Photos are Gone Computer Crash

Photos are Gone Computer Crash
I have 20,000 photos on my laptop computer. (A guess)

I was asked by Hewlett Packard support here in Bangkok, Thailand,
- Is there anything of value on the hard drive? -
Ye, 80 gigs of information.
A friend of mine had his laptop stolen in Cebu, Philippines, he said,
- My world was on it. -
A man in Niger told me,
- All the data of our foundation is on this laptop. -

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Bangkok, a.k.a Krung Thep, Thailand Southeast Asia
Friday, November 9, 2007
Andy of HoboTraveler.com --- Submit Hotel URL
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I asked the manager, if you need to replace the hard drive, could you give it to me it, so we can try to recover the lost data? She said something to the extent of we need to keep it so we can show the company we replace it.

MY HARD DRIVE DID NOT CRASH
- I HAVE ALL MY PHOTOS - (Relax Mom)

My hard drive did not crash, but I had to think, I went through the emotional turmoil. My main board was bad, thank the good Gods. However, I thought,
- What is on this hard drive that is not backed up somewhere else? -

My first thought,
The movie taken of panning for Tin in Ranong, then, I thought, not all my movies are backed up, then, what about all the large one Meg photos… (I sold some photos, the photos are worth more than the computer…)

Hmm, I am in a pinch, I have no simple way to back up 10-50 one meg photos per. I need to buy a portable hard drive now because the camera demands I have two. But a band aid, not a solution. I have a hard drive in storage here in Bangkok and the USA, when I pass through Bangkok, or the USA, I back up my computer.

I saw a girl go nuts in Siem Reap, Cambodia when she learn the CD ROM with all her photos were destroyed.

Information is sometime more valuable than the computer. Information is the most valuable commodity on the planet. I have 90 percent of my information backed up, and 100 percent about every six months, but not good enough.

A person can buy an extra hard drive to carry, and then when they rob you, the thief has two.

Putting 80 gigs of information on the internet in Africa is a major nightmare scenario, possible here in Bangkok. Real time, not feasible, but there is hope, or I suspect many a person will be crying over a lost photos.

I know of no good way to backup 20 gigs of travel photos that is 100 percent safe. I know of many expensive and very time consuming methods. The best solution I have today is to leave a 80-100 gig hard drive in various locations on the planet.

Photos are Gone Computer Crash

Goal Togo 10 Days No Electricity

Goal Togo 10 Days No Electricity
Atakpame, Togo West Africa
April 2007

I am making a goal and care package list to be sent from the USA to me by my friend Chris.

GOAL
Live up to 10 days with no electricity.

I can buy 12 Volt Motocycle Batteries easy here in Togo, made in China for about 6 US dollars.

A. Use my Sony Camera with AA Batteries,
12 Batteries would easily do this.

B Use my HP Laptop computer for 40 hour or about 4 hours per day.
I think the top off 12 Volt solar energy thing would do this.

C. 100 Hours of 12 Volt Fan Power and a 8 - 12 inch 12 Volt fan or something like that.

NEED TO BUY

1. Adapter that will allow 12 Volt power to be used to power my Hewlett Packard Laptop Compter.

2. Dozen AA Rechargable Batteries.

3. Solar Charger to charge 10 AA Batteries that also works on both 220 and 110.

4. Wind up Cell Phone Battery Charger. I need maybe to connect to 12 Volt system.

5. Small trickle Solar flat panel to keep 12 volts of lead-acid battery storage topped off

6. 12 Volt Fans

7. Indigo Windup light that runs on 220-110 also.
NOTE!!!!! This is semi-NOT needed as lights is not a problem.

8. LED Light that runs on 12 Volts, I think it would be more efficient and easier than the motocycle lights

Solar, Togo, West Africa Electricity, 12 Volt, GPRS, Cellphone, Computer,

Goal Togo 10 Days No Electricity

I Follow My Travel Rules

I Follow My Travel Rules
Kpalime, Togo West Africa
Sunday, April 1, 2007

I have a cell phone, it is a Quad Band V555 Motorola, it has Bluetooth that allows me to create a wireless connection between the phone and the computer.

I make very few phone calls with the phone, in fact, I almost never make a phone call, I find making phone call in most countries annoying and a waste of time. The phone call will cost X and the taxi will cost the same X, why call when I can go visit. Impossible to talk French or Mina over a phone, guaranteed to cause confusion.

I follow the rules.

I have a rule in my head about electrical wires, extension cords, power source of any cables that have to do with electronic equipment.

NO TRIP WIRES:
The rule is something fuzzy like this:
- I shall not be able to accidentally trip, pull, move or hook on the wire and pull the electronic device. -

NO FALL RULE:
Part two of rule:
- The computer, cell phone, fan, battery charger, shall not sit high and in a location where it can be pull off and fall on the concrete floor. -

A computer is hard for me to fix or replace.
A cell phone would be confusing to replace, but easy to do.
Battery chargers are very difficult to replace here in Africa, and a good one I think is hard to find that uses both 220-110 currents. (I use the Sony ones that come with he cameras)

One good jerk on the cord and these devices can be trash.

