Note: This blog post is also available via audio.  It is read by the author on Utterli.

I think Microsoft’s Developers and I define “catastrophic failure” a wee bit differently.

First off, in my mind, if I saw a message that said “catastrophic failure,” I’d be thinking – if it’s so catastrophic, why is there even a message?  Doesn’t the meaning of “catastrophic” carry a little bit of a connotation of the end of the world?  

I mean, shouldn’t something that’s catastrophic be, um… obvious?

You might be wondering where I got this message.  I received it from a pop-up message in my Vista system tray, indicating that the last scheduled backup didn’t run.

Catastrophic failure as defined by Microsoft

Since my mind is already in “catastrophe mode,” I’ve decided to say some of the more important things in a blood red font.

Most people who frequent my blog know that I’m a big Vista fan.  But that doesn’t mean angels decended from heaven and said “blessed thou art” on this thing, making it flawless and perfect.  Oh no.  That event has been predicted and reserved by the media for 5 days from now, and you can only have one of those events every 2000 years.  It’s not likely that my laptop received that kind of sanctification.

The above is what I get when I click “more details.”  I don’t think I’d be way off the mark if I suggested that – this does NOT give me useful details.  Maybe I missed the link that said “useful details.”

So what do I do?  I PERSEVERE.  I ignore the error message and attempt to adjust the settings.  I basically adjust NO settings, however, and go through the wizard to back up.

This time (ye gods) it DOES give me a decent error message.

Now all I gotta do is check the disk for errors.

Except that, like all good operating systems, Vista doesn’t let you check the main system disk for errors while it’s actually running and stuff.  All you Unix admins know you have to be in singe-user mode to fsck the root (/) partition.  I don’t know what Macs do in that situation, but I’m sure it’s similar, just with a lot of fantastic eye candy.

So even though you click the “check the disk for errors” link, you don’t really get to do that.  You get to choose to check the disk — say it with me together — when the system next reboots.

Fantastic.  

I might as well do the reboot / check / redo the backups thing while I eat my lunch.

Wait.  Let me resay that in a better font.

Hey!  I swear I didn’t put that in there!  It’s the font!  

Note: This blog post is also available via audio.  It is read by the author on Utterli.

My 14yr-old daughter is a little spoiled.  She got an iPhone for Christmas.

Let me explain.  The iPhone was not given to her, as you might justifiably think after that first paragraph, and that’s not why she’s spoiled.

In order to get most of her gadgets or relatively expensive things, she saves up and buys them herself.   And she doesn’t get an allowance.  So how does she get these things?

Well, she babysits, for one.  She also does pet sitting.   But that’s not why she’s spoiled.

She also earns money for grades.  You might think she “gets money for grades” but it’s more complicated than that. 

I probably should explain that one also – it’s a “grade earning agreement” we have.  She earns a set dollar amount for A’s and has to pay a set dollar amount (1/2 of the amt for A’s) for B’s and below.  She gets a bonus (50%) for 100′s.  Now that’s incentive, right?  And she always makes money every report card.  She has 6 grades per grading period, so that means she has to make 2 A’s and 4 B’s and below just to break even.

We as parents provide necessary clothing, household items and things a kid “need” to be a kid.  However, anything extra she wants beyond that, like designer clothing/shoes, going to the movies with her friends, going to the mall and buying stuff from top*kopi or whatever it is, comes out of her money.  I got this idea from my parents (kudos to them).

The iPhone definately falls into the “extra” category.  This 16GB iPhone 3G was $299.  She was able to contribute $212 towards the purchase, but she really really really really really wanted it.  She already agreed to sell us her 8GB video iPod nano for $60 (part of the $212) because I wanted a good MP3 for my wife, and she was already familiar enough with the iPod.   That still left $70+ to pay.   I offered to pay for the difference if she gave me her existing phone, the Palm Centro, and then I’d take the risk of selling it on eBay but I get whatever money I make from it.   (btw, she also paid for the Centro herself when she got it earlier in the year)

She agreed, and she got the phone.

She loves that phone.

We all love that phone.

We have a win-win situation here.  Mom gets a like-new ipod nano for way under market value, daughter gets her new iPhone, and dad makes some money selling off a Centro.  There’s still 4hrs left in the auction and it’s already selling for $40 more than I “paid” for it.

And that’s why she’s spoiled. 

Wait, maybe *I’m* the one who’s spoiled.