Michael Louis Scott June 1997 to Date

Note: <888> 07/24/04  Saturday 3:05 A.M.:  I looked at some technical pages relating to my computer system.  I downloaded from www.northgate.com the VIA IDE drivers they had for my Syntax SV 266 M motherboard.  I installed them.  I think they are pretty much the same as what I already had on my computer.  I am tired, so I will now shut down the computer, and I will go to bed.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/24/04  Saturday 12:45 A.M.:  I chatted with a relative.  CIO

End of Scott's Notes week of 07/23/04:

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 11:50 P.M.:  I will now send out my weekly notes.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 11:20 P.M.:  I went out after the last message.  I went downtown, and I walked the entire length of Greenwich Avenue, and I sat out at various locations.  I stopped by the ATM machine at Putnam Trust Bank of New York on Greenwich Avenue.  After I completed my walk, I drove down by the waterfront.  I then went by the Stop and Shop, and I bought a bulb of elephant garlic for $1.99, a 16 ounce bag of baby carrots for $1.50, a 10 ounce bag of fresh spinach for $1.99, fresh broccoli crowns at $1.29 a pound for $1.66, a three pound bag of onions for $2.79, a pound of Stop and Shop Swiss Cheese for $4.39, a 16.5 ounce bottle of Monari balsamic vinegar for $2.50 for $16.82 total.  I then returned home.  I had a message on the answering machine from a relative to email another relative about the size of the day bed, so maybe they could take it up to Maine in mid August in their station wagon.  I drank some iced tea.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 8:25 P.M.:  I made and ate my usual salad www.geocities.com/mikelscott/salad.htm .  For the cheddar cheese portion, I used Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.  I used all of the other regular ingredients.  I had the salad with iced tea.  I chatted with a relative before I ate my salad, and I called back the relative briefly on another matter.  I will now shut down the computer, and I will clean up, and I will go out to do some errands.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 6:55 P.M.:  I chatted with a relative.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 5:45 P.M.:  I went to bed after the last message.  I had a friend call be at 6 A.M. this morning.  I was finally up at 1:30 P.M..  I had breakfast of oatmeal, toast with strawberry jam, orange juice, vitamins, supplements, and coffee.  I checked the mail.  It is currently raining out until tomorrow.  I did my house cleaning and watering the plants.  I threw out the garbage.  I refilled the Glade plugin scent refill above the kitchen counter with a 50% mixture of Old English cologne and 50% mixture of 91% Isopropyl alcohol.  I ran Norton Speed Disk on the C: drive while doing house cleaning.  I will now run "bootvis.exe" to speed up the boot process.  CIO 

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 4:10 A.M.:  I will now shut down the computer.  I will go to bed soon.  When I wake up later today, I have to do my house cleaning.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/23/04  Friday 3:55 A.M.:  After I uninstalled XP SP1, the IDE HDMA still did not work.  I then reinstalled XP SP1 and all of the other updates.  I microwaved a bowl of popcorn which I ate with iced tea.  The emergency pull cord alarm went off in the building about a half an hour ago, but it was a false alarm, and the alarm system was reset.  I ran Disk Cleanup on the C: drive after doing a system restore backup.  I ran Norton WinDoctor and then Ad-aware 6.0.  The system seems to be running better, but it still has the few minor faults.  Still over all, it is a lot better than three weeks ago this Saturday, when I first had the system failure while trying to install Windows XP SP2 RC2.  Since the system runs fine in IDE PIO mode, I do not think I have an onboard motherboard IDE controller problem.  Now the Nvidia and the Speaker and the Norton Internet Security 2004 firewall icons are not appearing in the lower right tray, but they are easily activated each time I boot, if I need them.  I will now run Norton SpeedDisk for about a week to give the system time to sort out the most frequently used files.  After that I will run bootvis to speed up the bootup process a little bit.  I have 9.49 gigabytes of free space on the C: drive and 10.1 gigabytes of free space on the D: drive.  CIO 