If I trip over the cord to my computer and it is sitting on the table, I can pull the computer off, it falls on the concrete floor and it is trashed.

If I am charging the cell phone and it fall off the table, ledge or anything and land on the floor it is trash.

With this is mind, I often sit my computer on the floor or in the middle of the bed. The floor is dangerous also, I could step on it, or I can spill liquid into the computer.

Coming out of the shower is a problem, drinking any type of sodas, liquid, juices are a problem. I would venture to think, that maybe beer is the number one reason for destruction of laptop computers, then maybe dropping them.

It would be an interesting statistic to discover and hard to know what is the truth. There are truths that people refuse to admit easy.

How did you break you computer?
- It just broke, I did not do anything? -

Do you know there is sticky fluid in the computer?
Did you drink soda or beer around your computer?

- I am very careful, I never drank anything near my computer. -

The spilling of drinks or the dropping of a computer on the floor are accidents, however for some reason a person associates dropping something with being stupid.

If a person bumps me and I drop the computer, maybe I can say they are clumsy and stupid. But for me to just slip, drop my computer, somehow a person says to themselves,
- I should not have slipped, I am stupid. -

Ridiculous and silly logic, and guaranteed this person will drop their computer.

I plan on getting bumped.
I plan on the fact that I will trip over wires in my room.
I know I will spill coffee.
I know I will accidentally give a hard jerk on the cell phone charging wire.

OK, the bottom line is this, for me to connect to the internet, I need to place my cell phone in the window of the room. I put in an the ledge of the window. I also need to keep it plugged into the electricity because when on the internet, the cell phone uses more electricity than the charger is charging, it consumes more energy than I can push or cause enter into the phone.

There are variables, and the best place for my cell phone to sit is in the middle of the bed. It will not fall out. However, the best connection is when the cell phone is just outside the window of the room.

I almost pulled the cell phone down from the ledge, it almost fell on the floor. I almost broke my cell phone a couple of minutes ago, this is the problem. Rules are not meant to be broken, they are meant to be respected. I have a cord open that I can jerk and pull the cell phone to the floor. This violates both the No Trip Rule and the No Fall Rule.

I suppose I now have a third rule,
FIND A SOLUTION RULE.

When a potentially costly problem almost happens, or whenever I do something that cost a lot of money, for example rent a room that is 20 dollars per night. Or in this situation, almost pull the cell phone onto the floor. I take a timeout.
TIMEOUT RULE

I do a focus session, focusing on possible ways of solving the problem, I do not ignore, or hope this solves itself, I start to have a severe case of cognitive dissonance. I pose the question to myself, and then start to drive myself crazy until I solve the problem.

The answer here lies somehow in typing the wires higher and in somehow putting the cell phone in a bag that can be tired to the window. Window just are not good places for cell phones, nothing is good to grip onto and the additional problem, people walking by can see the phone and try to steal.

I know of four people who have had their cell phone stolen here in Africa, all Togo people, but it happens daily here. I do not like to have my cell phone sitting in the window.

Really the solution here is not as important as a well-define problem, I know me, I will solve the problem. Or my curious little brain will do just what it is doing, it will obsess, drive me crazy, sit around and say, how, how can I, what can I do, what is the solution. I will think, dwell and come up with ways to solve this problem.

I have this problem with the cost of Hotel rooms in West Africa. I have told myself, I am not paying more than 10 dollars per night rooms in some of the poorest countries on the planet. It just does not make sense, that the poorest countries on the planet have the most expensive rooms, something is dreadfully wrong. I believe there are always cheap rooms, the people of Togo, and West Africa do move from place to place, they need to sleep also, and I know the average person making 1-2 dollar per day cannot pay 20 dollars per night to stay in an Auberge or Hotel.

There must be a ration, but I think a person in the USA who earns 100 dollars per day should look for rooms that cost about 25 dollars in the USA, and on vacation for 2 weeks maybe around 100-125 per night is a good budget. A person should not go bankrupt in the name of a room.

I believe a person traveling the planet for years should have a budget of less than 10 dollars per night for rooms. If I pay more than this, I feel like I am being ripped off. There is almost no correlation between the quality of the hotel experience and the cost of the room.

I Follow My Travel Rules

Computer No No

Computer No No
Lome, Togo West Africa
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I removed a drawer out of the nightstand, placed on its side and I am using as a small table for my laptop computer. I sit the fan to the left of the bed as I am looking at my feet. It blows down my body and keeps me cool, or as above it blows from behind me down my body from the open window.

I have a major habit problem, I wish to place my coffee on the nightstand, yet, I continually remind myself to place the cup on the floor. I know, someday, someway, I am going to spill that coffee and the fluid is going to flow down into the keyboard of my computer and kill the poor thing. I put this up there as an example of what not to do, I never, say never, I say never put the drinks above or close to my computer.

I believe one time I had a problem because I loaned the computer to a man in Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand and he spilled beer into the keyboard, I remember… That computer became junk, and many months later, I remember I did loan the computer to someone.

Now, I almost never loan my computer, and only to person that are smarter than me about computers, even then, I must say, no drinks around my computer. I worry here a little about sweating into the computer, or dripping clothes as I hand them up in my room to dry.

