Tom's Diary

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty. DONE.
• Dispense Mom’s weekly meds tray.  DONE.
• Prepare treasurers report for the WPSBC Alumni Association board meeting this evening.  DONE.
• 07:00 PM: WPSBC Alumni board meeting.

Log

08:30 AM: I’m up. My weight did not change from yesterday.  It’s still 173.5 Lbs.    See   here   for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.

10:30 AM: Posted the   Improving Pavilion WiFi #3   piece.

03:30 PM: Prepared the treasurer’s report for tonights   WPSBC Alumni Association   board meeting.

05:10 PM: Worked the   Grant’s Computer Redo: 2010   project. 

05:15 PM: Watched today’s episode of   NBC’s Meet The Press   on the DVR.

06:55 PM: Listened to the first two periods of the Penguins hockey game with [Emmy] on the phone, via her Internet radio.  Can’t stay for the whole thing though, due to the   WPSBC Alumni Association   board meeting at 7:00 PM. 

08:40 PM: Just finished up with the   WPSBC Alumni Association   board meeting. 

09:00 PM: Finished the   Grant’s Computer Redo: 2010   project, and called sister Christine to let her know.  She’ll pick it up sometime in the next day or two. 

10:15 PM: Chatted with [Emmy] for a half hour, and now, I’m heading to bed.  It’s going to be an early morning tomorrow, as nephew Garret is coming to scrub our basement, and I must rise early to supervise.    So good night.  More tomorrow. 

Tom

Received Mail and Shipments

• They don’t deliver today (Sunday). 

Related Posts

• Grant’s Computer Redo: 2010
• Improving Pavilion WiFi #3
• Today’s Diet: 2010-04-11
• Weight Loss: 2010

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in  the   Tom’s Diary   blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, decreased spelling errors, appearance,  and search-ability:

Tom

So, my nephew Grant complained on Friday that his IBM ThinkPad (Lenovo R60) laptop computer runs too slowly, and he asked if I could restore it to normal operation for him.  So, I took on the project; starting work on it this morning. 

11:20 AM: Verified that the ThinkPad does run quite slow; I observed nearly constant hard disk activity and slow screen drawing of windows and text.  Also, several warning messages popped up, saying that the machine has multiple viruses.  Yep, a drive-reformatting and complete re install of Windows XP should fix things up for him. 

11:30 AM: The computer would not boot from the first copy of the XP CD ROM I inserted.  So I played with the device boot order in the BIOS settings, placing the CD ROM drive as the first boot device.  Still though it wouldn’t boot from the CD ROM.

11:40 AM: So I tried a different copy of the XP CD ROM.  This solved the boot issue, and booting from CD finally worked. 

11:45 AM: I chose to delete the existing drive partition (there was only one, so no recovery partition to utilize).  Then, I created a new partition out of the entire free space available on the drive (roughly 38 GB). 

11:49 AM: The computer is now formatting the new partition to NTFS.  I did not choose the quick formatting option. So this could take a little while.

12:02 PM: Reformatting just finished.  It’s now copying the installation files to the freshly partitioned hard drive from the CD ROM.

12:06 PM: The file copying just finished and the ThinkPad is now rebooting.

12:07 PM: Now, it’s  preparing the installation. 

12:08 PM: Now, it’s  installing windows.

12:11 PM: Now it’s asking for Regional and Language Options.

12:12 PM: Entering the product key.

12:15 PM: It’s installing the network software now.

12:18 PM: It’s installing the   start menu items.

12:19 PM: Now, it’s   registering components.

12:21 PM: Saving settings.

12:24 PM: Rebooting.

12:26 PM: Created two users on this machine (Grant and his mother).

12:28 PM: Windows XP installation complete.  Next, I need to install the drivers for sound and Ethernet access.  But I’ll do that after lunch.  Stand by… 

12:50 PM: Located the drivers on the Lenovo site.  Burning them to CD ROM now. 

01:15 PM: Installed the Ethernet driver and network connectivity has been successfully established.   Now, I’m applying all XP service packs and updates, becuase the wireless driver will not install without a later XP service pack installed first. 

01:20 PM: Windows update, latest components just installed. Now rebooting…

01:24 PM: Now installing the XP Service Pack 2 update…

02:25 PM: XP Service Pack 2 just finished installing successfully.  Now installing XP Service Pack 3…  

03:30 PM: XP Service Pack 3 just finished installing successfully.  Now, I’m applying the remaining updates…

06:10 PM: All updates applied successfully. 

06:20 PM: Installed the WiFi adapter driver software. 

06:25 PM: Successfully installed the audio driver (this is the one that failed before upgrading to XP Service Pack 3).

06:40 PM: Successfully installed the Intel chip set drivers and programs from the Lenovo web site. 

07:00 PM: All work on this project is complete, and everything seems to be functioning properly except one   Unknown Device   that’s showing up in the Device Manager under  Other Devices.  This may be normal for this particular machine, and since the Ethernet, wireless Ethernet, HDD, video device, CD ROM, keyboard, and pointing device (all the important devices) are all working properly, I’m not going to bother tracking down this unknown device. 

