We've Been Microsoft'd

PLEASE NOTE: For any of you with whom I have recently corresponded, I would greatly appreciate your either forwarding copies of our correspondence (ideally, both incoming and outgoing) to sean@inoodle.com or, perhaps, sending me a blank email so that I may add your email address to my web-based-email address book. It would seem, at least until further notice, that my rather voluminous email correspondence of the last couple months or so may, otherwise, be forever lost. As I am blessed to share correspondence with so many wonderful folk, this would be a great loss to me. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

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Dear Readers,

In attempting, yesterday, to install a Windows 98 to Window XP upgrade, the computer which serves as both iNoodle.com and MindfulLivingGuide.com Headquarters Central has rather fallen (or been dropped courtesy of Microsoft's self-acknowledged "corrupted disk") into a sort of technologically derived existential abyss from which it is doubtful that it shall ever recover.

Therefore, there is likely to be a serious slowdown in new blog posts, as well as e-mail correspondence, until such time as a new computing platform can be procurred.

The software upgrade was purchased by my just-turned-70-year-old mother as a gift to help breathe a life extension into our aging Dell computer, which has more than sufficient processing power, memory (320MB) and disk space to accommodate the upgrade system requirements.

In short, after stepping through all of the phases of the Setup program's installation process to reach well into the "Finalizing installation" stage, an error message appears beyond which no amount of coaxing, finagling, or oblations offered up to the computing gods will allow passage. We got so far into the installation process, in fact, that despite comforting warnings in the "Start Here" installation guide which states that "[u]nder rare circumstances, you may need to uninstall Windows XP Home Edition and return to your original operating system" it turns out no such possibility exists in our case. After speaking with multiple Microsoft support technicians, in the US and UK, they have advised me that I must now buy a full version of Windows XP (not simply an upgrade) which first requires that my hard drive be reformatted, meaning that all of my previously installed software programs, settings, network configurations, and data files will be deleted.

"But, but your documentation clearly states ...". Click. Dial-tone.

So, until further notice, both iNoodle.com and MindfulLivingGuide.com will be going through, shall we say, austerity measures.

Thank you for your patience and continued support.

With kind regards,

Sean