Arduino Based DSO Oscilloscope

My Arduino Based 25 million samples per second DSO Oscilloscope project is underway.  Years ago I made several printer port projects that were in my book "Digital and Computer Projects".  Over the years some of them were updated to work with a serial port using either a 68HC11 or a Basic Stamp.  Now I am starting work on redoing them using an Arduino.  My first projects were earthquake prediction and LED signs.  Next comes a 25 MSPS DSO Oscilloscope.  Currently I am reusing the old PCB from the Printer Port Scope project. 

I went looking for my old pictures and schematic on the Internet and somewhere around when Geo Cities closed down all of my old schematics were lost.  I am now searching my old hard drives to try to find them.

This is the block diagram of the prototype. As you can see it was very complicated. I built it using wirewrap about 15 years ago.

This is the block diagram of the simplified version that was used for the printer port O'scope.

Here is the analog input section. I am in the process of adding a LF351 input buffer IC.

This is the schematic of the memory section. It has the A to D converter and a FIFO.

This is the schematic of the clock, I left out a third 74390 that really should still be there.

Here is the PCB from the last version of the Printer Port Scope that I am reusing with the Arduino.

Targus Universal Charger Repair

Recently I fixed a Targus Universal Charger. This is the second time I have worked on one of these. If only I could remember what the problem was the last time, I could save myself lots of work. The symptoms are that there is no power at the output jack, and changing the jack does not fix the problem.

First I checked the power cable and it had power on the yellow main conductor to the shield. So it had to be the jack right? As you can see in the picture I tore the jack all to pieces to no avail. The actual problem is that the interchangeable jacks are ALL bad!  They have to be broken apart and then re-solder the center connector to the circuit board.  You might want to re-solder the grounds too while you are in there.

I swapped the rebuilt jack to the AC adapter end in the picture.

The connection color code from the end with a metal plate is:
Red
White
Yellow-Power
Ground-Sield
Blue

The importance of "Title" tags in SEO

SEO had changed a lot over the years. At one time you could just say what your key words were and the search engines then used those words. A practice called "key word stuffing" eventually led to the search engines analyzing the text on your web site to find out what your actual key words are. Now it is widely accepted that your key words are also rated higher if they appear in links, headings, or titles. I have also been able to determine that Google places higher emphasis on web pages that have more inbound links. They also search PDF files for key words. If you put these together you can add PDF files to your web pages. People will then link to these PDF's and hence these pages will rate higher as they have lots more key words and inbound links. You can also add titles to your web pages and links within your pages and menu's to further add key words to your web site.

Recently I discovered that some web sites were adding "title" to their links. At first I thought this was strange, perhaps a way of stuffing key words into web pages. The standard procedure of looking for keywords in a web page is to strip all of the HTML code, that is everything between the less than and greater than symbols. Then analyze what is left for the key words. However after reading a SEO paper form Bing/Microsoft, Title tags are also analyzed for key words.  I will have to update my Keyword Analyzer Tool (KAT) to add "Found in titles" as a column.

This is an excerpt from Bing WMC FAQ Page 23

Q: How can I apply keywords to linked pages when I use inline linking?

A: Normally the anchor text is your primary description of the linked page. But if you do inline linking within the paragraphs of your body text, you need to maintain the natural, logical flow of the language in the paragraph, which can limit your link text description.As such, you can use the title attribute of the anchor tag to add additional keyword information about the linked page without adversely affecting the readability of the text for the end user. An example might go something like this:

This is an example of < a href="http://www.mysite.com/newpage.htm" 
title="keyword or key phrase describing the linked page" >
inline linking < /a > within a paragraph.

Vtech Vreader and MobiGlo display console

Someone recently was given a Vtech Vreader and MobiGlo display console and they wanted to know if the individual parts can be removed and used.

To start with I removed the battery back.  It had 4 battery boxes of 16 "D" cells each that is a total of 64 "D" cell batteries! Then I unplugged and disconnected the stuff from below the cabinet.  The brown wires go to the speakers, the three conductor wires go to the volume control (short the right two wires together for full volume) and the multicolor ribbon cables can be just cut off.

