Today I met the black screen of death.
My computer decided right in the middle of working on my newsletter to give me a black screen. Despite my best efforts, tapping the Escape key, using alt control delete, pressing the power key for various lengths of time, none of it made any difference. The black screen of death was waging its war on my screen with no response. My computer was a corpse, it had no pulse.
I knew that there was power because the light on the side was blinking. I knew that it was accessing my USB sticks because one of those were blinking. But no matter what I did the computer would not turn on. It was a corpse with no pulse. It was dead.
A funeral needed to be scheduled. A eulogy written. Flowers to be ordered.
So I did what anyone would do. I went shopping.
I don’t like shopping at computer stores because a) a salesperson always tries to upsell me on what I want to buy because they believe they know what I want more than I know or b) no one is to be found to retrieve the product I want.
It makes for a frustrating experience. Today it was option b).
As an entrepreneur I have deadlines. I need to get certain things done in certain timeframes. Sometimes missing a deadline can have very bad consequences. Think Amazon jail. This was why I had decided to just purchase a new notebook quickly rather than try to have the old one repaired. Thankfully, I’ve backed up the majority of my important stuff on USB sticks.
I went back to the library (free WiFi) and decided to try my old computer on the off chance that it might have rebooted itself. Lo and behold, it worked! CPR saves the day! It’s ALIVE! (Said in mad scientist voice).
I think it was just jealous I bought a new one and felt it’s power over me slipping away…
Truth: it had decided to update without informing me… argh!
The good news is I got a full refund on the new computer I owned for all of two and a half hours. The moral of this blog is, always save your work to an external device in case of epic black screen failure.
Happy Reading,
Josephine
Josephine Beintema 