As I travel around the state, I bring along an MP3 player (a music player that plays computer audio files). I down load audio programs from the Internet on subjects that I am interested in, mostly Ham Radio, Computer, or Christian programs. Several programs that I listen to are hosted by Leo Leporte. He does a live call in show called “The Tech Guy” and he often gets questions like, “I got a virus, and don’t know how”, “Spam is being sent out with my name on it, how did that happen”, “My computer runs real slow and it used to run fast”. Time and time again, he tells his viewers that YOUR ACTIONS are more important than anything else in preventing the bad guys from getting a hold of your computer. Here is a list from one of his programs:
1. Don’t open email attachments; even if it’s from someone you know. If you do get something from someone you know, make sure that they really sent it to you. Email attachments are the number one way viruses and trojan horses get into your email. You might also want to turn off HTML email in Outlook and other programs. HTML emails are just as dangerous as rogue web sites, and can spread infections just by previewing them.
2. Don’t click links in email. That link could lead you to a phishing site, or the link may lead you to install malicious software. Copy and paste links into your browser, or type them in by hand instead. Another reason to disable HTML email - the HTML hides the real destination of that seemingly innocuous link.
3. Don’t download files from places you aren’t absolutely sure are safe. Stick with the well known sites. Teeneagers who use filesharing software like BitTorrent, Azureus, Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster, and Limewire, often unwittingly download spyware and trojans. If you must, quarantine all downloads then scan them a few days later with an updated anti-virus.
4. Update your OS regularly! Turn on automatic updates in OS X and Windows. Apply all critical updates immediately. Criminals often create hacks within 24 hours of Microsoft’s patches (these are called zero day exploits), so you need to protect yourself the day the patches appear.
5. Use a firewall. The best firewall is a hardware router - the kind you use to share an internet connection. Even if they’re not billed as firewalls, they are, and they’re quite effective. I also recommend turning on your operating system’s firewall - even if you have a router - but I don’t recommend third-party software firewalls. They cause more problems than they solve.
6. Never run as an administrator in any operating system. Administrators have way too many priveleges that malicious people/code can take advantage of. Run as a limited user as much as possible. Windows Vista, Linux, and Mac OSX allow you to run a majority of features, but with some additional safety, as a limited user.
We have a young child that tends to wake up several times in the middle of the night and wanders around. He is Mr. Houdini and can escape any child proof system. We have found him outside in the middle of the night while it was raining, and he was happily playing with his trucks. We needed some sort of system that would wake US up if he got out of bed. This project is the result.
We have used the X10 system for several years to control lamps, Christmas lights, and decorative fountains. The X10 system sends and receives signals that are put onto the power lines inside the walls of the house. There are also wireless modules that will detect a radio signal, and upon detection, it will send the proper X10 ON or OFF signal through the house’s power lines. I devised a combination of these devices to turn on a simple homebrew oscillator that we put in our bed room. When our child gets up, it turns on the alarm in our room, and we can short circuit our child’s plans. Over time, he is slowly learning that he can not be successful in getting up in the night, and will stay in bed and fall back to sleep.
This is the setup: We put a wireless motion detector above our child’s head on the wall. It will not detect anything during his normal tossing and turning but if he gets up, the detector will detect his motion and send a radio signal to a receiver. The receiver is plugged into an outlet in the hall; and transfers the signal it received to the house wiring where it is sent to our bed room.
In our bedroom, we have a module plugged into an outlet, that is constantly monitoring the house wiring for signals. When it receives the appropriate signal, it turns power on to the outlet on the bottom of the device. I have an AC adapter plugged into the module that powers a small alarm that sits on my bed stand.
The alarm, is a simple NE556 dual timer circuit. It is wired up in a fashion that emits a BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP, on and off at half second intervals. The frequency of the BEEEP is about 700 Hz. Not too high pitch, and not too low. The circuit is built inside an Altoid Mints tin.
When the alarm goes off, one of us will get up and put our child back to bed. We then use the remote control to send a wireless signal to the radio receiver in the hall outlet. The receiver then sends the signal over the power line again back to our bed room, and shuts off the alarm.
I built an LED into the Altoid’s tin as a visual indication when the alarm is on. I also put a switch on the tin to shut off the speaker in the tin. This is because we don’t want the alarm to be tripping all day long whenever someone is in the bedroom. Also, the motion detector will send an “OFF” signal if there is no more motion in its range within a certain amount of time.
It is sad that so many well meaning organizations, like NASA, are waisting so much time and money on such nonsense. I am an Amateur Radio enthusiast, and I am sad to report that a certain segment of the Ham community, also waist their time, money, and energy on this nonsense. This article is from Ken Ham on the “Answers In Genesis” web site.