Next was to find really small speakers to fit into the devices.  The built in battery holders were not wired up but the external power adapters were wired so I used an AC adapter to test them out.  So far everything seems to work but the software might have been modified to prevent really using these devices as they were designed to be used.  Next is to find a way to use these with smaller battery packs, perhaps 4 x AA cells?

"Gay Rights" versus "Religious Freedom"

This week the US government stopped all funding for a program that had been promoting Religious Freedom around the world.  On the very same news cast they also announced that, via executive order, federal funding will be cut off from any nation that does not support "Gay Rights".

Then on Saturday I sat down and watched the science channel video called "Biblical Mysteries Explained examines the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah".  I knew they had excavated Sodom and had determined the it was in fact destroyed by fire and brimstone.  Basically the buildings show burn holes in them from small objects that were at 400 to 500 degrees on impact.  The people died in agony as they were set on fire.  After watching the TV episode I now also know that they have records of a meteor track that was observed around 3125 BC, and that people digging up ice cores around the world have found evidence of a "nuclear winter" around 3200 BC.  What was kind of funny is that while they were proving the Biblical record to be true they were also referring to the story of Sodom as a "tale" and referring to the time as being "BCE".

Here is a link to some of the Archaeological Evidence for Sodom:
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2011/s11120037.htm
The article is titled "Archaeological Evidence for Sodom: Recent Findings Shed Light on Discoveries of ‘Biblical Proportions’"

Here is the Science channel Video:
http://store.discovery.com/biblical-mysteries-explained-dvd/detail.php?p=98330

Possible Super Volcano at Geysers California

A few years back there was a lot of talk about the Yellowstone Super Volcano possibly becoming active and causing a really huge disaster.  I have been commenting for years now that the Super Volcano at Geysers California is having far more earthquakes than Yellowstone.  In fact there have been over 121 earthquakes in Geysers California just this week alone.  There have been two earthquakes that exceeded 3.0!  IMO the super volcano at Geysers is far more likely to blow in the next few months that Yellowstone is.

I do not know why no one else in the media is even noticing these earthquakes.  A Super Volcano in California would be even a bigger disaster than Yellowstone because of its close proximity to highly populated areas like San Francisco!  Also a Super Volcano in Geysers California would spread ash and dust all across the USA just like one in Yellowstone would.  That would result in cooling the temperatures and destroying crops all across the country!

Combined Aggregate Web Site

A few years back I developed a Key Word Analyzer (KAT) tool. It is at www.davismission.org/keyword

Now I am working on another feat of web programming that I call a "CAF" web site.  Imagine having your Facebook, YouTube, Ebay, Twitter and many more sites all aggregated onto one web site.

I am developing what I call a Combined Aggregate Feed (CAF) Web Site to bring several of my web sites together into one location. What do you think is the best Three Letter Acronym (TLA) for this kind of web site? It is a work in progress and can be found at http://www.davismission.org/bobdavis321/

This was not easy and just doing an < object data="web site" > because that does not work for a lot of web sites. For example for Facebook you have to create a "Badge" then link that badge into your web site.

The code for twitter is a Java script that looks like this:
new TWTR.Widget({
  version: 2, type: 'profile', rpp: 4, interval: 30000, width: 'auto', height: 400,
  theme: {
    shell: { background: '#333333', color: '#ffffff'
    },
    tweets: { background: '#ffffff', color: '#000000', links: '#880088',
    }
  },
  features: { scrollbar: false, loop: false, live: false, behavior: 'all'
  }
}).render().setUser('bobdavis321').start();

To get the scoop on how I did it all just right click on the web site and select "reveal code" or "reveal page source" in Firefox..

HP DV9700 Repair

Once again this is another laptop that has cooling fan or clogged heat-sink problems.  I wish they would make this problem easier to fix!  If it has been run with a clogged fan then the chips in the graphics card might be permanently damaged.  If this is the case then you can send the motherboard to someone on EBay who will fix it for $75 to $100.