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 10:55 P.M.:  HDMA is a feature of XP SP1.  I will now try uninstalling XP SP1 and then try HDMA, and then reinstall XP SP1 and try HDMA.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 10:40 P.M.:  I tried getting IDE HDMA working by disabling disk caching on the hard drives, but that did not work.  I now have them set at IDE PIO with the disk caching on the hard drives enabled.  When I chatted with my friend earlier, I was told that he would not be able to drive me up to Maine next week.  I chatted with my relative in Maine, and I will either go up there myself in September or with my friend with the station wagon to take the day bed if he is available.  The day bed only cost $75, and since it has been here for some time, there is no real rush on it.  Also if I go up in September, I can stay longer to visit and possibly do some work, which would be harder in the hot weather.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 9:25 P.M.:  I was able to get System Restore working.  When I checked it I thought it turned it on, but it was turning it off, so I when I unchecked it, it turned it on.  I guess when one wears glasses on the computer, one has to look at the small print closely.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 8:55 P.M.:  I made and ate my usual salad www.geocities.com/mikelscott/salad.htm .  Instead of tuna fish, I used a tin of sardines that I chopped.  For the cheddar cheese portion, I used Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.  I used all of the other regular ingredients.  I had the salad with iced tea.  I chatted with a friend.  I went outside briefly, and I chatted with a neighbor.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 7:25 P.M.:  I tried doing a Windows XP Professional upgrade mode install, but when the system rebooted on Windows Setup, it would freeze.  I tried various CMOS settings including disabling most of the settings, but it still would not boot.  I finally returned to the previous setup, and deleted the Windows Setup in the boot.ini file.  They system is still running just fine as it was before.  I cleaned the Kensington Wireless mouse by scraping the rollers and wiping the ball and rollers with a cotton swap with alcohol, so the mouse is now more responsive.  I uninstalled the Microsoft Intellipoint driver, so it is just using the Microsoft PS/2 mouse driver at the moment.  I checked the batteries, and the are all right.  I think the problem was the base unit was too far back, so I moved it forward.  The Norton Internet Security 2004 Firewall icon is now appearing in the lower right tray.  I guess, I could do a new install if I ever have serious problems.  I would have to do it the same way, I did it last week.  When I worked on it last week, I tried other IDE cables, and that did not make a difference.  I use to be able to refresh the Windows XP Professional system with the upgrade mode, which does not work anymore.  Perhaps some of the Windows SP1 upgrades are causing the problem.  I did not try removing the cards for the upgrade, since last week that did not make any difference with the problem.  The fact that the IDE HDMA does not work along with my onboard motherboard USB devices along with the other problems leads me to believe it could be a hardware problem.  Still for now the system is running just fine.  The "C:\System Volume Information" file is not accessible set at "Read Only", but it supposedly is empty, and I can not change its attributes.  I would imagine this is what is causing the System Restore function not to work.  Whatever, the problems are with the computer, it seems to be a number of problems that can not be troubleshooted at the moment.  Last week, I also cleared and reflashed the CMOS, and that did not make a difference either.  The memory tests out fine too.  I also have tried the Microsoft drivers instead of the VIA drivers and that did not make a difference.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 4:50 P.M.:  I made my 3 P.M. appointment.  I then went by the Greenwich Hospital thrift shop.  I then returned a DVD disk at the Greenwich Library audiovisual drop outside.  I just now returned home, and I drank some iced tea.  Before booting the computer, I unplugged the two USB device hubs from the back of the computer USB PCI card.  In the CMOS I selected AGP for the video, and I disabled Assign IRQ to VGA.  I also enabled the onboard motherboard USB ports.  When the computer booted it installed the generic video driver.  I will now try to reinstalled Windows XP Professional in the upgrade mode from the copy I have on the C: drive.  If it does not install, I will just leave the computer the way it was before with the previous mentioned problems.  If it hopefully does install, I will basically have the same setup as before, but hopefully the previous mentioned problems will be fixed.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/22/04  Thursday 1:50 P.M.:  I was up at 10:30 A.M..  I tried reinstalling Windows XP Professional upgrade on the computer with a upgrade installation, but it would not boot.  I was able to reboot into the old configuration.  The Norton Internet Security Firewall icon does not display in the lower right hand tray.  Also System Restore does not work.  I copied the XP cd to the C: drive.  I am just finishing eating breakfast of oatmeal, toast with strawberry jam, orange juice, vitamins, supplements, and coffee.  I will shut down the computer shortly.  I have a 3 P.M. appointment.  I will clean up shortly and go out for the appointment.  I will stop by the library after the appointment and return a CD.  Then I will return home.  I might try uninstalling the AGP video card drivers and removing the AGP card, and then try reinstalling Windows XP Professional in an upgrade with just the PCI card in the computer.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 11:35 P.M.:  I will now shut down the computer, and I will go to bed soon.  CIO 

