonders of Mozy

Their basic service is an online backup service of 2Gb for *free* ... this means you can install the Mozy software on The Countess's computer, and every day/every few hours it will make a backup of her stories and any changes to the Mozy hard disk ... and if anything ever happens to J's computer, you can just download all the stories again. It's all automatic and on a timer so no one has to remember to put in a blank CD-R or to copy the files across the LAN to your machine or anything ...

... you could set it all up in five minutes and then have the luxury of knowing all her stories are safe from lightning strikes, act of cat or acts of Microsoft!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

It also copes with files which are accidentally deleted! The copies stay on their server for 30 days "in case you change your mind" and want them back. That looks like a really good service.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Good luck.

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

Glad you survived driving in Bristol, if only by the skin of your sanity. I'm sure of the cats will help you restore equilibrium.

I don't like driving in Central London, and will use public transport if at all possible. Driving in the suburbs is not much better but slightly less fraught.

When driving in cities, especially those I don't know, I drive as if I do know where I'm going, and stop whenever convenient to check.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Yes, they guarantee privacy. The files are encrypted at your end and transferred to and stored on their server in encrypted form. By default they use the standard Mozy key (which they could use to unencrypt them) but they also allow you to have your own key (which they don't have). Of course if you use your own key then it's up to you to keep it safe and available, but that's no worse than having to make your own backups.