To fix this laptop you will have to remove over 50 screws to get to the clogged heat-sink. Start with removing 6 screws under the battery and then remove the silver cover that is above the keyboard.  Next remove 3 screws and remove the keyboard.  Next remove 6 screws (2 are underneath) , then unplug and remove the screen. The three wires to the wireless network card have to be unplugged form the card down below and then routed back out of the laptop.  Next remove 2 screws and remove the speaker assembly.  Next remove many many screws located both above and below the laptop and then remove the the top bezel. You will need to remove the wireless adapter and both hard drives as there are 4 screws that are located under the hard drives.  Then remove the CD ROM drive and its adapter.  Remove the PCMCIA card and its adapter.  Remove three motherboard screws and the 3 heat-sink/fan screws then you can remove the motherboard.  Flip over the motherboard and remove 4 screws to remove the fan and then you can clean the heat-sink.

Warning, the power connector from the power jack to the motherboard can be easily inserted incorrectly.  Make note of its orientation before disconnecting it!

Dell Inspiron 1501 repair

Recently I was given a Dell Latitude 1501 that was "Virus-ed to death". After reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows there were other issues that I needed to fix. The mouse pad did not work because water had been spilled into it and the computer ran "hot". So I opened it up to replace the mouse pad and while inside the computer I discovered why the computer ran so hot.  Look at the heat exchanger in the back left corner in the picture below.

A trick in opening it up is that two screws that hold the LCD screen on are hidden behind small round covers on the back of the computer.  Other than that it opens up fairly easily.

Asus EEE CMOS Battery Replacement

Recently I had the fun of replacing the CMOS Battery in an Asus EEE laptop.  The old battery was a lot smaller than the new one.  I drew a circle around the old CMOS battery so you can locate it.

The new one is bigger than the old one but there is room for it in front of where the old one was located.  Totally disassembling of the laptop is not needed.  For more instructions here is my old post on the subject: http://bobdavis321.blogspot.com/2010/12/asus-ee-disasembly.html

By the way I purchased the New CMOS battery for $3 on Ebay but now I cannot find one for less than $5?

Something is going to happen this week.

Think about it, have you ever felt like we were this close to the end?  I thought the world would end back in 1975, but as time goes by it seems to be getting closer and closer.

1. The Yu55 meteor is headed our way, it could miss us again, it could hit the moon or it could even hit us, no one really knows.
2. There are reports coming from Alaska and Russia that countries are massively redeploying troops and equipment.
3. Israel is gearing up to attack Iran in another attempt to put an end to their nuclear plans.
4. People are protesting in the streets of cities around the world demanding change.
5. Solar storms are increasing weekly as we approach another solar maximum next year.
6. Earthquakes are happening in many diverse places like the East coast, Oklahoma, etc.
7. Volcanoes are erupting or ready to erupt all over the place, Yellowstone, Canary Islands, Geysers California, etc.
8. The European Union is ready to default on many loans, countries are going bankrupt.
9. There is 600 trillion in debt but only 60 trillion in cash available, what happens when countries cannot pay up?

In Daniel 12:4 it says that "Many will be running to and fro and knowledge will be increased".  Doesn't that describe us more and more as each week goes by? 

So are you ready for a really bumpy ride?  I was listening to a recording by Glenn Beck talking of how the world will change over a period of 14 or 15 days.

So get right with God, go and ask forgiveness from those you have offended, make yourself ready, have food and stuff to last a few weeks in case everything goes crazy.  Something drastic is going to happen real soon.  I hope we get raptured first but I would not bet on it.

What I have seen in my dreams is smoke rising from many cities, lots of places devastated, a civilian army rising up to try to take control of the mess.  I hope it all works out, but it will be rough for a while.

