Tom's Diary

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty.  DONE.

Log

08:00 AM: I’m up.    

08:30 AM: Facebooked a while this morning.  Friend count is now 206.

09:45 PM: Added more content to  the   Gulf Oil Spill Thoughts: 2010-06-23   piece to the   Tom’s Views   blog.

10:45 AM: Added the   Therapy   category to the   Tom’s Love Quest   blog.  Posts in this group detail my experiences with and impressions of the therapy I sought through the years, to aid me in winning my love quest.

01:05 PM: Posted the   Our Government: 2010-06-24    piece to the   Tom’s Views   blog.

02:00 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.  Sharon came face-to-face with Adam.  Victor is forced to fly back home to testify in Nick’s trial.  Sky comes face-t0-face with Victor at the poker table. 

04:45 PM: Watched today’s rerun episode of   Dr. Phil; pertaining to Moms who drink and the problems this causes for their children and anyone who must coexist with them really. 

06:00 PM: Facebooked for the past couple hours, and told my friends about Mom’s need to go to the hospital.  I’ve received numerous well-wishes.  That’s nice. 

07:20 PM: Watched tonight’s episode of   NBC’s Nightly News   on the DVR.  

07:45 PM: Watered all of Mom’s plants outside per her request while she’s away. 

09:00 PM: iPodded at the pavilion for the past hour.  The new iOS 4.0 does work better.  Should play be interrupted by a weak WiFi signal, the AOL Radio app recovers now.  Before the station would stop playing, but not start again even after the signal strength rose until you pressed the play button again.  But now, it automatically restarts when I walk into a strong portion of the WiFi bubble.  Cool.  The Touch seems a bit more sluggish than before; I get some long pauses when touching the screen to switch to different stations.  But perhaps this is something they’ll work out in a maintenance release soon. I do hope so. 

10:30 PM: Tried calling [Emmy] tonight.  But there was no answer.  She’s been getting tired earlier in the evening these days.  So she probably just went to bed.  I’ll catch her tomorrow. 

10:58 PM: Watched tonight’s episode of    CNN’s AC 360   live.

11:00 PM: Looked for some older pictures that I was sure I’d stored on this computer.  But a whole folder was missing.  I checked my backups from as far back as a year ago, and apparently the folder has been gone at least that long.  So, fortunately, I was able to find many of those pics in my older email files; I’d sent them to numerous folks and saved copies of all my sent email.  Still though, I’m curious about what could have happened to that folder.  Hmmm. 

01:00 AM: Facebooked a while.  Friend count is up to 215.

01:05 AM: Well, I’m going to pull out of here for the night.  Have a good one yourself, and I’ll be back out here again in under ten hours.  Good night.

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

• Coupon card from   Papa John’s   pizza.  No thanks.  I’m on a diet at present. 
• Notice from Mom’s medical insurance company of coverage they’re providing for a blood-glucose test she had run recently. 
• Credit card offer from BankAmericard.  Hmmm.  Haven’t heard that name in three decades.  Aren’t they what turned into today’s VISA?  Well, it looks like someone is resurrecting that old name these days.   But the longer I live, the more against credit cards for toy purchase I become.  So no thanks, but thanks anyway for the offer though. 

Related Posts

• Facebook Tid Bits: 2010-06-24
• Mom’s Status: 2010-06-24
• Quest Revisions: 2010-06-24
• Today’s Diet: 2010-06-24
• Tom’s Views –> Gulf Oil Spill Thoughts: 2010-06-23
• Weight Loss: 2010

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

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Cat duty. DONE.
• Help Pink restore some data she’s still missing this evening.  DONE.
• Pay all (2) pending bills.

Log

10:00 AM: I’m up. My weight stayed the same as yesterday, at 175.0 Lbs.    See   here for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.

10:03 AM: I woke up with yet   another cold!  Yep, I’m definitely getting those blood tests in June to make sure nothing’s amiss with my immune system.

10:05 AM: Overnight, I attempted to read more of the   Team of Rivals   book, but kept falling asleep.  I’ll try chapter twenty-four again today. 

11:00 AM: [Emmy] called to remind me that   The Young and the Restless will not air today due to some basketball game (having to do with “March Madness”) I guess.  Of all the popular sports in the US, basketball is one that I know the least about; never found it interesting. 

