Digital Choke Daynotes

(Well, it's actually Monday morning, since I forgot to send this up last night. But I wrote it last night, so....)

The weekend carpentry project went well, there were only some minor cutting mistakes. The result was a one closet with built-in shelves (some adjustable), and a bit more space for hanging items.

It was built with the 'melamine', which is particle board with a hard white plastic covering. When you cut this material, you should use a fine-tooth saw blade to reduce chipping. I also put masking tape on the top side of the cut line to reduce the chipping. The masking tape was blue, which made the red laser cutting line (built into the Sears circular saw) a bit harder to see in bright sunlight. And I forgot to bring the fine-tooth saw blade, so there was some minor chipping. But since the top surface was on the underside during cutting, the chipping occurred on the eventual bottom surface.

There was a bit of problem getting the edges to line up; the wall angles are not quite 90 degrees. The design included a tall 'box' about 12 inches wide for the fixed and adjustable small shelves. I should have built the box as a unit and then brought it in, rather than trying to build it in place. I'll try that for the next one.

But it turned out reasonably well, and will provide much-needed storage place for 'kid junk'.

That project took most of Saturday. Pam had stayed home and did a bit (well, actually a lot) of house cleaning. We purchased a floor scrubber (sort of like a carpet cleaning vacuum) for the tile floors. There is quite a bit of tile downstairs, and cleaning it with a small mop takes quite a while (and a bit of effort). The grout between the tiles is supposed to be a lighter color, but it gets discolored after some use. So the plan is to use the new floor scrubber and some cleaner to get the grout cleaner. Then we'll apply some tile sealer to protect the tile and grout. Pam also used the carpet cleaner on the downstairs rugs. So the place looked quite good at the end of her efforts.

I spent a bit of time Sunday evening with the notebook and vmWare. I've got a Mandrake installation in one of the vmWare virtual machines. Although vmWare is a great product, allowing you to have several operating systems on a computer without the hassle of a dual/multi-boot (so you can start one of the virtual systems without restarting the computer), I do notice some peculiarities. One of them is how vmWare or Mandrake work with the audio system. I usually keep the speaker/sound on 'mute', but each time I start Mandrake, it turns on the sound with a loud scratching sound, effectively turning off 'mute' on the base system.

Another oddity happened when I started the Mandrake updating process. It's a GUI that shows you the available updates. The program searches the net for the missing updates. You select the ones you want to get updated, and it will automatically install the updates for you in a manner similar to Windows Update. There were quite a few security updates, so I selected all of them (about 30, I think). The update process started, then seemed to get stuck. I figured that there were lots of updates to download, so I left it running overnight (it was getting late). It was still running (or more accurately, stuck) the next morning. So I restarted Mandrake (I could have probably used some sort of 'kill' command, but restarting was easier), and then did the update in smaller hunks. That went OK.

I also tried Sunday to install AirSnort. There is supposed to be a way to do this with the update program that comes with Mandrake, but I wasn't able to figure out how. I'll have to take another peek at the documentation. I need to become more familiar with that process as I will be installing a lot of security-based programs inside Mandrake.

The laptop is still exhibiting some funny video behavior. I'm waiting to hear back from HP. I suspect that it will need to be replaced, which brings up the problem of getting all the programs and data from one computer to another. So I'll need to do a bit of research on 'program-moving' software. Any suggestions from the 'crowd' will be appreciated. I was also thinking that perhaps I can clone the laptops' programs and settings into a vmWare partition, then move that partition (actually, just a very large data file) to the new computer. More reading of the docs are in order.

The usual stuff is going on this week at work. Some interesting projects are in progress. It will keep me busy, I suspect.

The laptop's screen display is getting worse. Yesterday, I was still having problems with the wierd ASCII characters, especially in DOS-based booting (Linux), and there were also problems with graphic images (like the screen background). Windows applications worked fine.

Last night, the screen started going dimmer. Right now, it's about half the brightness it should be. I hooked up an external monitor, and that display is OK, so it would seem to be the screen. But the HP diagnostics indicate read/write errors on the video system, so it may be on the motherboard (video is integrated on the motherboard).

This morning, I had a talk with HP support. We got the warranty problem figured out, and the tech agreed that the display or motherboard might need replacing. So they are sending a shipping box, which should arrive tomorrow. Then I send the laptop back to them, and they take 3-5 working days to fix and return. With any luck (and the creek don't rise), it should return by Wednesday next week.

Before it goes, I need to back up everything. I was going to use Ghost to make an image file and stick it on the network, but I'd need about 35G of space, so some room has to be made there. But I am getting an external drive with USB 2.0 and Ethernet connection, so I can attach the drive on the network port, sort of a personal 'network attached storage'. I've been thinking about that for home, since the home computer needs to have a more convenient backup process than CD's (although that's better than nothing). Best Buy has a 120GB drive for about $250, so am picking up one of those today.

So the plan is to Ghost to that new drive, then an individual file copy of everything to the new drive, and perhaps some other backups to another location. HP probably won't need to mess with the laptop's hard disk, but a backup is important just in case. And I've been meaning to upgrade this laptop to WinXP Pro, so the Ghost backups will help with that experiment with an upgrade, rather than a fresh install.

