What a coincidence, Cameron. My wife was just telling me two minutes ago that a friend of ours, who runs her own very small business, had a hard drive die, and had no backups of anything at all. You have to feel sorry for people in that situation, yet wonder how they didn't get the word about backing up. As the geeks like to say, "It's not if your HD dies, it's when." Other possibilities that might work for backing up are external hard drives, online (I don't think any are free) backup sites, or even a second computer. I have a laptop on which I have backed up files from my desktop. Chances are they won't both die at the same time. ThinMan

Thank you everyone... I am happily excited about getting my old PC back downstairs here where I am set up in my kitchen and do some trouble-shooting approaches to try and get my computer up and running ! I never in 5 years had one second of a problem with the HP brand , so that is what I bought this time ! My first 1-2 years of learning computer navigations, I started each subject line here in this forum with: "How Do I "save", "find"" get this on my search'" or fill in the blank, etc. ?The first time I ever suggested a possible fix to a query,and I was on the "helping" end of the line, was such a really cool feeling ! Yea ! I was thinking this evening about why my kids answer to my PC crash was "Throw it out. There is no fix for this...you have lost everything and it cannot be retrieved" is they are from the generation who easily disposes of everything! Their lives are so rushed ( THEY scheduled it that way) and they think anything that would require some dedicated time, is impossible. Their kids are rushed around from one sport to the next ( even some 2 or 3 per day !), they eat on the run, sentences are never finished and they plunge into deep sleep at the end of their day, and 6 hours later get up and do it all over again! I will keep you posted and will be trying the UBUNTU steps . I did have a faint beep on the old PC and mentioned that as a possible signal for Diagnosis and heads were shaken "no, it absolutely does not having anything to do with this" I mentioned the anology of my furnace having different sequences of beeps to help determine what part of the furnace system is having a problem....Ahhh, well. Patricia