I’ll let this computer run all night to “burn it in,” and if no problems surface, sister Christine will pick it up either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Garrett’s Computer Problen
• Pink’s PC Problems
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2010-04-11

I’ve tested another strategy for getting a stronger, more reliable WiFi feed at my pavilion that’s easy to implement in this particular environment.  I’ve found during the past week, that moving the WiFi Access Point (WAP) just 20 feet closer to the pavilion with a more line-of-sight setup, removed nearly all dropped-connection problems.  They still happen; but only once or twice an hour.  Now I can swing as high as I like on the porch swings there, with iPod Touch in hand, without losing Internet radio stations much at all.

Specifically, I repositioned the WAP from the office (in the center of the house) to the pavilion-facing window in the attic; on the east side of our dwelling.  Not only did this get the WAP ten percent closer (the pavilion is approximately 200 feet away), but it also eliminated two walls from the signal path (one drywall and one roof) through which the signal must pass to reach the pavilion.  While this did not raise the number of signal strength bars reported by the iPod Touch at the pavilion (I still get just one bar down there), the reliability of the connections rose a great deal, still. 

I’m concerned however that the attic climate extremes might not be good for this particular WAP, which is a Bountiful WiFi BWRG1000) that was intended for indoor use only.  So investing in a “beefier” WAP that has a sealed enclosure, or building such a box for the one I have might be prudent.  While our attic is technically considered “indoors,” dampness and large temperature swings typically intrude; it can go from below freezing at dawn to nearly a hundred degrees in the afternoon, and that’s even with the exhaust fan running.  Further, since our house has aluminum siding, the WAP must be located near the only attic window on the pavilion side of the house, for maximum WiFi signal at the pavilion.  Metal attenuates the signal significantly.  So getting all metal out of the signal path is paramount.  But the sun shines there on clear mornings, and falls on the WAP, heating it up perhaps too much.  Indeed, I have noticed since relocating the WAP to the attic that it requires more reboots.  If this proves to be a trend, an outdoor WAP will be necessary.

Though the enhanced coverage area doesn’t extend very far past the pavilion on the east side toward the river, the bubble of useable WiFi now nonetheless completely envelops the pavilion.  Ideally though, it’d be nice to have that bubble encompass our whole yard, so I can listen while mowing the grass without having to stop to reset the iPod Touch so often when entering those fringe signal areas.  That may be possible by either putting a high-gain dish-style antenna outside the attic window and aiming it at the pavilion, or installing an outdoor access point at the pavilion itself.  I’ll post more on that later.   

The antenna route would be the cheapest (around a hundred dollars), as it requires no additional access point.  However, there is a row of tall green spruce trees between the house and the back yard where the pavilion is, that may reduce the signal to unusable levels in the part of the yard on the opposite side of the pavilion from the house.  This can’t be determined for certain unless I get an antenna, mount it outside the attic, and test it.  It probably wouldn’t be an issue though, because even with small omni directional antennas that come with the BWRG1000, the signal is still pretty good at the pavilion, despite their low amount of gain.  The dish antenna I have in mind though, offers 24 DBi gain which, on the S-unit scale at least, is enough to increase the signal strength from S-1 to S-10+ (almost no signal to full-scale signal).   Of course, the effective gain of this antenna wouldn’t quite reach 24 DBi because of the couple of DB signal loss in the coaxial cable and connectors that would be required to attach the WAP to it.  But still though, we’d have roughly 20 DBi of gain. 

This would probably be enough to eliminate all fringe signal areas in and immediately around the pavilion.  But the questions remain: How much would the dish antenna lengthen the strong-signal bubble toward the river?  Would it in fact, cover the entire yard with dropout-free WiFi reception?  I’m not sure.  The pavilion is midway down the yard between the house and the river, and the edge of current bubble just barely covers the pavilion.  This still leaves the lower half of the yard unusable on the Touch.   While I’m sure there would be SOME signal enhancements with the dish, it’s not clear if these would be enough to reach the river (the river is about 500 Ft. from the house).

Also, the dish would blast practically all the WiFi signal toward the river.  So I’m wondering if there’d be enough back-side signals radiated to still provide good coverage in and around the house here. This is also a requirement.  If yes, then we’ll be done.  If not, then I may go the route of installing a second WAP at the pavilion.  Clearly though, further experimentation is necessary to get these answers, and I will do that as time and available money permits.  J  So stay tuned, and take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Improving Pavilion WiFi #1
• Improving Pavilion WiFi #2
• Today’s Business: 2010-04-11

Today, I consumed the following items:

• Herbal tea and diet caffeine-free Pepsi  throughout the day. 0 calories.
• 04:00 PM: 2 cups V8 vegetable juice.  100 calories.
• 05:00 PM: 2 cups of Cheerios.  200 calories.
• 05:00 PM: 2 cups of organic skim milk.  160 calories.
• 05:00 PM: 12 Oz. blueberries.  180 calories.
• 05:00 PM: 1 cup raisins.  520 calories.
• 09:35 PM: 4 slices of muenster cheese.   320 calories.
• 09:35 PM: Candy.  120 calories.  120 calories.
• 10:00 PM: 2 cups of Dannon vanilla yogurt.  400 calories.

Total calories: 2000.

Tom

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2010-04-11
• Weight Loss: 2010