Taking on Goliath

Taking on Goliath

Introduction

My name is Bob Davis, I worked for Elim Bible Institute for about 19 years.  Recently I have been on missionary trips to the Philippines, India, Mexico, and West Africa.  West Africa is called the “Missionary grave yard”.  Missionaries going there used to take a casket with them because that is usually how they returned home.  The company where I work offers life insurance. Their Life Insurance Company refused to cover me because I have been in West Africa.  My brother Fred has been a missionary to West Africa for over 10 years.

My encounter with a Demon

Back in February 2009 we were in Ghana West Africa on our way to the town of Tamale.  We were stopping along the way for the night and my brother Fred thought it would be a good idea to walk back to the place we were staying at.  It was around 9:30 PM and the street we were walking along had street lights lighting it.  There were people walking in the other direction on the opposite side of the road.  Fred was on my left and two African brothers were walking behind us.  Then someone appeared on our side of the road headed rapidly towards us.  The first problem with him was that the street lights were above us but he was lit up from behind.  This made his face and features impossible to see.  You could however clearly see the outline of his body.  As he got closer another problem happened, I could now see through him, the road was visible behind him.  I figured that if I took one step to the right I could avoid the imminent impact.

Two steps to the right there was an open storm drain.  So I was careful not to step too far to the right.  However when my feet came down my fight foot was on the far side of the storm drain and my left foot was in the storm drain.  Knowing that the storm drain was only 1 foot deep, I figured I would just stand on the bottom.  However my foot could not hold the weight so I fell to where my hands were next to stop the fall.  However my hands could not hold my weight and they slipped out from under me and I continued to fall until I was flat on my face with the wind knocked out of me. 

           

They chased down a taxi and picked me up and loaded me into it.  I could not even stand up on my own.  Back at our room I proceeded to wash my bleeding arms and remove the little rocks that had become embedded in them.  My brother Fred insisted that I had just tripped and fell.  I told him that something had attacked me but he did not believe me.  He went somewhere and got a wrap for my ankle that was now turning black and blue.

The next morning I limped down to breakfast.  As I was arriving for breakfast I overhead someone saying “Did you see what attacked brother Bob?”  After further questioning I was told that they saw someone attack me and then disappear into thin air.  My brother never saw anything; I saw it fading out so I could see through it just before impact. 

This episode troubled me for quite some time.  I even had another encounter with this demon, but I am not sure if the second encounter was ‘real’ or not as there was no witnesses.  Then I had a strange dream.  In this dream I was David and tomorrow I was to take on Goliath.  The king sent a counselor to my room to talk me out of the fight.  He was asking me questions like “How are you going to fight Goliath?” and “What makes you think you can win this time?”  In this dream the answer to all of his questions was “I have a smooth stone” and I would show him the stone.  After what seemed like hours of questioning the counselor said “There is no fear in you!” and he flew out of the window.  Could it be that this Demon, called Goliath was attacking me solely to make me afraid?

Premise

2 Timothy 4:7 – I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Did Paul say that he had “won the battle?”  Was he beheaded shortly after writing this?  Could it be that you do not have to win this battle, or every battle, you just need to “fight the good fight”.

Pick me!

I was the second from the smallest kid in my class in school.  Whenever they would pick teams Larry and I were usually left over because they did not want small kids to be on their team.  Once when I was left out of a football game I was watching from the sidelines.  Both teams were in the huddles, but they had left the football unguarded in the middle of the field.  So I saw my chance to run with the ball and I did it!  Then I was tackled by both teams!  I knew that I could not win but I did get to hold the ball!

           

Goliath was real

We now know that Goliath was a popular name in Gath.  They are excavating the area and have even found a stadium that appears to have been held up by two columns as in the story of Sampson. Goliath might of even had a close relative by the same name.

Goliath ties together many Old Testament stories.

Remember the story about the 12 spies?  They said that there were giants in the land and they were so big that the Israelites were like “Grasshoppers in their sight”.  They also said that “all the people” were big.

            Numbers 13:32-33  "There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."

            Deuteronomy 9:2  "a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’

These Giants were driven out of the land by Joshua - Joshua 15:13-14  Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak from there: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.