01:10 PM: Worked outside the past couple hours.  When the snow plow operator cleared our driveway throughout the winter, he pushed some of the shale from the driveway, way out into the yard.  Grrrrrrrrr!   So this morning, I raked and shoveled it all back to where it belongs.  Now, I have two little blisters; one on each hand.  Oh well.  At least I can still type. 

A beautiful, sunny day so far.  When I headed out, it was 50 degrees.  Now, it’s 59.  We could see the mid 60s this afternoon, making this day the second pavilion day of the year. 

03:30 PM: Uploaded the following audio journal episodes to the computer:

• AJE-2002-01-06-21-47
• AJE-2002-01-05-17-01
• AJE-2002-01-05-12-39
• AJE-2002-01-05-02-20

03:40 PM: Nap time.

04:10 PM: I’m back up again.  63 degrees outside.  Wonderful!

04:30 PM: Read more of the   Team of Rivals   book.  Finished chapter twenty-four. 

05:55 PM: Just returned from Pink’s.  Her QuickBooks data has been restored correctly.  She had it backed up to one of those PassPort smart drives.  When you plug such a drive to the computer, there’s an application that must be run, that presumably is responsible for decrypting (unlocking) the drive.  Without starting this program, the contents of the locked partition of the drive are not visible.  In her situation, she was not running this program first, so that when she looked in QuickBooks for the backup data she wished to restore, it did not appear, though they did show up once I manually ran this program.  So I configured her computer to automaticallyexecute this SmartDrive program when she connects that PassPort drive, hoping to head off future, similar problems. 

06:40 PM:  Posted the   Windows 7: My First Brief Look   piece.

10:20 PM: Talked with [Emmy] on the phone.  As per usual during the winter months, we listened to the Penguins hockey game on her Internet radio.  They won tonight, 3 to 0!  Now, back to the   Team of Rivals   book.

01:00 AM: Bed time again.  Catch you tomorrow. 

Tom

Received Mail and Shipments

•  Offer for Pace / Pacenet prescription drug coverage for Mom.  No thanks.

Related Posts

• Book: Team of Rivals
• Common Cold: 2010–03
• Diary Revisions: 2010-03-18
• Storm Cleanup: 2010-03-13
• Today’s Diet: 2010-03-18
• Weight Loss: 2010
• Windows 7: My First Brief Look

Today’s Chores

• Cat duty.  DONE.
• Dispensing Mom’s meds.  DONE.
• Shower.  DONE.
• Take garbage out.  DONE.
• Send out five pending memorial checks for the   WPSBC Alumni Association.

Log 

10:30 AM: I’m up.

12:00 PM:  Posted the    iPod Charge-Only Cables   piece.

12:30 PM: Watched KDKA TV News at noon.

12:55 PM: Watched yesterday’s episode of   NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams   on the DVR.

01:45 PM: Tested out [Emmy]‘s new cordless phone.  All three handsets, all batteries, all chargers, and the base unit appear to work properly.  However, re-packaging it precisely as it was before, I did not do; too difficult.  But it’s packed well enough to survive the trip to Pittsburgh later today.

02:30 PM: Received items from the US mail and UPS:

• External USB FreeAgent hard drive by Seagate (3).
• Credit card offer from Discover.
• Coupons from Lowe’s. 

02:45 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.

04:10 PM: We’re leaving now, to take   [Emmy]   to the train; she’s headed home.

06:00 PM: Just got home.  Boy, the place already seems quiet.  But actually, though it’s true that [Emmy] is gone, Mom is also out somewhere; probably playing trivia with her friends.

07:00 PM: Watched today’s episode of   Dr. Phil   on the DVR.  He announced today that his show has been renewed through 2014.  Nap time. 

10:00 PM: Worked the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project.  The new Seagate external USB hard drives I ordered last week arrived today.  I’m in the process of syncing my DJ music library to them.  The first of the three is done, and the second of the three is in progress.  It currently takes roughly six hours to  copy my entire library of recordings. 

10:30 PM: Talked with [Emmy].  She made it home, an hour or so late due to train delays.  She tried out the new Panasonic cordless phones I gave her for Christmas. They sounded pretty good and she likes having more phones in more places that you can move around the entire apartment with, without the burden of tangled cords. 

12:25 AM: Posted the list of added and revised documents today for this blog,    here. 

