An Update On Special Needs Device Hacking

I previously posted an entry entitled Security and the Special Needs Person where I described current hacking attempts against special needs devices by security researchers. In that post, I opined that there was probably some better use of the researcher’s time. Rather than give hackers new and wonderful ways to attack the human race, why not find ways to develop secure software that would discourage attempts in the first place? Unfortunately, it seems as if the security researchers are simply determined to keep chewing on this topic until someone gets hurt or killed. I never even considered this topic in my book, “Accessibility for Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements” because it wasn’t an issue at the time of publication, but it certainly is now.

Now there is a ComputerWorld article that talks about wearable devices used to jam the signals of hackers trying to attack those with special needs devices. What do we do next—encase people in a Faraday cage so no one can bother them? I did find the paper referenced in the article, “They Can Hear Your Heartbeats: Non-Invasive Security for Implantable Medical Devices” interesting, but must ask why such measures even necessary. If security researchers would wait until someone actually thinks of an attack before they came up with a remedy, perhaps no one would come up with the attack.

The basis of the shielding technology mentioned in the ComputerWorld article is naive. Supposedly, the shield lets the doctor gain access to the medical device without allowing the hacker access. Unfortunately, if the doctor has access, so does the hacker. Someone will find a way to overcome this security measure, probably a security researcher, and another shield will have to be created that deflects the new attack. The point is that if they want the devices to be truly safe, then they shouldn’t send out a radio signal at all.

The government is involved now too. Reps. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA), senior members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have decided to task the the Government Accountability Office (GAO) with contacting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about rules regarding the safety and security of implantable medical devices. I can only hope that the outcome will be laws that make it illegal to even perform research on these devices, but more likely, the efforts will result in yet more bureaucracy and red tape.

There are a number of issues that concern me about the whole idea of people wearing radio transmitters and receivers full time. For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be any research on the long term effects of wearing such devices. (I did find research papers such as, “In-Body RF Communications and the Future of Healthcare” that describe the hardware requirements for transmission, but research on what RF will do to the human body when used in this way seems sadly lacking.) These devices could cause cancer or other diseases. Fortunately, the World Health Organization (WHO) does seem to be involved in a little research on the topic and you can read about it in their article entitled, “What are electromagnetic fields?“.

In addition, now that the person has to wear a jammer to protect the implantable medical device, there is a significant chance of creating interference. Is there a chance that the wearer could create unfortunate situations where the device intended to protect them actually causes harm? The papers I’ve read don’t appear to address this issue. However, given my personal experiences with electromagnetic interference (EMI), it seems quite likely that the combination of implantable medical device and jammer will almost certainly cause problems.

In summary, we have implanted medical devices that use radio signals to make it more convenient for the doctor to monitor the patient and possibly improve the patient’s health as a result. So far, so good. However, the decision to provide this feature seems shortsighted when you consider that security researchers just couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to find a way for hackers to exploit the devices. Then, there doesn’t seem to be any research on the long term negative effects of these devices on the patient or on the jammer that now seems necessary to protect the patient’s health. Is the potential for a positive outcome really worth all of the negatives? Let me know at [email protected].

Every Year is a Good and a Bad Year

It’s easy to become discouraged in the garden sometimes. During the early spring you plant everything that you’ll hope will grow and produce plentifully. By August, you know which plants will fair the best and which didn’t survive at all. This year has been especially tough because I ended up getting gallbladder surgery first, and then, because we do everything together, Rebecca ended up getting gallbladder surgery as well. So, with both of us on our backs, our garden had a true test of being weed-bound. Unfortunately, that means that some plants didn’t live at all and some won’t produce well. Our corn was nice and tall, right before the wind blew it over. Many of our peas succumbed to the weeds.

Still, it’s a good year in many respects and that’s the aspect I choose to focus on. Good years fill larders with interesting vegetables and fruits. Apparently, this is a bean year. We planted the normal amount of green beans and Lima beans. However, the plants decided to grow twice as tall and twice as wide as normal. We’re now inundated with green beans and will soon have a bumper crop of Lima beans as well.

GardenEnough01

Not every year is a good year for every vegetable. In my Dealing with Overabundance post, I discussed how some years produce so much that you can hardly fathom what to do with it all. Last year and the year before were horrible blight-filled years for tomatoes. This year isn’t just good, it’s amazing. Our tomatoes have never looked quite this good.