Then David appears to be the first to kill one of the giants. 

            1 Samuel 17:4-11, 40-50  And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. (Eastons: 10 feet tall)

Why did David pick up 5 stones?

According to 2 Samuel chapter 21, Goliaths had 4 giant relatives

            2 Samuel 21:16-22  Then Ishbi–Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David.

2 Samuel 21:18  Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant.

            2 Samuel 21:19  Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare–Oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

2 Samuel 21:20  Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty–four in number; and he also was born to the giant.

2 Samuel 21:22  These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

Conclusions from David and Goliath

          1.   Fight the fight – Not guaranteed the victory

          2.   Size of the weapon does not matter (sling versus spear – Spear thrower 10 bails of hey)

          3.   Whose side you are on (Example of girl on bridge in lion witch and wardrobe)

There are “Goliaths” in our lives today.  What Goliaths are you dealing with?

            Fear    

            Alcohol           

            Drugs  

            Porn    

            Smoking

How to deal with the “Goliaths” in our lives

1.      Run away – Nightmares as a child, trying to run away, woke up with missing sheets

2.      Play with him – Many “Lines in the sand”

3.      Take him on – Face up to him, most of the time he backs down!

Lies of the devil

            You lost last time why try again?                      

            You can only go just so far, and will not make it any further.

            You cannot win, so why bother to fight?                       

            Ignore the problem and it will go away.

Conclusion

You do not have to win this battle. You just have to fight the good fight. God will win the war.

Challenge - Pick up a stone, and set it somewhere as a reminder to fight the good fight!

Conclusion from Tamale

 So we continued on to Tamale.  Once in Tamale there was a Video Bible School graduation service.  The church was packed to standing room with people watching outside the windows and doors.  The churches in Tamale had been very skeptical about us but now there were 36 pastors at the graduation service that wanted a Video Bible School in their church!           

Weather.com is toast, trashed maybe even hacked?

*** UPDATE *** turns out this is a local problem perhaps with our Netgear UTM10 firewall.  Computers connected ahead of the firewall have no problem with www.weather.com.

For some reason www.weather.com is not working and no one is reporting on the problem?  When you try to go to their web page in Firefox you get a "Toast Notification".  In Internet Exploiter it is just plain messed up.

Here is what it looks like in Internet Exploiter:

Brace for the biggest solar storm yet from this solar cycle.

First look at the Northern Lights prediction note the dark red:

Here is a chart that more clearly shows the incoming solar storm:

All this and more is available at: http://www.electricquakes.com/

Ford Windstar Intermittent starting problem

My van has been having issues starting for a few weeks. Then it left me sit, fortunately at home, but the battery ran down while I was trying to start it.  Even with a battery charger it would still not start.  Someone told me to change the gas filter so I did that.  When changing the filter I noticed that there was no fuel pressure so someone told me to change the fuel pump relay.  That did not fix the problem either. 

Then I got out the manuals and started finding out how the van fuel system works. When you turn the key it turns on the fuel pump or 1 to 2 seconds to prime the system. Soon I discovered that if you listen for the fuel pump when you turn the key you can easily hear it running.  If the fuel pump is running then the van will start and runs just fine.  So next I put a meter on the safety switch that is in the back of the van that is wired up in series with the pump.  It is connected just before power goes down to the pump.  According to the meter there was no power there so I thought that the problem was not the pump.  After another week of fiddling with the van I discovered that connecting a beeper to check for power to the pump was a better solution.  Once I installed a beeper I could tell that the fuel pump was always getting power, but it was not always running, so the problem was the fuel pump.

Along the way I redid all of the ground connections in the engine compartment.  Here are the left side grounds. The PCM ground is behind the silver part of the AC system. I added star washers to all of the grounds.

Ford Windstar Grounds

Here are the grounds on the right side. The battery ground was hidden under the plastic until I cut it away. It was in bad shape and I thought I had found the problem, but it did not help at all.

