The Realm of Jinan » Gadsden

Bad Javascript, Bad.

Jinan — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:43:43 +0000

Well, last hour or so has been interesting. I was going to my website I was working on http://gadsdenwifi.org and my antivirus popped up a notice saying it deleted a temporary internet file. I shrugged it off (as I had other tabs open and thought it was one of others. After a bit I noticed that my computer was starting to run slow and sluggish. Thats when I noticed acrobat.exe using 800 megs of ram and slowly climbing. Also thats when I noticed sysguard.exe in my process list. No surprise to me some anti spyware program popped up and started running on my computer (spyware protect 2009). Running combo fix took care of that problem. So after fixing the spyware issue, I started playing around with the newly uploaded database information. I then decided to change the test site around just a bit. I uploaded index.php and got a message saying that the file on the server was newer than the last uploaded one, so I went to check it out. Thats when I found this nice little bugger:

Some reason, every index.php file on my webserver had this code enbedded around a few php eco statements, which caused my antivirus to pop up warning me that there was a trojan trying to infest my computer. All infected files have been removed and everything should be normal (I hope).

We shall see in the next couple of days.

Gadsden Wifi, part 3

Jinan — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:02:24 +0000

Here is a quick update on the Gadsden Wifi project.

Aquired Gadsdenwifi.org (thanks http://www.brandonrome.net for the logo)
The database structure is complete and the import software is 70% complete.
The backend programming will begin after the database is complete.

Few things I have learned:

Binary Searching
Minimizing database calls (atleast on SELECT statements)
Basics of Multi-Threading applications.
Basics of Google Maps API

Hail Storm!

Jinan — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:03:21 +0000

I was caught in a hail storm at the officemax parking lot (pulled over due to the rain falling so hard that I couldnt see) in Gadsden, AL. I happened to have my camera so I recoreded it.

Gadsden Wifi, Part 2

Jinan — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:05:37 +0000

For an update, I have posted a screenshot of the program I wrote (few hours of sitting down and punching the good ol’ keyboard). The program takes a Wifi Scan text document and converts it into a Google Earth KML file. If you click the image below, you can see the full screen shot of what my program looks like, the tree structure listed in google earth and the information that pops up when you click on said point.

By doing this little project, i’ve learned about writing XML documents and how easy it can be and how big of a pain it could be. Also this project stresses the way I used to code. For example, a 750 KB file with 6,000 data points works flawlessly. Toss in a 10 meg file with 54,000 data points and you will see real quick that handling data is alot different.

Things I’ve Learned:

Redim Preserve statement is a bad bad bad idea if called once per loop. It basically creates an array thats bigger (or smaller), copies the old array to the new array (2x memeory consumption), then destroys the old array.
Better to Add items all at once vs one at a time on List View Boxes (still learning to program this one).
Google Earth is picky when it comes to and …

This program for the most part is complete, once I fine tune it and get everything running smoothly, I will see about the website side of this project.

Gadsden Wifi

Jinan — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 03:21:41 +0000

I finally got my QStarz bluetooth GPS receiver in friday. Since I was heading to Birmingham saturday, I thought I would test this thing out. Combined with NetStumbler and a D-Link 7db antenna with a magnetic mount, I rode to Birmingham collecting wifi data with GPS coords. Then I started thinking about mapping wifi around the gadsden area. One good weekend of driving with this setup should take care of the downtown area and slowly work my way around the smaller areas. It is just an idea at the moment.

Below is what I picked up for just the gadsden area. The data was thrown into Google Earth, and needs to be cleaned up as there are probably 5-10 Access Point data per spot and it gets confusing.

A red X is a secure Access Point, a green check is an open wifi hot spot.

Gadsden Wifi