GardenEnough02

Those are the same diminutive plants I wrote about in Mulching Your Garden. They’re over five feet tall now and loaded with so many tomatoes that we’re going to try pickling some green tomatoes this year. (Remember to try different preservation techniques whenever you can to discover new ways of dealing with overabundance.) The plants have obviously overgrown the tomato cages and are threatening the other plants in that plot. Unlike previous years, there is absolutely no sign of blight, even at the bottom of the plants (which are usually brown by now). Sometimes in this case it is better to buy things like new mulching heads for skid steers so we can effectively clean up the area for a more serious overgrowing problem.

Many of our plants are late, but will most definitely produce. The egg plants and okra are of sufficient size that we’ll get the normal amount from them, or perhaps just a bit more than usual. As in most years, the egg plants are constantly under attack from flea beetles, but the lacing of their leaves hasn’t reduce their vigor much and we expect the normal crop from them.

GardenEnough03

The beets and kohlrabi look good this year as well. We fully expect to harvest enough to replenish our larder and even provide a little extra for next year. So, many plants are producing enough that we’ll most definitely not starve. It’s best to avoid focusing on the lack of corn this winter in the larder or the fact that there won’t be much in the way of broccoli (we will have an abundance of Brussels sprouts though).

It’s important to remember diversity in gardening. Don’t plant just one or two items-plant a variety of items so that at least a few of them produce well. This is our year for tomatoes and beans. Next year might be a corn year or the year of the mutant squash (we’ve had one of those lately and are still eating squash from that year). Each year is a good year for something, and an equally bad year for something else.

There is actually a health benefit to all of this. If every year produced copious quantities of whatever you planted, there would be no incentive to try something new. Gardens force people to moderate what they eat and to try new things. As someone once said, “Variety is the spice of life!” So, what has grown well for you this year? Let me know at [email protected]

The Wonders of Queen Anne’s Lace

Sometimes, the best herb or edible plant is the one you didn’t plant. Nature provides a number of edible plants that grow naturally where you live. I’ve shared about the berries that grow in our woods before. There are blackcaps, blackberries, gooseberries, wild grapes, wild plums, and choke cherries available to anyone who wants to pick them in the woods. You can also find any number of usable mushrooms and other useful plants out there. However, the wild grass area also has abundance to offer. One of the most useful plants is Queen Anne’s Lace, also known as wild carrot.

QueenAnnesLace01

It’s quite possible that you’ve passed this plant by in the past because it normally grows in with the rest of the weeds. The large taproot is edible. However, you don’t want to dig it up mid-summer. It’s better to dig up a second year plant early in the spring or a first year plant late in the fall. Wait until the plant is dormant or you’ll end up with something that’s akin to shoe leather without much value. Older plants develop a woody interior (xylem) that’s most definitely unpalatable.

Some people actually use a tea made from the root for a number of medicinal purposes. When the root is used for medicinal reasons, the common wisdom is to dig it up in July, which is the same time the plant flowers in profusion.

Wild carrot is an ancestor of the modern cultivated carrot, but they’re different plants. In other words, it would require a lot of work to change Queen Anne’s Lace into anything resembling a domesticated plant and you should focus on the usefulness of the wild plant instead.

One of the most delightful uses of Queen Anne’s Lace is to make jelly from the flowers. You must pick a lot of fresh flowersthe more the better. I normally provide Rebecca with at least two shopping bags full of flowers to make jelly and it takes quite a while to obtain that many flowers, but the effort is most definitely worth it. The Queen Anne’s Lace flower looks like this.

QueenAnnesLace02

In some cases, the center of the flower will contain a purple floret, but I’ve found that the purple floret is somewhat rare. Before you go out and pick a bunch of flowers that look just like this one though, be aware that many flowers have precisely the same coloration and similar appearance. For example, the hemlock flower and fool’s parsley are easy to confuse with this flower. Fortunately, it’s easy to avoid the mistake. Hemlock and fool’s parsley both tend to grow in wetter areas, while Queen Anne’s Lace prefers a drier spot to grow. In addition, Queen Anne’s Lace has a distinctive carrot leaf like the one shown here (the photograph is courtesy of my friend William Bridges):

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

When picking Queen Anne’s Lace, look for the flower in July, check the flowers carefully, and verify that the leaves are correct. If necessarily dig a plant up to ensure you’re getting the right one. The root will have a distinctive carrot aroma. If you take these four precautions, you won’t ever have any trouble.