Be careful because it sounds like it might not be a healthy relationship for you. If you are or have been acting or talking in ways 'just to make her happy' that's usually a good sign that something is not well with the relationship dynamic. Spend some time on yourself, writing or just thinking about why that felt necessary or was just automatic on your part. This is important because sometimes other people have internal problems which cause them to feel and to act in an unstable manner. That can cause the people in their lives to 'have' to do and say things just to make them happy because that's when they act most stable. Unless you were and are actually within her relationship, what goes on between her and her boyfriend is not something you can know from direct experience. You are mostly dependent on what she or what he tells you occurs, and people are not usually able to be objective about issues that cause them personal pain or great emotion of any kind. The same kind of thing is true in her relationship with her mother. People are usually on 'different' behaviour when there are guests or observers present. They might act better or worse, or just more self-consciously but there is usually an effective change of some kind. Some people can't differentiate their subjective experience of pain (or other negative emotion) and anger. All their 'negative' stuff goes into their category for anger, and they act and react however they express their anger. Irritability can result which is nonspecific but which tends to veer into anger expression at or on others. People in this boat can require good, effective professional help to assist them in regaining self-control and learning new means of expression. Some people have disorders which prevent them from just developing or having, or maybe even being able to naturally have a basic stable feeling and possibility for inner stillness. The different varieties of bipolar disorders can be associated with outward and inward instability for people. Outwardly, they can appear very emotionally immature and variously 'over depressed' for the circumstances or 'over excited' or 'over enthused' and nearly never just relaxed and 'normal.' Borderline personality disorder is also something which can lead to inner (and be reflected in outer) instability. People who have this disorder may be biologically/genetically hard-wired to be hyper-reactive emotionally to the point that any stress throws them hard. These kinds of problems can be reflective of biochemical imbalances and probably the people affected would also need some professional guidance and support (and ongoing maintenance) to experience biochemical stability and to unlearn/relearn more adaptive strategies for expressing emotions and for reacting to stress. The big point with serious internal issues that require more than just friendship and more than just loving support is that they may not show symptoms until a person is an adolescent or young adult. It is not the case, for example that every adolescent who acts out sexually and who seems to hold excessively grandiose ideas of themself and their abilities is experiencing a manic episode. But, those kinds of things (as well as other kinds of 'self-destructive' but 'feel good' individual activities) can be symptoms of a manic episode. Developmentally, people require the changes of puberty to be able to feel their 'adult' feelings and to possibly be able to think more like an 'adult.' That new experience is, by definition going to bring with it some degree of normal turmoil as the person has internal changes. Sometimes though, adolescents or young adults do have more serious problems which lead to symptoms which will reflect an internal instability that cannot just be 'fixed' or 'cured' with time/maturity/love/. The trap is that you can't know if you get through, even a little bit. You have to take that on faith based on what the person says and how they seem to act in response. And, even if you do get through, the success will be for the other person to experience as their life is hopefully enhanced and less stressful. No one is perfect because it's not possible to be both human and perfect. It is important to keep in mind though, that some forms 'imperfection' may take are much more problematic in terms of forming and maintaining healthy adult relationships. Some forms of 'imperfection' can be no one's fault but can be very problematic for individuals and for society. Make sure to give serious assessment to what kinds of things are glossed over by '... but no one's perfect' or '...but anyone in my position would do (whatever) too...' Mothers, generally want what is best for their children even when those children become adults and even when their children might disagree with what 'best' is. Is it 'best' to tell people what they want to hear to make them happy? (sometimes of course, this can be life-saving; but sometimes it can also support illness or maladaptive behaviour). Her mother probably knows about the incident with the boyfriend and has an idea of the kind of pain it caused and maybe still causes for her daughter. She may not have a healthy relationship with her daughter, but it might be functionally impossible and unrealistic for her to just naturally dismiss any misgivings or anger at the person who hurt her child in order to give an appearance of support for a relationship that might have some good aspects or possible good potential. Cars are not the measure of a man. They might be a kind of external marker for things like being able to afford and maintain a car, and something like a responsible driving record. They can also have been gifts, or belong to parents or others, or the guy may not even be driving it legally. This is the be careful of the 'greener' grass because sometimes it's astroturf or painted and not even what it looked like. What kind of relationship partner does she want (in terms of traits they have); what kind of relationship partner does she not want (in terms of traits they have); and is she ready herself for that kind of relationship, with that kind of person? As to the guy she is with, is it reasonable that he could be that relationship partner for her? It's important to keep this 'reasonable' in terms of speculation because a lot of times people want to imagine unlimited human potential which implies that anyone can be literally anything. It can get out of hand in the same way the defense of '...but we're all imperfect' can. I'm not sure 'most' men overall act in those stereotyped ways. Some do, possibly; and maybe they learned it from their upbringing or maybe they have some other thing going on with them internally that prevented the upbringing efforts of their parents, or mother. Some men don't. Some men are very neat, and will clean up after themselves and others. Some men are not and don't want to be 'flashy' or drive around in impressive cars. There are as many different types of men in the world as there are types of women and natural human variety is extensive. The problem with the concept of 'I chose him and I can unchoose him' is that it is very narcissistic and on the face of it kind of emotionally coercive even if it seems true or like a good line to use agressively in argument. It isn't really compatible with having an egalitarian relationship (that's neither here nor there unless she actually wants to have an egalitarian relationship with her partner). As a developmental step, going straight from parental dependence to trying to have a relationship may ignore the intermediate step of learning how to be independent herself. That kind of leap predisposes her to a kind of dependent role, or to base her relationship expectations on what she did or had when she was living with her parents. That's going to create all kinds of unreal expectations and result in a lot of personal growth (and the pains that come with that). People who have no experience yet are bound to make some 'bad' judgements about themselves and others. The 'bad' is a matter of degree however and some women never have the problematic experiences of others. The key is to recognize when the 'bad' is indicative of a serious enough problem (or problems) that a relationship should be ended entirely --not whether to jump the relationship ship to try out someone new; or whether to use that as an internal or expressed threat. it's still a dangerous by definition situation to get or stay in a relationship with someone who aparently feels or acts in pain and anger but who seems to have an 'unrealistic' view of life or consequences; be careful

I have the exact same set up (exterior door's knob - heavy crystal, of course - is exactly the same height as my Carrera marble countertops. I have a hinge-pin and a felt pad thing (for bottom of chair feet, to protect wood floors) on the door knob. The knob still bangs into the counter sometimes (people who aren't 'trained' open the door too strongly - like the plumber's assistant will just throw it open in a rush and BANG). The marble is dented there (not repairable). So I would for now put the can on the floor like PP shows - its heartbreaking to think of your beautiful counters dented like mine.