Bernie’s Blog

I got my Data Rescue CD in the mail yesterday, and spent most of the evening scanning the contents of my broken hard disk. Did a quick scan, and they didn’t find anything, so I proceeded on to do a thorough scan, and thankfully, they detected my user directory, where my precious pictures, and work-in-progress site files are stored. I clicked on “recover files”, and it started a progress bar window tracking the files recovered. I’m not sure how long it should take, but as I write this, it has been more than 12 hours and the progress is still less than half. I never knew it would be so slow. But I’m not complaining – if this app could save my data, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Reports from several site say Nintendo DS Lite units are available at some Walmart, Target and other stores and shown by these posts.

Ahhh, so the frenzy begins again. I was just at the Walmart at McCarthy Ranch, and asked for the DS Lite, but the woman there said they don’t have it. I’m going to try the Target in San Carlos this evening.

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Exclusive Cubed3 Story: Rumours are gathering at pace as to when the Nintendo Wii will launch. We have been given some exclusive details that seemingly confirm when the Wii will launch in the USA and the rest of the world. More inside…

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Rebecca wants dumplings
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

She stares at us when we eat, and would start moving her mouth as if she was eating as well. Grandma made dumplings this weekend, and Rebecca says “give me some of that!”

BBQ night
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

Summer’s here! We cleaned out the grill, fired it up, and grilled some beef, salmon, corn and veggies.

Backyard Curiosity
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

Something in the trees must have caught her eye – a little bird, perhaps? She loves spending time outdoors.

Eating rice cereal
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

Rebecca’s beginning to take semi-solids now, and so far we’ve given her rice cereal, and sweet potatoes. Initially she found it weird to eat with something else other than a bottle, but she got the hang of it pretty fast. Now everytime she sees the red cup that we prepare her rice cereal in, she would get all excited.

Group Photo!
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

GBART stands for Greater Bay Area Rat Terriers. It’s a club we set up as owners of rat terriers. We have monthly playdates, usually at the Milpitas Dog Park, but this month was special. It was Pogo and Allie’s birthdays! Pogo turns 3 and Allie turns 2. We had a pot luck at Bair Island, and had so much fun, the weather was unbelievable – clear blue skies, not too warm, windy most of the time.

For more pictures CLICK HERE.

Hanging out with Horsey
Originally uploaded by berniechew.com.

Rebecca’s gaining more neck strength now that she’s almost 5 months old. Still drooling (a lot!) and more interacts more with her toys.

Today was Cayenne’s turn to have her annual booster shots. I kind of forgot when the appointment time was, and took them into the vet at 10am. Turned out the appointment was for 10:30am, not 10. Since we were early I took them for a walk round the block before heading back to the doctor’s office. Cayenne weighed in at about 11lbs today.

Macworld offers 12 ways to protect your data and avoid common pitfalls.

Good Info.

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It hasn’t happened to me before, a hard disk crashing, but this morning, the unthinkable took place – I booted up my G4 Powerbook, and it just stayed on the Apple Logo with the gray background – it couldn’t boot up. No reason. No advanced warning. Crap.

So I spent the entire day trying to do a safe boot, trying to boot in single-user mode, nothing worked. All I got was a gray screen staring back at me. Thinking that with the help of my OS X install disk I could run the Disk Utility from there, I drove home with that hope. But now as I sit here and writing this blog entry on my 733Mhz Dell Desktop, that didn’t work either. I just couldn’t get it to boot. Fortunately I have backed up some of my important files a few weeks ago to save on disk space, good thing my music has all been copied into my iPod. I’m now worried that I’ll lose the recent pictures I have taken, and some of the work in progress I’m working on my many websites.

I just spent $99 on Prosoft’s Data Rescue II, which is supposed to be the industry’s #1 data recovery software for the Mac. I will be Mac-less for a couple of days while I wait for the CD to arrive. If that doesn’t save my data, nothing will.

Wish me luck.

I look forward to coming home every evening to see Rebecca and her cute expressions.

For my next phone I want to get a Smartphone. Moto Q or Nokia E61.

Stopped by the pump this evening and took a few pictures. I have a 2004 Acura RSX, 5-speed Auto, and mileage is about 32 mpg. Not bad at all.