Ford Windstar Grounds

How to use SQl to fix all records in Wordpress

Ever discover that you need to change all records in a Wordpress database. Recently I needed to add a "/" to every record, so I used PHP Admin and a SQL command to make that change.

E-Yama 17JN1 LCD Monitor repair

The E-Yama 17JN1 monitor is easy to fix. First remove the cover around the power and VGA cables, it has 6 snaps and is a little hard to unsnap. Then remove 4 screws and the base stand is detached. Remove 1 screw and unsnap the back cover, some catches may break.

Once Inside replace the 2 capacitors in the red box in the picture. Test it out and put it back together. It has a nice bright picture

My opinion on Occupy Wall Street Demands

I have read some stuff on Occupy Wall Street and I do not see a clear goal, or objective.
So Here are some of my suggestions of what needs to be done to fix this country, besides just simply throwing out the current government and replacing it with one that is "of the people by the people and FOR the people".

1. BALANCE THE BUDGET
Stop wanton wasteful government spending.  According to the pie chart found on the IRS web site last year 40% of government money came from borrowing!  And according to the same chart 40% was spent on "social spending".  Balance the stinking budget!  Stop the government from "social engineering".  CEASE AND DESIST wasting our children's money on totally stupid programs!

2. REPEAL STUPID LAWS
Repeal laws that just make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  Most laws coming out of Washington have the exact opposite effect of what they were supposedly written for.  They must be repealed and cancelled! For example repeal the HMO law that created HMO's and caused medical insurance to go through the roof!
Here is a s site listing laws that need to be fixed:  http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009

3. NUKE THE TAX CODE
Nuke the IRS and start over.  Some sort of flat tax would be ideal.  Eliminate tax breaks for mortgages, and other such nonsense.  Eliminate non-tax taxes like SS and medicare unless they actually go to where they are supposed to go.. LOL.

After saying that I realize these things will never happen so we should just gather around and watch the USA go down the tubes as a hopeless case.

Video Standards have gone crazy

Today someone asked me for help on setting up their monitor.  I discovered to my dismay that there are now way too many video resolution standards.  This chart is from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vector_Video_Standards2.svg

Now try to navigate your way through that mass?  The monitor in question was WSXGA+ compatible, but actually it was1440 by 900.  And here I thought they were all supposed to be HD 1080 or 1920 by 1080.

Viewsonic VG700 repair

The viewsonic VG700 has the usual two capacitors in the inverter problem. However it is tricky to get it apart. First snap out the control panel at the bottom front of the monitor. Remove 2 screws and slide the bezel up then out.

Next you remove the four screws and gently pry the LCD screen forward and out of the RF shield. Be careful of the cables as they are all barely long enough and will not unplug on their own.

The faulty capacitors are in the middle of that circuit board on the right, they are bulging and oozing.

AOL Captcha Hell

When they make me head of Internet security, I have three changes that I will make:

1. BAN JAVA and thus eliminate over 90% of all web viruses.
2. Require logging in before being allowed to send email.
3. Delete all web sites that have a Captcha on them anywhere.

Come on Internet security people these captcha things are all a total waste of time........

OK so I am upset, I spent several hours in "Captcha Hell" trying to set up an AOL IM account.  Sure you say just click on the "Play sound" button?  That does not work either.  I went to YouTube and the sound for the computer is working just fine.  I downloaded the latest 30+ megabytes of Quick Time but there is still no Captcha sound.  I thought "Quick Time" had died a miserable death a long time ago and was buried right next to "Real Audio"?  Who on earth uses Quick Time and for what reason would anyone want to use such an archaic format??  Back at AOL IM, I must have created a half a dozen accounts that I cannot access because it never accepted my information and it never asked for the alternate email account to "send a password reset" to, so no that feature does not work either.  Has anyone at AOL ever tried to create an AOL account?  They would quickly discover "AOL Hell" its right next door to "Captcha Hell".

