Vlog 444 of 446 and we have a Critical Failure!

I've had a technically frustrating weekend. 

My problems started yesterday when my hard drive decided to stop working. 

The hard drive in question is called ‘They Dunno’, I’m aware that it’s a strange name for a hard drive, but this unusual personal naming convention started back in 2017 at the beginning of our narrowboat journey. Michael asked me what we should name our newly purchased drive, I of course replied “I don’t know” and so that first drive was hence forth know as ‘I Dunno’. In hindsight I am just grateful that George already had a very good name when he joined us on Perseverance else goodness knows what he would be know as now. 

I have been using ‘They Dunno’ since vlog 327. ‘I Dunno’ filed up fairly quickly and ‘We Dunno’ followed suit. We came down the Wigan flight in the rain in the summer of 2020 and ‘They Dunno’ has been tasked with storing every photo, sound and video clip we have recorded ever since. 

I have just two more vlogs to edit before we reach the end of the canal system and its not surprising to find out that ‘They Dunno’ is feeling a little tired and a little full. Why on why couldn’t it have just hung on for a couple more weeks though. All is not lost thank goodness. ‘They Dunno’ has conceded to let me read the precious files it holds. It has not gobbled them up complete. It is however shouting at me to back up the drive immediately and re-format. An expensive Amazon purchase is on the cards. Thank goodness for those wonderful Patreons who have been supporting us these last few years. 

My computer has also been shouting at me to update Handbrake for about a month and this morning I finally gave in. Handbrake is the app I use to compress our video files before I upload them to make the upload quicker and, so the exports take up less space on file. I was feeling very happy and very smug that I finished editing 444 despite the hard drive issues, but when I ran the files through Handbrake, they came out the other side with no audio, no comments form the people who may prefer the videos that way please. Luckily it took just one quick call to tech support, tech support being Michael who was sitting a few feet away to resolve the issue.

The video when live and I actually held a spontaneous ‘watch party’. I’m not sure if it is actually called a watch party because YouTube call it a Premier. I don’t know why we haven’t done that before as it was actually pretty fun watching along with one hundred or so people. I’m going to do another watch party for next weeks vlog and get Michael to come along too. Now just the small task of finishing the next two videos before my lap tops stops working in protest of the over work!