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 11:20 P.M.:  I changed a few minor settings in the CMOS.  I can not get Advanced Power Management to work in Windows XP.  I enabled the Windows XP Firewall for both the onboard LAN network and for the USB connection network to the cable modem.  Basically the system is running just fine.  I suppose when I originally installed Windows XP with most of the CMOS settings disabled, possibly certain key parts of the operating system were not installed like support for the onboard motherboard USB, Advanced Power Management, and IDE UDMA, but since the system is running just fine as configured at the moment, and it is completely configured, I will not worry about those three problems at the moment.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 9:50 P.M.:  I went out after the last message.  I walked the entire length of Greenwich Avenue, and I sat out at various locations.  I stopped by CVS, and I bought five 14 ounce bags of Surfer Dude spice drops for .99 each plus .18 tax less $2 CVS bonus bucks for $3.15 total.  I noticed that Polaroid is now selling computer printer inkjet cartridges.  I then completed my walk.  I did not bother driving down by the waterfront, because when I do not have enough time, I do not go by the waterfront.  I then went by the Greenwich Library, and I read the Greenwich Time.  I next went by the Stop and Shop, and I bought a 10 ounce box of fresh mushrooms for $2.29, a fresh loaf of Arnold Oat nut bread for $2.50, a 16.5 ounce bottle of Monari balsamic vinegar for $2.50 for $7.29 total which I paid for with my debit card.  I then returned home, and I drank some iced tea.  I chatted with a friend for a while.  CIO 