Good thing no one is asking me to be the head of Internet security, I would work on actually making the Internet safe again.  As I often say:
"The Internet used to be like going to the library to read a book, now its like walking through a mine field".  -Bob Davis

Really Static Versus WP Super Cache Revisited

We stopped using Really Static after upgrading to WordPress 3.  However I have re installed it and it is working with WordPress 3.2

We switched back because Alexa said it was taking 2.3 seconds to load a page and sometimes it would even take longer than that.  I could tell that web pages were loading faster immediately!  Everything seems much faster with Really Static!  I will post some graphs as soon as Google updates their web stats to reflect the change in caching programs.

More WordPress attacks, some sort of CSS attack?

Notice below that Wordpress is in four of the top 10 Vulnerabilities that are currently under attack!

Note below that there is some sort of CSS attack going on against WordPress sites. I do not know what the CSS vulnerability is that they are trying to exploit. I wonder if going to a plug-in like "Really Static" would be advisable as it hides the Wordpress installation and serves normal HTML files instead?

More webmaster attacks

Monday morning I was greeted with about 80 emails from webmaster to myself. I was excited to see what I had written to myself! Needless to say it was all spam!

I made a few changes in Cpanel and they have all gone away. I decided to set it so that company email can only come from our companies IP address. So then here is my number 2 change that I will make when I become "web security czar", you should NEVER allow email to be sent without first logging in! Number 1 would be to BAN JAVA!

More Wordpress Attacks going on! Using TimThumb vulnerability

They are really going after the TimThumb vulnerability. There were over 80 attempts to hack one site using the vulnerability this month! I wrote my own version last year, and this year I discovered that TimThumb was still installed so I deleted it as we are not using it.

Here is another strange "insert strange data" attack going on. It looks like a long string of garbage but I am sure it means something to someone?

Now I am thinking of not using WordPress or using a "static" version of WordPress to avoid all vulnerabilities. The biggest problem with totally static web pages is that the search function would not work, it has to have a dynamic response. You can use Google site search to get about the same results.

GoDaddy versus HostGator as a web hosting company

Recently I set up a web site on GoDaddy.  After using Hostgator and similar cPanel web hosting services, I have to say that GoDaddy is much more difficult to navigate and set up.  I can create a web site and email accounts on HostGator in my sleep.

GoDaddy requires that you navigate through many screens to do almost anything, with HostGator you can do almost anything you want right from the Control Panel.  This picture is the top 2/3's of the Control panel.

Why are we loosing our Kids?

Why our kids are leaving the church:

1. We tell them Santa is for real
2. We tell them the Easter Bunny is for real
3. We tell them the Tooth Fairy is for real
4. Then we try to tell them God is for real?

We should tell them:

1. Santa died 1200 years ago and Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Christ.
The wise men brought the first gifts.
2. Easter is to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.
3. The tooth fairy is to convince them to remove loose teeth.
4. That a bolt of lighting hitting a mud puddle produces life is a Really Big fairy tale.

Another triple inbound Solar Storm!

There is another triple inbound Solar Storm!  Just like last month.  Some suspect that this solar storm has something to do with the California power outage.  This image below is from the POES satellite as seen at electricquakes.com. 

This impact started on Friday September 9, and there are some readings that are very unusual.  The picture below is the solar wind over the last seven days.

America's Got Talent TV show Idea

I have an idea for America's Got Talent.  Take several of my devices and fire them all off at once, with some music in the background.  Here is what my setup might look like.

The first thing I am going to make is a double headed Tesla coil. I have two 2 foot by 4 inch coil forms for the secondary. My old "big coil" used a three inch pipe.  Here is a picture showing the new forms compared to the old ones.

I have made a new top load with 4 inch flexible duct glued to an aluminum pie plate.

Then I will make my washer launcher into a double headed model to launch two washers in rapid sequence. I may add LED's to the washers to make them look like UFO's as they fly through the air.  Here is a picture of me making the new flat coil for the launcher.

Next in my vertical can crusher. I have two 15uf at 5KV capacitors to add to it, they will replace the Defibrillator capacitor, they are 4 times the size of the defibrillator capacitor.  Its going to be hard to fit them in the case!