Actually now I never tell anyone I have a computer, or try not tell them.

Computer No No

Electric Voltage Fluctuations

Electric Voltage Fluctuations
Lome, Togo West Africa
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

I move from a Hotel with one of them 3-4 foot diameter ceiling fans to a room with a small swaying or rotating type fan you place on a table or nightstand. I think I like the on the nightstand type better because I can point it away from my eyes. The fan here is running 24 hours per day, 7 days per week or the heat is extreme inside the room.

I keep remember the Middle East, where they go and sleep on the roof, this is a good solution.

A rotating or fan that moves back and forth make a noise, slow and fast, and whoosh and whoosh, a steady changing of the sound drone. I sat the fan on a stand, it is blowing about at my belly button and down away from my eyes. This is a great country to sleep naked as only by exposing all the skin on my body to the air from the fan can I not perspire and make the bed wet.

The fan is not moving.
The sound is going up and down.
Aaagh, the amount of electricity is increasing and decreasing.

The light bulb is doing the same.

That little black box in the cord of my laptop computer converts 220 and 110 to something like 19 volts. It works anywhere in the world without an inverter or toys not needed. I sort of think of it as a surge protector also, then hope the electrify is also being cleansed and regulated by going through the battery.

When I am very afraid of the electrify, I charge the computer, and use only when on battery.

The up and down electricity I believe or think is horrible for my black box in the cord of the laptop of the computer. This box can get extremely hot, I think I will hang it up in front of the fan to keep it cool.

I had one burn up in Peru, the same plug was being used to heat my room with a Hot Plate. I was lucky, a man in Peru rewired the thing for three dollars. To replace this box is difficult here in Africa, to replace the transformer box in line of the lap top computer cord is a very difficult item to find in funky, we-do-not-allow-imports-easy country.

I am sure, someone will say, buy a voltage regulator. Back to the same problem, things are big, I need small.

Up and down, whoosh or whoooosh the sounds change, I also become hotter or cooler. Amazingly bad electrify in this room, I am thinking I may have not been able to hear the difference with a ceiling fan as it work more quiet.
There seems to be neighborhood difference here, or quad areas differences. Math and mechanics is not Africa high point, so I am worried, will try to obsess on this issue, find small answers.

The one solution is to move again, which I will soon do towards the north of Togo.

Computer, Electricity, Togo

Electric Voltage Fluctuations

Nepal Electrical Outlets

Nepal Electrical Outlets
Kathmandu, Nepal Asia
Saturday, January 20, 2007

The electrical plug on the end of my computer cord is not the problem when travelling the problems is the Hotel outlets, Hotel sockets, or the Hotel receptacles are bad.

In 95 percent of the cases, I can buy the converter needed to make my American slotted plug to work in the hotel, I can find many stores that will sell this converter for 50 cents US. However, I cannot go around changing outlets in Hotels.

The female receptacles of the plug outlets in Nepal may be the worst on the planet. I have not stayed in five hotels in Katmandu, and stayed enough times and long enough to believe they are exceptionally bad.

The problem:
There is a loose fit, and the connection between the plug and the receptacles is almost always bad. There is an arcing or jumping of electricity between the prongs and the inside the plug.

Loose fit

Arcing or jumping of electricity is maybe my biggest fear for my computer. It is in my mind a type of power surge. To guarantee I always have a good connection is difficult.

I took a few photos, however I realize I need to take a part an electrical receptacles and show to really explain this, I will do later or soon. I am thinking I may just go buy the Nepal version of their receptacles and see why it seems always loose.

It is not good to have to move the plug around trying to get it to connect, I have a solution for this, by just inserting copper wires directly into the receptacles, yet this is not a solution for the electrical naive.

WHY Why Why is my Hotel plug so bad.

Think about it, 365 days a year, someone goes into a room and plugs in a cell phone, a radio, a TV, a computer, after this much usage the expanding receptacles of the plug become permanently expanded.

Nepal Electrical Outlets

Hotel Key Card Turn on Electricity

Hotel Key Card Turn on Electricity

I am annoyed, I entered a new hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, it has the super modern put a little card into the slot as you enter the room and all the electricity works.

When you leave, you pull the card out of the slot, all the electricity is shut off.

99 percent of the time, I can separate the card from the key, or use a piece of cardboard to keep the electricity running 100 percent of the time.

This hotel got to smart, they have the expensive bar that does not allow anything but the plastic bar. Then they soldered or welded the key to the round circle of metal or key ring. I cannot open it or pry it open and remove the key. It is connected permanently, very smart, but too smart.

Why I need electricity in my room 100 percent of the time

1. Keep the air conditioned room at steady temperature. The furniture or rooms heat up or cool off, a room that is not constantly cooled, or heated, then has a problem with fluctuations. A room is much more comfortable when always as the same temperature.

2. Charge my batteries for camera. I want a steady six hour or until finished of charge.

3. Charge my cell phone.

I do not need to charge my computer, it is almost always plugged in, the battery of a computer that last only 2 hours is more or less useless. When they get me up to 8 hours of use, it will be worth worrying about the charge.

Hotel Key Card Turn on Electricity