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 5:30 P.M.:  I chatted with a relative.  I will now shut down the computer, and I will clean up, and I will go out for an evening stroll.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 4:55 P.M.:  I made and ate my usual salad www.geocities.com/mikelscott/salad.htm .  For the cheddar cheese portion, I used Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese.  I used all of the other regular ingredients.  I had the salad with a glass of iced tea.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 3:35 P.M.:  I reinstalled the latest Via 4 in 1 drivers.  I tried a fix for the UDMA problem, but it did not work, so I am still running the computer on IDE PIO mode.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 1:10 P.M.:  I reinstalled the VIA drivers, but the HDMA still does not work.  I could try changing the two hard drives from IDE1 master slave to both on IDE1 and IDE2 as master, but since it use to work as is, I do not think there is any point.  I went outside briefly.  I aired out my car from the heat.  The quartz sweep hand clock in the car is working in the heat that builds up.  I noticed the passenger side rear tire is missing its valve cap.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/21/04  Wednesday 12:15 P.M.:  I was up at 9 A.M., and I had breakfast of oatmeal, toast with strawberry preserves, orange juice, vitamins, supplements, and coffee.  I went outside briefly, and I picked up the mail.  I booted the computer, and I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers for the AGP card, and I set the two video card system to boot PCI first.  When the system rebooted again, the Nvidia drivers installed, and the Nvidia icon came up in the lower right hand corn on the task bar for controlling the multiple monitor settings.  I have it now set for Clone to play the television monitor too.  I tried putting the computer IDE setting to HDMA, but it still freezes, so I put it back to PIO.  The motherboard USB ports do not work with the current settings still.  Still as I now have the system setup, it is still working fine.  I think I will try reinstalling the VIA drivers from the Syntax SV-266M motherboard CD instead of the latest downloaded drivers, I now have on the system.  It seems like there is something wrong with my VIA drivers on the system since the IDE and USB are both VIA driver driven devices.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 10:55 P.M.:  I will now shut down the computer, and I will go to bed soon.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 10:20 P.M.:  I went through my email.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 10:05 P.M.:  I ate three .75 inch by .25 inch by 2 inch slices of Land-O-Lakes pepper jack cheese, eight Town House crackers, and a bowl of corn chips with some iced tea.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 9:05 P.M.:  I put away the laundry.  I chatted with a friend.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 7:55 P.M.:  My UPS order from www.outletpc.com is scheduled for delivery on Monday July 26, 2004.  However, UPS usually arrives at 4 P.M., and I have a 4 P.M. appointment downtown that day.  Earlier in that day, I will be moving the day bed out of the apartment and rearranging the furniture in the living room.  I guess I could always leave a note for UPS to leave the package.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 7:50 P.M.:  I took a shower and washed my hair to get the loose hairs off my head from the hair cut.  When I clean out the contents from underneath the day bed today, I also found another old cable modem, which I put on the side board in the bedroom between the two backup computer monitors.  I have another older cable modem on the left side of the side board.  I also found two older flat PS2 keyboards, which I put on top of the left monitor on the bedroom side board.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 7:15 P.M.:  I went out after the last message.  I went by Putnam Trust Bank of New York on Mason Street.  I then went by the Greenwich Hospital Thrift Shop, and I donated the Technics tape deck with RCA cable, the blue IBM selectric typewriter, and the Panasonic word processor typewriter.  I toured the thrift shop.  I then drove over to Old Greenwich, and I got my hair cut at Off Center hair stylists for $18 plus $5 tip for $23 total.  Since there is currently hot weather, I got it cut a little bit shorter than normal.  I then toured the Old Greenwich Rummage Room thrift shop.  I next went out to Tod's Point to the southwest parking area, and I walked out to the southwest picnic area, and I enjoyed the view.  I then returned to downtown Greenwich, and I walked lower Greenwich Avenue, and I sat out at various locations.  I used the bathroom at the senior and arts center.  I then returned home.  I made and ate my usual salad www.geocities.com/mikelscott/salad.htm .  Instead of tuna fish, I used a tin of sardines that I chopped.  For the cheddar portion, I used Land-O-Lakes Pepper Jack cheese.  I used all of the other regular ingredients, and I had the salad with a glass of iced tea.  I started two loads of laundry, and I have 50 minutes to go on the dry cycle.  I put clean linens on the bed in the bedroom.  I threw out some garbage.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 12:35 P.M.:  I put an RCA cable with the Technics tape deck.  I put the Technics tape deck, IBM blue selectric typewriter, and the Panasonic word processor in my car.  I will take them by the Greenwich Hospital Thrift Shop, and if they don't want them, I will take them by the Old Greenwich Rummage Room.  I will now shut down the computer.  I will eat a peanut butter sandwich with iced tea, and I will then clean up.  I will then go out.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/20/04  Tuesday 11:55 A.M.:  I was up at 8 A.M. this morning.  I had breakfast of oatmeal, toast with strawberry jam, orange juice, vitamins, supplements, and coffee.  I moved out the blue sofa and maple side table, and from underneath the day bed, I took out the blue IBM selectric typewriter and the Panasonic word processor, and I put them outside by the dumpster along with an old Technics tape deck for anyone to grab.  I also threw out all the empty boxes underneath the day bed.  I put the Bissell rug cleaner and its attachments in the bedroom closet.  I removed the instructions from the boxes, and I put them with other instructions in the bag underneath the bed in the bedroom.  The Motorola Surfboard CD, Microsoft Intellitype Pro Keyboard CD, and the Kensington wireless keyboard and mouse disk, I put in the CD rack to the right of my computer chair.  I found a 50 foot cable TV cable along with a few shorter ones that I put underneath the bedroom bed.  I put three empty 3.5 inch floppy disk cases on the shelf in the left living room closet.  I moved the AT&T wall phone underneath the bed in the bedroom.  I found a USB cable in the cable modem box.  I use the six foot USB cable that I found to connect the Minolta QMS PagePro 1250W laser printer, and I used the longer 10 foot USB cable from it to connect the EpsonStylus Color  800 printer.  When I started the computer with the Epson printer turned on, it installed plug and play.  I installed the Epson Status monitor.  Thus when the Epson printer is turned on, one can see the amount of ink used.  It currently is a little of half full for both the color and black ink cartridges.  Thus one does not have to use the Epson off the Siemens router and the port box.  It will still work off the Siemens router and port box for the backup computers.  I received a "W04" sticker in the mail, and I put it in left lower rear corner of my 1999 Hyundai Accent hatchback.  It is more conspicuous than the "Connecticut Bush Cheney 04" sticker in the same location.  Thus I have everything cleared out from underneath the daybed, and I have it ready to be moved next Monday.  The blue IBM selectic typewriter, I bought last summer at the sidewalk sales from Marks Brothers for $10, and it works just fine, and the Panasonic word processor works fine too.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 10:00 P.M.:  I took a cold 6 ounce can of Bumble Bee pink crab meat, and I opened the lid, and I left the lid on it, and I rinsed it underneath cold water squeezing out the water a half dozen times.  I then put the crab meat in a steel mixing bowl, and I flaked it.  I then added a couple of tablespoons of Hellmann's Just 2 Good low fat mayonnaise, and I mixed it all together.  I made two sandwiches out of it, which I ate with a glass of iced tea.  I went outside briefly.  The leather couch outside that someone discarded has been retrieved by someone else.  I will now shut down the computer, and I will go to bed soon.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 9:25 P.M.:  I went through my email.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 9:15 P.M.:  http://www.newairplane.com/ .  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 9:00 P.M.:  I went out after the last message.  I went downtown, and I walked the entire length of Greenwich Avenue, and I sat out at various locations.  I picked up a prescription at CVS.  I then went by the Greenwich Library, and I read the Greenwich Time, and I checked out a DVD disk.  I then returned home.  I tried playing the DVD disk with PowerDVD player, but it uses lower video settings, which I was not able to set.  However, it plays fine in the Windows Media Player.  I fiddled with the Nvidia video settings, and although it is still active, the icon in the lower right hand corner of the desktop no longer displays, so one can not change the Nvidia settings from that icon.  I switched it to dual view, and it quit displaying even when I rebooted.  However, the computer is still working pretty much the same.  I chatted with a friend.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 3:25 P.M.:  I filed a beta bug report with Microsoft concerning Windows XP SP2 RC2 via their email beta link.  I will now shut down the computer, and I will clean up, and I will go out.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 3:00 P.M.:  I made and ate my usual salad www.geocities.com/mikelscott/salad.htm .  For the cheddar cheese portion, I used Land-O-Lakes pepper jack cheese.  I used all of the other regular ingredients.  I had the salad with a glass of iced tea.  Yesterday, when I made the salad, I also made up a fresh batch of homemade hummus www.geocities.com/mikelscott/hummus.htm .  I used two cloves of elephant garlic for the garlic portion plus all of the other regular ingredients.  CIO 