Also new is the idea of adding some soda can launchers. They will use some 3 inch PVC pipes to fit the soda cans.

More WordPress Hacking / Attacks going on

They are at it again, trying to hack Wordpress. Notice that there were over 5,327 log in attempts to 38 successes.  We are using LoginLockDown, but its logs show nothing, even when I went into the SQL database.  I am not sure why it does not do a better job of tracking the bogus log in attempts?

Here they are trying to guess the theme and then inject a line of code.  Note the addition of "/wp-content/themes/theme name/temp/lots of garbage".

More Facebook Fake Freind Requests

They are back at it again.  Lots of spam that are actually a virus.  If you did not get the August 2011 or the 2010 Yearly invoice then you likely still got the fake Facebook messages as seen below:

If you take a close look at the picture above you will see that the link was blocked by the firewall. 

How to and why disable IPv6

In July the world quietly turned on IPv6.  We quickly started having strange network problems.  I have known for quite a while the IPV6 is a hole through your firewall.  A VERY BIG hole at that.  It is designed that way so that officials can trace you even if you are connecting through your neighbors wireless connection.  Well today a news story came out about some of the known the problems with IPv6.  It will be years before IPV6 (and windows 7 for that matter) is safe to use.  The good news is that if you stay with XP you are safe for now.....

"Experts are reporting a rise in the number of attacks that take advantage of known vulnerabilities of IPv6, a next-generation addressing scheme that is being adopted across the Internet. IPv6 replaces the Internet's main communications protocol, which is known as IPv4."  That is from http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/security/scariest-ipv6-attack-scenarios

So you ask how do your turn off IPV6?  Just go into the network properties and get the properties of your network card and disable it right?  NOPE, not a chance.  OK so you Google Microsoft (do not use Bing it never finds what you want) and find how to use regedit to turn it off at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852  Now you can breathe a sigh of relief.  Not so quick, according to "The Dude" its still going full blast, its not even slowing down.......

Think about it, if they designed IPV6 to trace every Internet connection through multiple firewalls, are they going to make a way to turn it off?  I doubt it.  But here is a fudge fix.  remember back when you looked up the network properties of your network card and turned off IPV6?  There was an IP associated with it.  Go to your firewall and block that IP from ever accessing the Internet.  I will not guarantee that will work either but I do not know of any other method.

Time to evacuate New York City

Well, as I have said before "If you do these things the land will vomit you out!" (Leviticus 18) Irene is set to do a direct hit on NYC flooding the subways and destroying thousands of homes on Long Island.

They are already calling this "NYC's Katrina" on some web sites.

Here is a picture from www.wunderground.com showing where Irene is expected to go.

In New York City around 90% (maybe more, I do not know the exact number) of the people do not have cars, they take the subway.  The subway is mostly underground and it will fill up with flood waters and take weeks to repair.  Their electrical infrastructure in mostly underground as well.  Transformers are filled with oil, but the connections to those transformers will be covered in mud.  Mud conducts electricity (as well as dirty water) so it will be weeks before the electricity can be turned back on.  The eastern 1/2 of Long Island may be wiped clean destroying thousands of homes.  This will be the biggest disaster since Katrina.

*** UPDATE ***

NYC escaped the direct impact of Irene, but the rest of western NY got hit with flooding.

Now its Tropical Storm Lee for "back to back" natural disasters.  When is enough, enough?

Earthquake Prediction Improved

I have been working on improving my earthquake prediction device and I am adding a MMA7361 Triple Axis Accelerometer - motion detector too.

The recent changes include changing the UGN3503's to be differential inputs to the op amps.  This gives twice the output swing per change in magnetic field.  Using a digital VOM it is now .1 volts for a North to South reversal.  That translates to about 20 on the Arduino serial data stream.

This change reduces the inputs to the Arduino to N-S, E-W and U-D, or three inputs. The other three inputs will come from the MMA7361. I am still working on getting that working.

Here are pictures of the MMA7361 board being tested on a Arduino Shield.  The wiring is very simple to do.