Saturday, May 10, 2003
defrag: Refers to the condition of a disk in which files are divided into pieces scattered around the disk. Fragmentation occurs naturally when you use a disk frequently, creating, deleting, and modifying files. At some point, the operating system needs to store parts of a file in noncontiguous clusters. This is entirely invisible to users, but it can slow down the speed at which data is accessed because the disk drive must search through different parts of the disk to put together a single file.
I defragged a hard drive today. I find it unnecessary with the newer versions of Windows, but it's a good idea with 98. It took about 2 hours to defrag a 10 GB hard drive. I watched as the little squares blinked... changed colors... moved around. The "legend" gives you an idea of what those little squares mean. Light blue - they belong at the beginning of the drive; dark blue - they belong at the end of the drive. Then there are squares that have a red square inside... those won't be moved. And the ones with the red slash... those are BAD! They're permanently marked so they don't ever get used again.
That's exactly how I feel. I need to be defragged. I wish it were as easy as clicking a button and waiting two hours for the little squares in my head and my heart get moved around and put into place. Things that I SHOULD be doing... things that I SHOULD be feeling... those all get put in front. Things that I SHOULDN'T be doing and thinking and feeling... those all get put in back. And things that won't be moved... those get a little mark so that people know not to bring it up. And the things that are bad, well... those get a slash through them and we won't ever try to access them again. Too bad... it's not that easy.
I'm cranky today. I feel like crap today. I've got a lot of emotions whirling around inside about Mother's Day, graduations, empty nests, getting older, kids, job, money, blah, blah, blah. It's difficult to put into words how I'm feeling, so it comes across as cranky. Michael's blaming it on the Spurs. I think I just need to be defragged.
