GOD’s blog

I'm very set in my ways.  If things don't work like I think they should, they're broken.  I just got an Arduino Diecimila and was running though the tutorial projects when I got to one called Loop.  It's pretty simple, it's just meant to demonstrate how to do a loop in Wiring.  What it does is blink a series of LEDs ah-la (how do you spell that?) knight rider.  Now I've never watched the show, I'm too young, but something really bugged me about the way the LED loop was implemented.  Basically, it would take the number of LEDs and go through each one turning them on and off.  Once it got to the top it would take the top LED and go back down.  But because of simplicity (I'm assuming) it blinks the top and bottom LEDs twice...  It really bugged me...  So I "fixed."  Bellow is the updated code:

/*
 * Loop
 * by David A. Mellis
 *
 * Lights multiple LEDs in sequence, then in reverse.  Demonstrates
 * the use of a for() loop and arrays.
 *
 * http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Loop
 * fixed by Nick Blackledge
 */

int timer = 100;                   // The higher the number, the slower the timing.
int pins[] = { 8,9, 10, 11, 12 }; // an array of pin numbers, note the PIN NUMBERS
int num_pins = 5;                  // the number of pins (i.e. the length of the array), in this case 5
boolean firstRun = false;          // boolean that is set to true after the first time the loop is run

void setup()
{
  int i;

  for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++)   // the array elements are numbered from 0 to num_pins - 1
    pinMode(pins[i], OUTPUT);      // set each pin as an output
}

void loop()
{
  int i;
 
  if (firstRun == false) {             // is this the first time this loop has run?
    firstRun = true;                    // there is only one first run
    for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) { // loop through each pin...
    digitalWrite(pins[i], HIGH);    // turning it on,
    delay(timer);                        // pausing,
    digitalWrite(pins[i], LOW);    // and turning it off.
  }
  }
  else {
    for (i = 1; i < num_pins; i++) {  // loop through each pin, except the one already lit...
    digitalWrite(pins[i], HIGH);       // turning it on,
    delay(timer);                           // pausing,
    digitalWrite(pins[i], LOW);       // and turning it off.
  }
  }
    for (i = num_pins - 2; i >= 0; i--) {
    digitalWrite(pins[i], HIGH);
    delay(timer);
    digitalWrite(pins[i], LOW);
  }
 
}

Maybe I should have taken the hint when Blink prompted me to do a hair pulling emergency sweep and clean install that it wasn't for me...  But I didn't and after reinstalling I loaded up Blink again (I think they got me with a new beta version).  The horror of that app.  I would rather have viruses then that app...  First of all the logs and reporting is very lacking.  It is constantly blocking things in the background and not alerting you in any fashion and it won't show up in the log.  And then it flags random registry keys as Malware and gives you NO information other then the made up name they give it... How am I suppose to figure out if this is legitimate or not if I can't get detailed information on it?!

And all this leads me to the reason I have stopped using Blink, it kills way too many legitimate applications without alerting you (with a pop-up or in the log).  So you have no way of telling what rule is causing the problem.  Applications I have trouble running with Blink:  World of Warcraft, Media player classic, and Joost!  Three of my favorite apps... It also randomly kills my LAN shares. Blink feels like an Alpha product..  I constantly feel like I have no control over it.

I need to buy a Apple desktop so I don't have to put up with all this shit...  If only I had the cash.

I got Heather back up and running on Friday but have been busy slowly installing things a scanning for viruses at each stage.  And now I've got all my main programs installed (including WoW) and everything is checked out and clean.  It was a frustrating time and it wasn't helped at all by Ubuntu...

I decided to use Ubuntu to make sure all the infected files were removed from the computer before I reinstalled Windows.  But I knew it was gonna take a few days at least so I decided to take the time to try out Linux.  UGh, it was by far more frustrating then I ever expected.  My first annoyance happened when trying to install the latest Nvidia drivers for my graphics card.  There were several easy ways to do it in Ubuntu and I think I tried them all, but every time on reboot the system came up with a totally blank screen.  I did this 3 times till I realized what was happening, I have two monitors an LCD hooked to the DVI port and a CTR hooked to the VGA port which I only use when needed.  Well the drivers were picking the VGA port over the DVI port and leaving my LCD blank...

So after that I decided I should figure out how to get both monitors working...  And I had no idea how hard that would be!  15 minutes of figuring out how the correct way to edit 3 different text OS files...  That is unacceptable to me, because I like to disable my second monitor when I'm not using it and I don't want that much complication in the process.  I also had a huge problem with ClamAV that brought the hole testing to an end.  It worked fine for the first two days, but then on day 3 Clam AV started opening up to this error, "unable to view ClamAV's information file" and refusing to do anything...