So, the result is that posts here might be sparse until the laptop returns, or at least until I get the site on an alternate computer.

For those of you that need something to do in the meantime, may I humbly suggest that you read my little short story on the "day the Internet died". (At the moment, it needs the Flash plug-ins, but I was working on removing that need in the design. The preliminary non-Flash version is here; the only thing missing -- I think -- is the maps and diagrams links.) The story has a place where you can become part of it by sending a mail message.

The laptop has returned, and is working well. I spent most of Tuesday morning backing up all the important files. I got an external hard drive from Ximeta. The drive has two interfaces, an Ethernet and USB. If you use the Ethernet (network) connection, you have two choices. First is as an external drive to your computer, using a cross-over network cable. Or you can connect the drive to a network switch, and the drive can be available to all the computers on your network.

The first way (cross-over, local storage) seems to work the best. With any of the three connections, you still have to install a driver program in order to 'see' the drive as an external drive. This makes the drive less 'shareable', since only those computers on your switch that have the special software installed will be able to see the drive.

I initially tried the USB 2.0 interface. After installing the driver software, it was available as an external drive. So the next step was to use Norton Ghost to create a ghost image of the drive. Ghost requires a restart of your computer in a special mode in order to copy (clone) the hard drive. And, even when USB 2.0 drivers were loaded, the reboot/ghost would not work -- the drive was not seen. It seemed as if I'd have to change the drivers that Ghost loads as part of the reboot, but the documentation (yes, I read documentation, and not as a last resort) wasn't clear on the commands used to load the drivers. So Ghosting via the USB port didn't work; although just file copies were OK.

So I decided next to try out the network switch connection. Reinstalled the Ximeta software, set it up for the switch, and was able to see the drive and copy files manually. But the Ghost reboot had the same problem as with the USB connection.

The next step was to try the cross-over cable connection. After a quick jaunt over to the local Computer City (the closest), I picked up the cross-over cable for $7.99. (The interesting thing about that is that a standard/straight-through network cable, of the same apparent copy, was about $18. Of course, there are cheaper ways to get good quality network cables -- I like the CyberGuys mail order place, who have network cables for under $4 -- the price difference for basically the same cable was significant.) I hooked up that cable, reinstalled the drivers just in case, and tried Ghost again. The need for the special drivers was again required, so that didn't work either.

I was running out of time; I wanted to get the laptop picked up on Tuesday, so I did a WIndows Backup of the entire hard drive, then another one of the "all documents" folder, then a manual copy of a few other folders. All of that worked with the cross-over cable. After verifying the backups, I carefully packed up the laptop in the box that HP sent. (They shipped out the empty shipping box on Monday, and I got it Tuesday.)

A quick call to Airborne Express, and they picked it up on Tuesday. HP sent email on Wednesday that they got it, another email on Thursday that it was fixed and being shipped, and it arrived on Friday. Each email had the shipping tracking numbers. It was all quite fast and efficient.

The result is that I have a new LCD display, with a warranty that lasts the rest of my three-year warranty (I'm just short of half-way through that). And the only cost was a bit of time away from the laptop -- HP paid for shipping both ways. (And some unfounded insecurity about the data.) The extra warranty cost was $75, so that was a good investment. Laptops take a bit more abuse than a desktop system, so I'd recommend getting the extended warranty on laptop purchases. (For the same reason -- the potential for more abuse -- one needs to be very careful about buying used laptops.)

So all the data is still intact, the display looks nice, and the Compaq logo on the top of the laptop has returned (I lost mine a while back). Good service, good phone support from the folks at HP.

Last night I went over to my mother-in-law's house. Someone wanted to look at all the wood-working tools that were my late father-in-law's. He was interested in all of them, so he got the table saw, radial-arm saw, joiner, router table, drill press, the arc-welder, and the acetylene tank, along with a 22' extension ladder. That stuff was slightly old, but still in pretty good shape, just needed a bit of cleanup. He's got a 1000 square foot garage that is all set up for a wood-working shop: lots of electricity, air compressor lines, and sawdust exhaust system. And he thinks that he might like to build something, although he wasn't sure. But we figured that getting all of that used equipment would be a bit cheaper than buying all new stuff. So we haggled on a price that was fair, although perhaps a bit low. I figured "bird in the hand" -- I may have been able to get a bit more, but I could be done with the whole thing at once.

He lived just a short distance away, but it took three trips with his big truck to get it to his house (where his wife, with some eye-rolling "what are you going to do with all this stuff?", helped him unload). So now there is a bit more space in the garage, and less to worry about.

The next big thing with that stuff is to get the 27' travel trailer sold, along with the 2003 Ford F-250 super-cab diesel. Although that's a nice truck, there are $400/month payments still due. I wouldn't mind having it, but I really don't have use for such a fine truck. I have a 1998 Ford Ranger that I only use on weekends, if at all; it works just fine for my needs. The plan is to take the trailer up to a 'for sale by owner' weekend sale at the local college; we'll try that next weekend. (More about that later.)