01:15 AM: Rooted around in the basement, looking for old power connectors that fit my new hard drives; I found three.  I also located three working supplies that provide the correct power for these drives.  So I can assemble a few spare power supplies for them, by soldering these connectors to these supplies.  

01:25 AM: Also, I found some new supplies on the web for under $10 apiece.  So I may order a few of them as well.  I love the added security I feel for having extra supplies  around.

02:10 AM: So ends another living day, and I’m certainly ready to hit the hay.  So, take care.  Catch you back here soon.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Diary Revisions: 2010-01-05
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• iPod Charge-Only Cables
• Mom’s Status: 2010-01-05

Today’s Chores

• Cat duty.  DONE.
• Dispensing Mom’s meds. DONE.
• Launder a new winter coat I received for Christmas, a blanket, and a table cloth for Mom.  DONE.
• Shower.  DONE.
• Send out four pending memorial checks for the   WPSBC Alumni Association.
• Order three new hard drives for the DJ business.  DONE.
• Go   shopping   with Debbie.   DONE.

Log 

10:15 AM: I’m up.

11:10 AM:  [Emmy]  is watching KDKA TV’s locally-hosted show, Pittsburgh Today Live  on the DVR.  We currently have 65 recordings saved there to see.  So she’s going to have to get busy watching because the DVR is 95 percent full now, and we wouldn’t want to miss any episodes of   The Young and the Restless, due to the hard drive filling up.

02:00 PM: Worked the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   project.  While syncing the music hard drives, I discovered a   Hard Disk Drive Failure in one of the music library HDDs.  Not a show-stopper by any means.  But I now must order some new drives, to replenish my supply of spare drives, which  is now depleted. 

03:00 PM: No mail received today.

04:00 PM: In light of the   Hard Drive Failure   experienced today, I’ve decided to initiate the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project.

06:45 PM: Got back a little while ago from a    shopping trip   with Debbie.  Mom’s second party this week is well under way and has basically the same dishes as were served last night; taco dip, chips, crackers, shrimp, pop.  Someone brought a pumpernickel loaf with spinach dip as well, that tasted very good. 

07:00 PM: [Emmy] is listening to tonight’s Penguins hockey game against the New Jersey Devils. 

09:30 PM: Mom’s party is over now.  All has a great time, so I heard them commenting as they left. 

10:30 PM: Worked the   Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30   issue.  Since Seagate is closed for the New Years  holiday, I’ll have to wait until sometime next week to talk to them about the two failed drives I discovered today.

12:05 AM: Posted the list of added or revised posts to the   Tom’s Diary   blog.  Click   here   to see the list. 

12:25 AM: Well, I’m out of here for seven plus hours of sleep.  Catch you tomorrow, and do take care.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Diary Revisions: 2009-12-30
• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-30
• Shopping Trip: 2009-12-30

My current music library external disk drives are over 90% full now.  This, and the fact that one of them just failed has convinced me that it’s time to upgrade.  So, I’ve been hardware shopping today, online.

After perusing Amazon and eBay, it looks like the 1.5 TB external drives are currently the best buy.  Go above this in storage size, and the cost per GB rises significantly.  Go below this, and I’ll have to upgrade again too soon, as I have over 93000 old time radio shows (~1 TB) to add to the library as well. 

I’ve therefore selected the Seagate Desk FreeAgent 1.5 TB, USB 2.0  external drives.  These drives have a thin profile, which means that they’ll fit easily into my laptop cases that I take on DJ gigs.  Thus, I have ordered three of these now, and will get the others in February, 2010, once I’ve played with them a little and really gotten comfortable with them as good replacements for my current hardware. 

I’ll track this upgrade until I have at least six of the bigger drives, fully populated with my media library.  Follow the progress of this effort in the attached comments. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Failure: 2009-12-30 
• Internet Shopping: 2010-01-06
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30
• Today’s Business: 2010-05-13

01:55 PM: While syncing the music drives, per the   DJ Gig: 2009-12-31   effort, one of my external USB hard drives would not completely power up when connected to the computer through my Adaptec USB 2.o hub.  However, my other drives, through the same port, powered up just fine.  The bad one would spin up, but the data / busy light repeatedly blinks on and off, in a slow, rhythmic pattern.  Thus, this drive never becomes visible in Windows Explorer, and in fact, does not even appear on the Computer Management console (Windows XP).