There is conflicting information about the use of the leaves. I’ve never personally eaten the leaves and based on the conflicting information, I’d recommend not eating them. Here’s the Queen Anne’s Lace jelly recipe (courtesy of Rebecca).

Queen Anne’s Lace Jelly

2 qts Flower Heads, Rinsed
  Boiling Water to Cover
2 Lemons, Juiced
2 packets Certo
6 cups Sugar
Dash Cinnamon or Nutmeg

Infuse flowers in boiling water for 4 to 5 hours. Strain the result to obtain 5 cups of liquid. Add lemon juice, sugar, and spices. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add Certo. Bring to a full boil for 1 minute. Prepare the jelly according to the instructions on the Certo package. Can using a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

The jelly has a subtle taste. It really is hard to describe, but think of something with an almost honey-like taste, but a bit of spiciness too. Add some tea and an English muffin, and you have a wonderful breakfast. The jelly ends up with a wonderful amber appearance.

QueenAnnesLace04

So, what are your favorite wild plants? Do you use them regularly? Let me know at [email protected].

Protecting Your Investment

Many people disregard the benefit of having good working animals. We currently have two dogs and three cats. Every one of them has work to do. Over the years I’ve found that working animals actually live longer and lead happier lives. It seems that everyone benefits from having work to keep them happy.

The two dogs work during the evening hours. We’re out and about enough during the daylight hours that we’ve never had a problem with the wildlife during the day. It’s at night that the wildlife comes out and causes us woe. So the dogs work all night and sleep all day. One of us takes them to work each evening and brings them into the house early each morning.

Shelby earns her keep by guarding the chickens. Everyone likes a chicken dinner. The way we have the chicken tractors constructed keeps hawks at bay. However, weasels and racoons will dig under the chicken tractors to get inside if they can’t get in any other way. The hardware cloth will delay them, but not permanently bar them. Weasels are the worst of the lot. They’ll make a small incision in the chicken’s neck, drain it of blood, and then move onto the next chicken without touching the meat of the one it has just killed. What a waste! We’ve had problems with other wildlife getting into the chicken tractors as wellI’m pretty sure a fox got into the chicken tractors at least once.

Shelby

Shelby also helps catch any chickens that get out of the chicken tractors. She’ll carefully move them toward me. I can usually catch the chicken without any problem and put it back inside. We chose a border collie because of the herding instinct.

Reese guards the apple orchard. We have two orchardsone for apples and another for everything else (pears, plums, and cherries). For some reason, none of the wildlife bothers the other orchard, but they absolutely love our apples. One season I had a wonderful harvest when I went to bedthe next morning I got up to find stems, which was all that the deer left behind after eating every apple. Rebecca says that there is still a dark cloud hanging over the orchard from the unfortunate language I used to express my discomfort with the deer’s choice of delicacy. Since we’ve had a dog out there, no one has touched the apples (or at least, not enough to matter). We chose a beagle/rat terrier mix for the no nonsense attitude toward guarding territory. Besides, she doesn’t dig (at least, not often) and she cuddles nicely in the winter.

Reese

During the late fall and most of the winter months, we store goods in the basement. It acts as our root cellar. There are usually some apples, potatoes, and squash down there. Given that the basement keeps at a nice 40 degrees, things last quite a while. We eat the last squash sometime in March in most years, along with the last of the potatoes (the apples never last past the holidays). Mice just love root cellars. Given a chance, they’ll bore through squash just enough to ruin it. Apples and potatoes make wonderful treats as well.

Two of our cats, Bubba and Smucker, patrol the root cellar. We don’t stick them down there at any given time. They ask to go down for a while, then they ask to come back up. It’s a nice arrangement for everyone. Since we’ve had Bubba and Smucker patrolling the root cellar, there hasn’t been any damage to our goods from mice. Sure, we could have used traps, but cats work significantly better.

