Unbelievably, incredibly, utterly...stupid

I still can't believe it. How could anyone, even someone with even the briefest acquaintance with the mechanics of computing, be so thick-headed and...just plain dumb?
But there we are. I suppose some people just have moments of temporary insanity.

After a discussion earlier today about the options for getting my dad fixed up with broadband, I wondered how close I was to my 2Gb-per-month cap with Wanadoo. So I did a search in Windows XP of all my downloaded podcasts during the last 30 days -- just to get an idea of how much stuff it was. Only thing is, the search doesn't show the total size. So I copied the results into a folder on the desktop and used 'Properties' to see the total. It was 3.62 Gb, which means I'll probably have to go up to the next band when Wanadoo start metering usage.

Fine, I thought, it's what I expected. But I didn't want a 3.62 Gb folder cluttering up my desktop, so I dumped it in the Recycle Bin. And I didn't want all that still on my hard disk so I emptied the Recycle Bin.

It was only when I next tried to sync my iPod that I realised that I hadn't 'copied' all those files, I'd 'moved' them. And deleted them. And emptied the Recycle Bin. 3.62 Gb! How could I be so STUPID?

Well, to cut a long story short, I did manage to retrieve the majority using a utility (let's hear it for restoration.exe, available at http://aumha.org/a/recover.php), but I still had quite a few gaps to fill in.

So much for worrying about my bandwidth usage -- it's certainly gone up this evening....