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31b-32
Yes—it is true. If you’re an American, your tax dollars are being used by a government agency to teach a course to students on how to talk to aliens! This is serious stuff. We’ve never seen aliens, never had any messages from them, never heard from them. They have not visited earth, and we don’t know how to reach them. But we are using tax dollars for this blind-faith idea!
However, if tax dollars were used to teach students on how to talk with God, who stepped into history in the person of Jesus Christ so we could see Him on earth, who gave us a whole book (the Bible) to reveal all we need to know about the universe, who did visit earth as a man, who tells us how to reach Him through prayer—well that would not be allowed! That would be called religion—and you know, the “separation of church” and stuff!
It’s okay to have faith in aliens—just don’t have faith in an infinite God who has communicated to us through His Son and through His written Word! The article on this begins:
English students at the University of Wyoming are being encouraged to consider the possibility that humanity might one day make contact with aliens and then not know what to say. “Interstellar Message Composition,” a creative writing class, is believed to be the first of its kind to engage writers in a potential cosmic conversation, say its founders. “We’ve thought a lot about how we might communicate with other worlds, but we haven’t thought much about what we’d actually say,” Prof Jeffrey Lockwood, the course leader, told ABC News.
Have you wondered how I got those nice frames around my photos? And, how about the text or “watermark” with our web site lightly on the photos? I use a great free program called FSResizer by FastStone. Visit them at www.FastStone.org for several very handy photo tools. FSResizer is specifically made for Windows. I do not use Window, however. Our family computer runs on Ubuntu Linux and FSResizer works wonderfully under Ubuntu with WINE. WINE is a program that enables certain Windows programs to run under Linux. How Cool!
Besides making frames around the photos, and putting a watermark on them, FSResizer also does them in BATCH mode, that is, a bunch at one time. FSResizer also will resize the photos, rotate them, crop them, change the canvas, color depth, and color adjustments. It will change the number of dots per inch that the photo is made up of. Give FSResizer a try, it is a real slick lightweight program that I couldn’t do without.
I enjoy collecting old radios of any kind. I came across this little gem today at a garage sale for only fifty cents. It is a simple transistorized AM radio with a leatherette case that snaps closed on the back. It runs on 110 Volts or with batteries. The only marking on it is “Passport”; and I can find no model number or brand and internet searches come up with nothing. It is a cute little radio that includes 6 transistors and 2 diodes. I thought it was clever that they even listed the two diodes in their count of solid state devices. :) Click the picture to see more pictures of the radio.
I enjoy viewing each episode of AmateurLogic.TV when they come out. Episode number 21 has been out for a few weeks and I finally made some time to watch it.
AmateurLogic.TV is made by a group of three Ham Radio Operators, two here in the United States, and one in Australia. They talk about most anything technical, and geeky; and of course much of their subject matter if from Ham Radio.
From their website:
Episode 21 features part one of a tour of the very interesting Australian Army’s Signals Museum. Tommy gives us a quick look at editing video. George introduces the MFJ-259B Antenna Analyzer and some of it’s capabilities. And Peter attends the Wireless Institute of Australia’s annual general meeting in Broken Hill where he also visits the “School of the Air”, the “Flying Doctors” and more.
It’s 1 hour and 10 minutes of Ham Radio entertainment.
I travel around the state for my job. I am an Electronice Repair Tech for the State of Montana. Today, I had to travel to a site near Bonner, Montana. A strong spring snow storm blew through right at the same time I had to do some repairs at a site. I do most repairs at the site and out doors. It was an interesting experience trying to “Solder in a Snow Storm”. There was no “Solder Smoke” created today; just “Solder Steam”. I was able to get the job done and get on my way. HERE are some pictures I took at the site, along with a bunch of other pictures I’ve taken while I travel around the state. John
Desire’ and I volunteered at the Governor’s Cup marathon race again this year. The races were on Saturday, June 6. The Capital City Amateur Radio Club provides race communications each year. Desire’, Lynn - K7WGR, and I - K7JM were stationed near Mill Road in Helena. As you can see from the pictures, it was very cold and windy for us that were not running. Some runners had almost nothing on, while others were bundled up pretty well. We froze! John
Putting picture albums on our web site is kind of a long task. I am trying to make it easier and am testing out two online photo galleries. They are Picasa Web and Flickr. I am testing these out with some pictures that I have taken while I travel around the state for my job. I would be interested to hear from you, what you like the most. Click the pictures below to try them out and please click the comment button at the bottom of this post to leave me a message. John
Click the picture above to see Photo Album using Flickr.
Click the picture above to see Photo Album using Picasa Web.
As many of you may know, I work for the Montana Department of Transportation. A video has been produced by MDT called “Room to Live” that describes the importance of seat belts. This is a very impactful video and I encourage you to watch it. In your car, there is “Room to Live“… if you have your seatbelt on.
Leo’s Six Rules for Safe Computing
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