After a little time on google I found this forum posting (http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-407356.html) apparently this is a known error that has been corrected, but Ubuntu ships with an old version of ClamAV... GRRRREAT..... /sarcasm  So I just have to update the damn software?  Easy.  ummm, no.  I tried three times to install the software and couldn't get it done, in fact I think I managed to cause more problems...  At that point I decided I would happily take Viruses over Ubuntu...  OH, one other thing clamAV can't scan large files (files over 2GB) which meant I have about 15 files it wouldn't even scan... lame

So I'm happily back on Windows and maleware free thanks to Blink.  Although Blink its self is frustrating at times.  It has a system firewall and an Application firewall so some times I'll have to make rules in two places to get programs working.  And it has a ton of other protections and the logs don't always list if something is blocked using them.  That can make things really annoying when randomly none of the local computers can see Heather, nor can Heather see any of the local computers (even though I have the system firewall open to them).

Mac OS X ftw I guess...

It's been a long 24 hours.  My saga started while listening to the latest security now (http://www.twit.tv/sn91) which has an interview with Marc Maiffret of eEye Digital Security.  In the interview they talk a lot about eEye's personal computer security software called Blink.  Not being 100% satisfied with my current anti-virus (AVG) I decided to give Blink a try.  It defiantly isn't user friendly, but I'm a pretty skilled user so that didn't bother me all that much (I'm in college right now working on a degree in computer networking and communication).  After setting it up and playing around with it I let it do a full scan of Heather (Heahter is my gaming rig, I have another computer, Betty, who is a iBook G4).  To my absolute surprise it reported several items as "mal-ware."  One item looked to actually be a Trojan hidden in an old mod for a computer game.  The file was something I had saved from about 3 years ago and hadn't used so I was pretty sure it never actually executed.  I'm not 100% sure this wasn't a false positive though.

Blink did flag a few legitimate apps as being "mal-ware" and without asking remove them, mainly Real VNC...  That was very frustrating.  I was pretty scared by the supposed Trojan I decided to do a clean install of Windows XP, I needed to do one anyway.  So after preparing for a reinstall and deleting a bunch of old, unneeded files from my storage hard drive, I held my breath reinstalled Windows.  It's not too big of deal for me, having two computers means I'm pretty good about keeping my important data backed up and synced with external sources.  I started the process last night and by this morning the computer was back up and the latest patches installed.  Because I was worried about possible Mal-Ware I decided to only install a few important must have programs before loading up Blink again.  And once again Blink reported Mal-ware on the system...  Now I did have my Files hard drive (I have one drive for the OS / Programs and one for files) connected, but nothing had been executed from it.  Blink had discovered a second VNC program (tight VNC) which I hadn't installed...  *sigh* I'm really not sure if this is just another false positive and this file has some legitimate, or my system is just totally compromised...

I've decided the only course of action is a pretty extreme one.  I'm pulling all the hard drive expect the one for my OS out of the computer.  My files drive will get hooked up to my Mac and I'll clean and sanitize it.  I'll do another clean install with a legitimate Windows CD.  After which I'll start download and reinstalling my programs, checking the system out with Blink every few programs.  This is all a very frustrating experience and it's kind of compounded by the fact that I decided not to hang out with Robin today because I was dealing with this and she wasn't happy about that...

It's days like this that I'm glad I have a Mac and can't wait to completely switch.  Although I get the fact that OS X code isn't any more secure then Windows, the fact is NO ONE TARGETS THEM!  This whole thing is frankly pretty embarrassing for me.  I'm a very security focused person so the fact that I might have been infected is hard to admit.  Anyway off to wipe Heather clean...

Flickr, Myspace, Facebook, Gmail, Digg, Vox, Jaiku, Twitter, Live Journal, Greatest Journal, Tumblr... How many web communities do I need to be apart of?  I decided to take the dip and add two more to the list, Tumblr and Vox.  Mainly because they seem to be really great way of pulling different communities into on place.  I joined Vox a few weeks, but didn't really understand in till today.  It is actually a really cool blog with a lot of Web 2.0 type features.  Hopefully I use it more then Jaiku and Twitter...  I still use both of those, but mainly just to watch others.

Tumblr is a really cool way to bring all of your blogging, pictures, and everything else into one place.   And the design of the sites is extremely customizable.

-GOD