EBAY Warning!!! eBay killed my machine

I was surfing eBay with google chrome, and suddenly was presented with the red malware screen saying that if you continued you could harm you computer.  I dutifully aborted quite a few times. But there was a particularly tasty price on a pair of blue tooth headphones, so i said to myself, "Self what harm could there be?  I have the latest software both Norton and a mall ware checker", so I clicked.  Got a "Aw Snap" couldn't load the page and forgot about it.

Until I went to boot my machine this morning - it was complaining that there was no operating system and that it couldn't find NTLDR.  I freaked, yelled, screamed, pulled out my hair, and in general made a complete fool of myself.   I felt like I deserved it.  The computer had run perfectly for a year or more.  Thankfully i had a second computer sitting right next to the now dead one, and googled some suggestions. However non of them worked and I had to dig out the software recovery disks and restore the system loosing all the pictures, music, Arduino code, and other stuff I wont miss until I need them again.  Plus the fact that it took 5 hours to get the machine back to square one.

I know it was MalWare, because the MBR and boot software was missing, but all the partitions information, and the recovery partition was still there - just the system partition was "bad"

Oh well - stay away from eBay until they figure out how to mitigate this problem. It seems to not actually be eBay itself, but one of the third party software toolkit websites that help out eBay listings, pictures and stuff.  I feel real sorry for the people trying to make a few bucks.  Not all that sorry, but a little.

Favorite Software

===== note to self - put in links ==== in the mean time use google

Windows XP - for my main desktop - still my favorite
Ubuntu Desktop - in a bunch of vmware virtual machines
Vmware - lets me test lots of stuff
Drop Box - dead easy way to transfer stuff around among machines and vms
Search Everything - Lets me find things in a multi terabyte storage space
keypass - In my dropbox so i can keep track of logins
ccleaner - helps keep detritus from laying around -
notepad++ - general text and source editing
synergy - shares one keyboard and mouse across many machines
google chrome - almost my favorite web browser
Firefox / Thunderbird - favorite web and mail clients
portable apps - lots of little things that don't need to be installed - just the thing for a thumbdrive - or a new vm
Winamp - listen to music - shoutcast radio mostly
VideoLAN - Will play just about everything and what it can't I use Mediaplayer clasic
truecrypt - for all my portable drives - just in case they get lost
nomp - to get the stuff from newsgroups
quickpar- to make sure I got it from the newsgroups
winrar - to unpack stuff from the newsgroups
eraser - to get rid of stuff from the newsgroups

The nack

Anti burn coffer warmer - crazy idea

I have this insane idea to make one of those coffee warmers turn off after a while. So your coffee won't evaporate and the warmer cook the sludge to glass on the bottom of your cup.

Not having a lot of room in the innards of the warmer - parts count becomes the limiting factor. Should be doable with a surface mount tiny2313 running on its internal clock, driving a sensitive gate triac, and a transformerless power supply. No opto-isolators will be necessary since the whole circuit will be hot, literally. Wonder what the temperature specs are on the AVR?

I found a nice APP note @ Microchip -Transformerless Power Supplies: Resistive and Capacitive with a couple of suitable power supply circuits. The capacitor circuit looked a little more inviting - if a little pricier - 10w resistors tend to be BIG.


So the first hurdle surmounted. Now all I have to do is get the Microcontroller circuit found - Any ideas?

DISCLAIMER! Not advised for the first timer, if you mess up working with this kind of circuit your coffee cup won't be the only thing cooked - you'll just be dead. And your Mom will complain about that horrible stink from little Johny's shop. So don't blame me.

Cat Planter

Just click the link - it is a definite smile :-)  Link

Arduino Ethernet and Pachube: remote sensors & web-control

Pachube: Someone has a great idea here.  Set up a website mashup of a lot of peoples remote sensor data. Can even control your arduino from their website, kewl.  They have a section with code dedicated to the Arduino.  It's in beta, and I have in an application.  Soon you too can see how cold it is down in my shop.

I'll have to hook up that sample temperature/humidity sensor I got a long time ago.

Embarassingly Easy Arduino ProtoShield

http://www.instructables.com/id/Embarassingly_Easy_Arduino_ProtoShield/