The Curious Case of the Disappearing Data

There are times when I truly despair of ever really understanding the foibles of computers. What should seem easy turns out to be a protracted mess of damage limitation, and a desperate search for answers to your problem. Where is Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

What I am referring to is my previous blog (Computer Geek to the Rescue). After completing the blog on Saturday, I posted it without any problems. On Sunday, I noticed a few things I wanted to change, so I tried to edit the post, specifically, to add another picture. What happened was when I went to edit the post, all the data disappeared! All I was left with, was the title!!!

No amount of logging out, and back in again would magically restore my post!! So I started searching the web for any possible solutions.

What I discovered is that, again, I was not alone with this problem. In fact, it seems to be a major design fault with Blogger. Countless users are complaining about how the auto-save wipes out vast tracts of their data, and then they have no way to restore what has been lost. These posts have been going back years!!! Any mistake you make accidently deleting something cannot be undone!

It seems to be a problem with Blogger and Google have so far not done anything to resolve this problem. A lot of disgruntled bloggers are switching to Wordpress, which doesn’t seem to have this problem.

The other alternative (which is what I am doing at the moment), is to write your entire post as a word document, save it, and then copy it over into the data box in Blogger. This was what I had to do with my previous post.

The only thing I haven’t quite worked out how to do is get any pictures I have added to the word document, to copy over into the Blogger post field. I have just discovered a blog post by Robert Slater, that was created nearly 2 years ago, explaining how you cannot transfer pictures from word to blogger, and possible ways to to get around the problem.

Computer Geek to the Rescue!

When I came home from work, my daughter informed me that our WiFi connection had stopped working. Now normally, this isn’t a problem, as the router has been known to freeze, and all you have to do is switch it off, then on again. So this was the first thing I tried, even though my daughter had already tried this already, I was too stupid to believe her that there was something more seriously wrong with the router!

What I did discover, was that it was the wireless part of the router that wasn’t working. The router (Thomson Gateway TG585 v7) was connected to my desktop computer via an Ethernet cable, and it could access the Internet without any problems. It just would not transmit any signal for the laptops to pick up!

So I had a brainwave. I started searching the web for forums that might shed a light on what was going on. I also dug out the flimsy instruction manual on setting up the router (about as much use as a chocolate fireguard). To my surprise, I was not alone in experiencing this problem. It seems that this router is prone to throwing a tantrum, and refuse to work!

One of the forum suggestions required me to reset the router, which I did using a wire paperclip in the recess at the back of the unit, and restarting the process. This also required me to input the username and password. So far, so good. I then had to use another username and password to access the routers settings, as it was here that I could try and get it to kick-start the transmitter again. As I was going into the settings, I was asked to change the username and password, which I did, and checked to see if all the settings were correct. They were. When I exited the settings, and checked the router, it still wasn’t working. To make matters worse, I couldn’t log back into the settings, as it wouldn’t recognise any of the username’s or passwords!

So I got out my trusty paperclip, and reset the bloody router to its factory default again. This time, I ignored any of the requests to change usernames, or passwords, and went back into the settings screen. This time I followed another forums advice to simply change the channel the router was broadcasting on. I changed the channel from 11 to 9 and “hey presto!” the router started working properly again!

My wife told me that when I first started to come to grips with sorting the problem, I was like a bear with a sore head, muttering curses under my breath, and a scowl upon my face. When I finally succeeded in fixing the router, she says I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat!!