Benjamin Productions

People are constantly getting viruses and have no idea how or why they got them. Well certain website will trick you into downloading things… download things automatically for you… or even grab your information from your internet browser. There’s a simple way to prevent this that I just recently came up with the idea to look for. I figured why not run a virtual machine like the FBI does. Basically a virtual machine is a computer inside your computer that can’t make any changes to your original computer unless you specifically tell it to. Using a virtual machine you don’t even need virus protection. After a little bit of searching I found sandboxie

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Today while surfing instructables and google I was able to find out a lot more about ways we can be even more efficient with technology.

The most interesting thing I came across was the Jewel Joule Thief. I’ve read about them tons of times, but I’ve never looked into them. What a Joule Thief does is forces to get the remainging power out of a battery that would normally appear to be dead. I thought It would be useful if we would be able to make the power that we normally cannot use, well useable. So I searched how to use it to charge another battery normally. “If you build it, they will come.” (Field of Dreams)

I also came across another way to get the energy we are wasting back, by using thermoelectric generators. A typical lightbulb wastes 95% of its energy as heat. Now, this is just a little heat from you’re light bulb, imagine how much heat comes out the chimneys of our houses, the engines from our cars, or the steam from factories.

I say we take it back.

We have no excuse not to be efficient there is so much energy all around us. We are able to obtain energy from water, energy from wind, energy from the sun, and even energy from used soda cans?. If we have all this energy available, whats the point of wasting gasoline.

Today I felt like making something new, I had an empty Altoids can laying around and a few broken scuffed led key chains so I figured, why not put them together to make something useful. Proceeding that, I went to home depot and bought a solar powered lawn light for $5. I then combined them all to make the project you see below. All of the build process has been documented and an instructable will be has been made.

Make one for yourself: via instructables

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Okay, well today I have recieved, not one, not two, but a total of three denial letters from every company I sent a request for support to, I forgive sparkfun because they are a small company working for everyone but radioshack and AT&T have no excuse especially after I’ve supported them for so many years. Looks like I’m on my own.

Yesterday, I was talking to my girlfriend. She was telling me how in her spare time she rescues cats wild cats. She will put out a cage in the day time, and wait near it every hour or so she will check it. She says she doesn’t leave it unattended because the doesn’t want the animal to feel alone. As soon as anything is captured she will bring the cage onto a table where she’ll sit with it while they wait for the humane society to come rescue it. After hearing this I came up with an idea, Id like to have a sensor she can place on the cage that will monitor it and text message her as soon as there is any activity. If this works, then she could leave the cage out all the time and would not have to go outside to check it every few minutes. It could also email the humane society, or automatically call them with the message that an animal has been captured. So today I spent my morning emailing Sparkfun Electronics, Radioshack, and AT&T, hopefully I will be able to get support from at least one of them.