Surfin' on Snow Days

It's an icy nightmare outside and my boss closed the office before I even left for work, so I'm home today. While I'll probably do some work later, at the moment I'm reading blogs and so forth. Here's a fascinating story about equipment failure.

A Photographer, The White House, and a Smashed SD Card: A Data Salvaging Saga.

Now, I had a buddy who could have fixed that, although it would have been touch and go. I point it out not only because it's a funny story, but because it illustrates a profound lesson: Never assume something is hopeless.

I've fixed cardreaders with my Swiss Army knife. (Computers, too.) Kevin German has a nifty story about some guy with a tinker's cart in Cambodia fixing his Canon 5D when the local Canon shop told him it couldn't be done here: My Cambodian Adventure. I've saved "dead" hard drives and cards, or at least zombified them long enough to recover crucial data. There's almost always a way.

On the lighter-but-not-really side, those of you in the journalism business may enjoy this bit of gallows humor:



M More after the jump - click here!