The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Peter Smith

If it can go wrong - it will. It did. I'll remember Friday September 13th for some time. First, I woke up (much earlier than usual) with a nasty dose of the trots (thinking - "that's the the end of today's business lunch and the evening out"). The one saving grace of the day was that I didn't dare venture too far from the facilities of home, including the phone. After several easy phone calls during the day I got the call one dreads: "Peter, we've had a power glitch at work and the Network went down. Everything restarted OK, apart from the Q&A database." 

My standard response to users when something goes wrong is "The first thing to do is absolutely nothing, the second thing is more of the same". I asked, "What has been done?" 

"We tried to recover the database, it didn't work, but it's OK - nothing happened". I hope my internal groans (mental and physical) can't be heard down the far end of the line. 

"Did you make a copy of it first?" 

"No." I have recollections of the manual saying things like "if recovery fails, your database may be in a worse state than before you attempted the recovery". I also have that sinking feeling brought on by the certain knowledge that the most recent backup is older than it should be, after all things have been going well, the system has been running about 12 hours a day and getting a quiet time to do a full backup has been difficult.

"Well", I say, "it's 3.45 now, I'd best leave it until Monday, you'll have to do without it in the meantime". Nobody seems too upset at stopping an hour earlier than usual.

Monday: Copies were made, new recoveries attempted - all fail. We were using version 3 of Q&A, perhaps version 4 could recover it? It's time to upgrade, anyway. Melb PC has it in the buying service, but I need it now. A quick call to Computer Shark (just 8 minutes down the road from the office) - "Yes, we've got one in stock". 20 minutes later it was being installed and, Murphy working overtime, it didn't want to do any more restoration than did the previous version. Now the fun began. What I knew about the internal structure of Q&A databases was nil. I had two options - attempt to recover the data somehow or restore the best available backup and re-key. Keeping the latter open as a last-ditch option, guaranteed to increase my unpopularity with the users, I dug out my copy of Norton's Utilities and started browsing. To cut a long story short; 3 1/2 days, several phone calls to people like Gary Taig, four QuickBasic programs and a lot of nervous energy later (not to mention the normal interrupting crises), I had a rebuilt, version 4 database, showing every sign of missing nothing. Phew!

The Moral? Do as I say, not as I do! It will surprise no-one that my backups have been much more frequent since Friday the 13th of September. [The good news for that Friday? - the other two crises that happened only required a few hours each to resolve!)

UPS 

One of the other outcomes of this episode was my decision to install an Uninteruptible Power Supply for the network controller. (Yes, I know it's a case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it's also a case of better late than never!). Some of the details I discovered will appear in the next issue.

PC Update

My pleas for cartoonists have been answered! A couple appear in this issue, with more promised for December. (I thought you'd appreciate Karen's offering below more than my ugly mug, it's even appropriate to the Friday 13th episode!) We are also receiving News Releases from Borland Australia at the same time as PC Week, PC World etc. - an indication of our growing standing in the computer community.

Comdex Fall '91

As this is being written, Ash, Spen and I are less than a week from going to Comdex/Fall and the Annual APCUG conference. By the time it hits your mailbox, we'll be back. It will be interesting to see whether the industry pundits are correct in their estimates of "What's Hot and What's Not" - predictions include a marked upsurge in Multi-Media and "Pen-Based" systems (we know one of our member's is working on PenPoint, here in Melbourne - we hope to bring you a demonstration early next year).

Reprinted from the November 1991 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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