And I did get most of her computer updated. She got the "Sasser" worm while I was trying to update her computer (on a dial-up line). She doesn't use it much, so there was no hurry to get it done. I ended up using the WinXP SP1 CD to start, then enabled the Windows XP firewall, then connected to get the rest of the updates. At the first part of the connection, Sasser kept trying to start additional instances of itself, so I had to remove them through the Task Manager. Once I got all of those shut down, I installed the Microsoft Sasser removal tool, then finished the other updates. A bit more work on that computer (anti-virus updates are next), and it will be in better shape.

Now it's Friday, and the start of a three-day weekend (Monday is Memorial Day holiday in the US, honoring our armed forces past and current). The plan is to go up to the cabin in the mountains (up Highway 50, about 1/2 hour this side of Lake Tahoe), and get the cabin 'opened up'. That involves turning on the water, checking for any winter pipe damage, cleaning the pine needles off of the porch, raking the needles 30 feet away from the cabin (required by the US Forest Service), and cleaning up the inside (including any small rodents that took up residence during the winter -- a bit of dCon works really well for that).

I'm going to take the big truck up there (it could use the exercise); there will probably be a good-sized load of junk to take to the dump. And I'll probably spend just the Saturday up there; we have other plans for the rest of the weekend. Jason (son, age 22) will be spending some well-earned vacation days up there until about Tuesday.

The cabin is a small A-frame, with a living area and bedroom downstairs, and a loft upstairs. It's right on the American River (about 15 feet from the back deck), and is at the 6000 foot level, so the weather is usually pretty nice during the summer. It's a peaceful place to relax. If I remember the camera, I'll take some pictures and post them here.

So, a good weekend planned. Hope yours is similarly restful.

I just looked up at the last sentence from yesterday....it said something about "similarly restful". I probably wasn't paying attention when I wrote that.

Today was "get the cabin ready" day. Pam and I slept in a bit, but we were on the road by 8:30am. First stop was the in-laws' house, to grab the big truck (Ford F250 supercab diesel), since there would be some trash to take home. Then up to the cabin at Strawberry, on Highway 50 on the way to Lake Tahoe (CA). It's about 30 minutes this side of Lake Tahoe, at about 6000 feet elevation. The cabin is right on the Sacramento River South Fork of the American River (see the next post to explain this correction). I took some pictures, but I'm too tired to massage them onto this page. They should be there tomorrow, with any luck.

Once we got there (about 10:30am), my first task was to get the water working. We pump it directly from the river. I closed all of the valves (we open them at the end of the 'season' so they will drain and not break due to freezing). Then I put the one coupler joint back together (the bit of water in the pipe always pops it apart) -- it always pops open during the winter. There was another one in the bathroom that had a slight leak, so I put that one back together again. The pump was all primed, so I plugged it in and we got good water pressure (and no leaks).

I ran the water for a bit to get the gunky stuff out of the pipes, and to fill up the water heater. When that was full, I energized the power for the water heater. A final check for any leaks (there were none), and that task was OK.

Jared (son-in-law) and Jason (son) then started on the outside. The US Forest Service (the cabin is on USFS land with a 99-year lease) requires that you rake all the pine needles 30 feet away from the cabin. So they started on that task. We used a leaf blower to help out; it worked pretty well on the dry pine needles. (Although there was a lot of snow up there this winter, we've had a fairly dry spring.)

While they worked on that, Pam and her mother started cleaning out the kitchen. They got rid of a lot of old and ancient food (mostly canned), cleaned out the cupboards, and washed all the dishes. (Although we did bring up the warehouse-sized paper plates/bowls/cups to reduce dishwashing.) Since the water was working, I helped out with the pine-needle raking (I used the blower, and let the guys pick up the piles and move them away from the cabin).

There were a couple of minor tasks to do. The drain pipe under the kitchen sink needed to be replaced. I got the gas (propane) stove and oven to work. And we did have lunch in between, along with some breaks sitting out on the back porch right next to the river. There is a small mountain right across the river, and it is a popular climbing area. With a pair of binoculars, you can watch them climb up the mountain.

There were a few loose deck boards to screw down, and an adjustment on the patio screen door to help it move easier. A couple of light bulbs to replace. And a session with a "Webster" to remove the cobwebs.

The result is that the cabin is ready for use. Jason is staying up there until Wednesday; it's his first vacation from his job in over a year. (And he's been working a lot of overtime.) So, the larder is stocked, the place is cleaned up, and he's enjoying the solitude up there.

We all left about 3pm, and headed home. I've still got a truck-bed full of trash to take to the dump on Monday. Pam and I spent a quiet evening at home, relaxing on the couch, watching a couple of episodes of "Trading Spaces" (her favorite), while I spent a bit of time 'surfing the 'net' (and writing this).

Tomorrow is the usual Sunday drill. Morning leadership meetings, the afternoon general meeting, then dinner with the family afterwards.

Hope your weekend is progressing well.

... more later ...
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