The laptop to IDE hard drive adaptor arrived today and to my relief the old laptop drive fired up without trouble. I now have a backup on my backup and the HERMAN project is good to resume again after only a minor hitch!

Next on the software side of things:

• implement checksums to make comms between picaxe and pc more robust
• check why the picaxe clock is about 25% slow
• wait for RevEd to release their TCP/IP virtual serial port and figure out ways to implement such a groovy idea into the HERMAN project

And on the hardware side of things:

• finish the work on the stainless steel fermenter from an old converted LPG tank

With the laptop dying unceremoniously, I've responded quickly and am now the owner of a refurbished X40 thinkpad. It is so small and light .... It makes the old machine look like a brick. At a mere 1.22 kg (43 ounces), I love it.

If I was superstitious, I would have checked the calendar today because it seems like it should be Friday 13th. It has been quite a day of bad luck - at least when it comes to technology I normally take for granted.

The day began well. We had planned to brew a Belgian Wit, one of our favourite styles and one that has been elusive to get right.

The first news of the day was that the automatic startup system actually worked. HERMAN is designed to run on its own with a picaxe 28x1 microcontroller. I have coded a companion VB program that adds some extra functions such as graphing data and for the first time today, performing an automatic startup at 5am.

I awoke to the brew machine just about ready to go - success, the VB code had done its bit, and remote automation had taken a step forward. The odd thing was that the laptop had frozen. Thinking it was a Windows crash, the brew day continued...

At this point I was glad the picaxe code had been substantially upgraded since we last brewed. The LCD now shows good information which means no more running blind. The new kettle power code also eliminated surging during the boil. At last the system was working as planned - free running without a laptop. For the previous 5 incarnations of HERMAN I'd been a victim of the dreaded blue windows screen of death.

When I had some spare time, I looked a more closely at the laptop. I began to get that sinking feeling that it will never boot up again. Nothing I tried would get the machine to fire up. As it dawned on me that I've been lousy doing backups, I did some quick ebay work for an adaptor to check the laptop drive my main machine.

Why didn't I do backups? My work computer gets a backup weekly. My recreational laptop on the other hand ...

In the last few weeks I've done a lot of coding in both VB and picaxe. The most recent backup of the picaxe code was uploaded to SkyDrive on 5th February. I think I can remember most of what I've done since then - but it is damn annoying. The last backup on the VB program was late September last year! Ouch!

If these things weren't bad enough, there was more to rub salt into the wounds. As the brewday progressed, we realised that all the recipe details were on the laptop - I'd not done a printout! The most recent recipes on my main machine were 2003. OK, so I could remember how I put the recipe together for the wit and recreated it on the main PC. It then crashed in a really odd way and wiped clean the promash recipe I'd just created for the second time. I didn't have the heart to try a third time.

OK, so the good points. Both picaxe and HERMAN were fabulous. And we have had all sorts of trouble brewing wits in the past but this one went without a hitch.

Now ... I am just hoping I can retrieve some data from my once trusty laptop. This week I will be planning a serious backup regime.