Inside the external drive enclosure box, I have a Seagate ST3250620A hard drive, which I purchased brand new in early 2007.  I believe this drive has a five year warranty.  But not used to seeing Seagate drives fail so quickly, I tried different power supplies and cables, and I swapped out the USB-to-IDE bridge board in the enclosure.  Unfortunately, none of these remedies solved the problem.  So it does appear that after only three years, the hard drive itself has gone bad.

This leaves me with just five properly-functioning and up-to-date music drives.  But I get nervous when this number falls below six.  So I’ll order more external drives presently, per the   Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010   project, as well as a replacement drive (under warranty) from Seagate for this enclosure.

A corollary issue is that while investigating the problem with the 250 GB external drive described above, I also discovered that one of my 200 GB drives (also a Seagate, model #ST3200822A) won’t fully power up.  So I’ll investigate warranty service for both these units.

I’ll track this issue until I have six working and current music drives once again.  See the attached comments for updates on my progress with this.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Hard Drive Upgrades: 2010
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-30

08:10 AM: I’m up.  Looks like a clear day so far. So my to-do list for today is as follows:

• Planning to work the  Gutter Maintenance Project   and caulk the gutter joints if they’re dry enough. 
• Also, I hope to install the rest of the roof vent on the shed for the   Shed Roof Replacement Project.
• Finally, replace the failed disk drive from yesterday’s   DJ Wedding Reception Gig.  This is the   Music Hard Drive Repair Project.

10:00 AM: Worked on the  Music Hard Drive Repair Project.  Trying replacing the hard drive with a new one to see if the improper power-up sequence persists.

11:00 AM: Worked on the  Gutter Maintenance Project.  Re caulked some of the problem joints.

12:15 PM: Worked the   Shed Roof Replacement Project.  Installed the rest of the ridge vent.

03:00 PM: Went shopping   with sister JoJo and her daughter. 

06:30 PM: Finished the final trimming on the  Shed Roof Replacement Project.

07:00 PM: Worked more on the   Music Hard Drive Repair Project.  Repairs are complete.

10:12 PM: Weekly blog site backups   complete. 

10:30 PM: Talked with  [Emmy].

11:00 PM: Today’s repeating song (a repeating song is one that I listen to over and over) was Nick Gilder’s  Here Comes the Night.  It talks about women who play  “the lipstick game” which, presumably is the practice of wearing makeup and fancy clothes in order to attract a potential lover.  This certainly wasn’t Gilder’s biggest hit.  Of course, almost anyone growing up listening to the radio in 1978 would know his biggest: Hot Child in the City.  But this one I actually like more; it’s a bit more cerebral I think.

02:27 AM: Just finished adding some   new posts about some of the places I’ve lived.  Don’t know why I have so much energy tonight; I’m only just now starting to feel sleepy, and it’s after 2:00 AM. 

03:09 AM: I’m off to bed.  Take care and, see you tomorrow.  Good night.

Tom

Dear [Lynn],

Understood. Yes, you can use the ‘Backup’ utility that is part of Windows, to accomplish this scenario on each computer. Given all this, my approach to backing up would be just as you describe. Your strategy is sound.

On the recently-fried computer: A fried computer does not mean a fried HDD (hard disk drive)! Though the computer itself may no longer work, the chances are that its HDD is still okay. Your friend could remove the HDD to another, working computer, and if the HDD from the bad computer is indeed not damaged, she’d have complete access to the data on it.

If the HDD however is broken, its manufacturer probably offers a data recovery service. You send the drive to them, and they send you back the data they could salvage, either on tape, or on a new HDD. It depends on the vendor involved and why the drive failed in the first place. If the onboard electronics failed, the disks themselves are still ok and the data can be obtained by replacing the electronics. But if there was a head crash or one of the motors inside the sealed disk area failed, retrieving the data means disassembling the drive and putting the platters into a working shell. This is when you run into big bucks for this. On average, this service tends to be extremely expensive no matter the reason for the failure (in the neighborhood of $1000). So you see why people do backups religiously.

Tom

Dear [Lynn],

What kind of software are you looking for? Backup software? Drivers? If you’re just going to use the backup PC for storage of backup copies of your files from the primary machine, then you shouldn’t need any more software than what comes with Windows. But if you want to have a backup computer that is capable of all the tasks that your primary machine is, then you’ll need to install all the software on that machine that you have on your primary PC.

Let me know more precisely what you’re looking for.

Tom