Friday 14 March 2014

Crashed computer files, Champion the Wonder Horse and a new show!

Wow what a week it's been!

It all went wrong last Friday afternoon, when I booted my Music computer, which I use as the playout system for my shows.

I opened the radio software only to be confronted with no music. To say I was slightly concerned would have been an understatement. Panicked would be closer. 8 years worth of music had suddenly disappeared - that's over 41,000 songs.

I checked my music files on the computer and they were still there, so I realised it had to be the data file that had crashed. And here's where I made the big mistake! I re-opened the programme to make sure no data was being found and then went to close it down. As it closes down it asks where you want to save the session data to, and for some stupidly unknown reason, I said I did, and instead of saving it to where it usually goes, I went to where my back up was and saved it over the back up file instead!

Don't ask me why I did it, I really don't know. It wasn't bad enough the file crashing for the first time in eight years, that I then had to ruin the back up as well. Until I'd saved an empty file over a perfectly good back up, I hadn't realised what I'd done. If I've ever been really angry with myself this was the time.

So basically I've had to start compiling the database in the programme all over again. Importing the music was easy - it took around an hour to get all the music back on there. But it wasn't until I'd got the music back on there that it had me what I'd really lost. With so many songs on the computer, they need to be compartmentalised into different genres to make the songs easy to find. I'd originally done this as I imported the music a bit at a time. So now I'd have to start from scratch and do it all again.  If that isn't bad enough, over the years I've added notes to the files to tell me loads of details about the songs. For instance if the song's a 'B' side, I'd have a note saying what the 'A' side was, which album the song was on. Also when it was released and it's highest chart position if that was needed. And loads of other little details.

As you can see, the enormity of my error suddenly became clear, and it has been overwhelming. Since last week, I've spent around 10 hours a day putting the most important songs into new genre folders. So far I've managed to do 24,460, so I'm over halfway through. It's the other details that are going to be the problem. All the information that I've accumulated over the last eight years has to be found and re-input. So as you can tell, one silly action has caused me a whole lot of grief and work to do, just to get back to where I was last Friday morning.

While I was going through my files, I came across Frankie Laine's 'Champion The Wonder Horse'.
When I was a kid it used to be on the telly on a Saturday morning and I loved the show.

As I was struggling putting all my info back on the computer, I decided to see if the series was available on DVD and if it was and at a sensible price, I was going to treat myself to it. Sure enough, I looked online at Amazon and there it was. And what's more it was only £9.99 + postage. And so I bought it. 3 days later, it turned up and I was like a kid. I couldn't wait to watch it, so I took a break from data input and watched the first two episodes.

I loved it! Ricky, Uncle Sandy, Blaze and Champion, my old friends were back! I can't wait to see the rest of the shows. Simplistic they are, but nostalgia is such a wonderful thing. It's great to be transported away from being a grown up and just reliving my childhood, if only for half an hour at a time.

Talking about being transported back in time, this morning, I recorded the first 'Missing In Action' show. I explained about it in the blog last week, and I've spent the time in between choosing songs for the first show.

Well after recording it, I can only say you'll either love it or hate it! Personally I loved it, but then again, I'm biased. I've always wanted to hear a show that had these songs in it and now I'm fortunate enough to be doing it.

There are 36 songs in the first show. 21 are British Top 40 hits. There are 3 album tracks and some American hits as well as others that didn't quite make the charts, although they received airplay.

All in all I was nervous doing it, but it was great fun to do and I can't wait to get some feedback after it's been heard.

I think it'll take a few shows for it to bed in and get it how I want it, and I'll be hoping to get a lot of listener input along the was as well.

So it's been a good end to what's been a very frustrating week.

Till next time....

No comments:

Post a Comment