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 1:55 P.M.:  Since my Northgate computer which I bought as a barebones system from www.accessmicro.com now part of Northgate has a Syntax SV 266M motherboard which is made by Biostar one of the largest motherboard manufacturers, and since when last week, I did a clean install of Windows XP without the cards running off both the onboard AGP and another time with the AGP card by setting the CMOS at the most user friendly settings, and since both times Windows XP SP2 RC2 would install, but the computer would not reboot, and since Syntax SV 266M motherboard is the same motherboard as was frequently in the Home Shopping Network computer system marketed by Tiger Direct, I would imagine quite a few people have similar systems whom might be having problems with the XP SP2 RC2 update, and possibly the final release.  Since I am an XP SP2 RC2 beta tester for Microsoft, after lunch I will have to let them know on their beta site.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 1:40 P.M.:  I shut down the computer, and I plugged in the X10 remote control mouse base unit into the serial port, and I rebooted, and Windows XP installed it with a Microsoft Serial mouse driver.  When one turns on the base unit which is now off, the X10 remote control mouse which I have underneath the right side of the left monitor works just fine.  It primarily is for using when one views media content on the Orion television when used as a monitor, which I also have the computer set up to do.  CIO

Note: <888> 07/19/04  Monday 1:25 P.M.:  I finished the C: drive to D: drive backup in seven parts.  It took a little bit longer, since in PIO mode for the hard drives, it is slower than UDMA mode.  While, doing the backup, the power blinked for a split second, so I had to restart one of the backups over.  While doing the backup, the mail arrived, and my order from http://www.smokemcheapcigarettes.com/ of 6 cartons of Seneca Ultra Light 100 cigarettes arrived which is pretty fast since I reordered them last Thursday.  I read through the last two weeks of periodical literature, and I threw it all out.  Also while doing the backup, I moved the left night stand, and I cleaned and organized some files in my lower two file drawers blocked by the night stand of my four drawer file cabinet, and I put in a couple of bags of receipts from the lower drawer of the two drawer file cabinet on top of the four drawer file cabinet.  I also threw out a bag of old Cablevision and Telephone receipts.  I organized the top two drawers of the four drawer file cabinet, so there is more space.  I then organized the paperwork and receipts on my desk, and I put the recent bill receipts in the top front of my four drawer file cabinet.  Thus there is no long any paper work or receipts on the desk in the bedroom, so there is more room to work at it.  I also cleaned out some of the paperwork from the blue bowl on the dining room table.  CIO