Question: Bert asks, "I have a message on my laptop screen. The title says 'Delayed Write Failed'. What does that mean?"
Answer: It may mean bad news. Great question Bert, because it depends which drive is being referred to later in the message. In short, this message means that the computer has some data that it needs to put on disk (geek-speak: "commit to disk") and for some reason it can't. If the message refers to a network drive or an external drive that's come unplugged, whether accidentally or on purpose, it may be able to proceed if you plug it back in. On the other hand, if the message is talking about a drive you haven't unplugged, then it's an indication that the drive is going out. Now, that's not all it could be, but since this is a laptop, it most likely is. Backup whatever you can as fast as you can.
Cool Site: Faith Comes by Hearing: From one of Eddie's retweets from Wednesday comes this week's site. It's Faith Comes By Hearing.com. This is the site of an organization that produces free audio Bibles for distribution in both the US and abroad. In San Antonio, a church surveyed its membership to find out how many of them had actually read the New Testament and found that most hadn't. You can download a free audio Bible from their website, and you can listen to their podcasts. You can follow them on Twitter and they have a newsletter. You can find streaming audio that will let you choose the language, book, and chapter you want to listen to. The Bibles are available both in dramatized and non-dramatized formats. Right now, this particular organization is putting audio Bibles into Haiti in the Haitian's own heart language.
Cool Gadget: LaCie's Key-Shaped Flash Drives: LaCie makes a line of USB flash drives that are shaped like keys. After all, they're also called USB keys. All these flash drives come in 4GB through 16GB models and they fit on a keychain. The cases on these things are metal, partly due to the key metaphor and partly for strength. They're intended to be sturdy. They've got a fast read speed, at 30 megabytes per second, and at 10 megabytes per second, they’re no slouch at writing, either. By the way, three of the four different models come in 32GB capacities. Prices start at $19.99 for a 4GB key and up to $99.99 for the 32GB key.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Motherboard: This week's word is a hardware term. The Motherboard, also called the System board, is the main circuit board inside your computer. It's the one that everything else connects to. It has the processor, the memory, all the drive connectors and everything else. The expansion slots are also found here. Into them, you plug expansion cards, also known as daughter cards. If you took the side off the computer's case, you'd find that the motherboard is the largest circuit board in your computer.