SmuckerandBubba

Sugar Plum is Rebecca’s cuddle cat. Her main job is to keep Rebecca happy. During the daytime, that means staying with Rebecca in the kitchen or wherever else Rebecca might be at the time. It’s an important job.

All of our “kids” know how to do some simple tricks. The dogs each have their own way of asking for their breakfast and they play a mean game of fetch. They’re also trained to perform the usual commandssit, lay down, kennel, and quiet. The cats can also perform tricks. In this case, Sugar Plum is sitting up to ask for a treat.

SugarPlum

Having animals is an important part of self-sufficiency. Without these work animals, we’d never be able to hold onto the investment we’ve made. How do you work with your animals? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Drying Herbs

This is the time of year when Rebecca starts drying the herbs that have been growing since early spring. Most of them have gotten quite tall. I’ll discuss one of my favorites in this post, lime mint, but she’s working on a host of other herbs as well. Of course, the drying process starts by picking the herbs. She started with a relatively large bunch of lime mint like this:

DryHerbs01

In order to dry herbs, you need some means of drying them. Some people use their ovens, which can sometimes damage the herbs. It’s possible to dry the herbs in the sun, assuming you have a nice place to do it and the temperatures are high enough. We use an American Harvest dehydrator like the one shown here.

DryHerbs02

It’s such a handy device that we own three of them and sometimes all three of them are in use drying various items. Rebecca makes vegetable chips and apple chips for me to use as snacks (among other items). She has also made venison jerky for me using one of these devices. Two of our dehydrators have the top mounted heater and fan, while the third is bottom mounted. When it comes to drying herbs, there really isn’t any advantage over using one or the other.

In order to dry the herbs, the leaves are stripped from the stem and then placed in a fairly shallow pile in the dehydrator trays. It’s perfectly acceptable to put the younger tops in whole, but you don’t want the really stiff stems in with the rest of the herbs. Here’s how a typical tray will look.

DryHerbs03

After you’ve finished filling trays with the herbs, you’ll need to set the dehydrator for 105 degrees. It takes about 6 hours to dry the herbs. During that time, you’re treated to the most exotic smells. The entire house was filled with the smell of fresh mint this morningit’s indescribable. The stack of herbs you saw earlier filled nine trays like this:

DryHerbs04

You’ll want to take the lid off from time-to-time to check the herbs (don’t do it any more than about once an hour). About halfway through the process, you’ll want to rearrange the trays, placing the bottom ones year the top (and vice versa) to ensure the herbs dry evenly. The herbs will look like this about halfway through the process.

DryHerbs05

When the herbs are completely dry, they’ll be a dark green. They’ll also crumble quite easily. Don’t be too shocked by the amount of herb you get for the initial investment. Here’s the completed lime mint from that entire bunch that you saw earlier (about 1/3 of a quart).

DryHerbs06

There is nothing quite so nice as home dried herbs. You’ll use quite a bit less of them than the herbs you get from the store. Rebecca places any extra herbs in a sealable bag, uses a Food Saver to vacuum seal the bag, and then places it in the freezer. This approach keeps the herbs extra fresh. Growing and preserving your own herbs makes for amazing meals and drinks (think herbal teas of your own design). Wouldn’t it be nice to be nice to be able to use your own herbs whenever you wanted? Let me know what you think at [email protected].

 

Security and the Special Needs Person

I’ve written quite a bit about special needs requirements. In my view, everyone who lives long enough will have a special need sometime in their life. In fact, unless you’re incredibly lucky, you probably have some special need right now. It may not be a significant special need (even eyeglasses are a special need), but even small special needs often require another person’s help to fix.

Accessibility, the study of ways to accommodate special needs, is something that should interest everyoneespecially anyone who has technical skills required to make better accessibility aids a reality. It was therefore with great sadness that I read an eWeek article this weekend describing how one researcher used his talents to discover whether it was possible to kill someone by hacking into the device they require to live. Why would someone waste their time and effort doing such a terrible thing? I shook my head in disbelief.

There is a certain truth to the idea that the devices we use to maintain health today, such as insulin pumps, are lacking in security. After all, they are very much like any other Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) device, such as a car, from a software perspective and people are constantly trying to find ways to break into cars. However, cars are not peoplecars are easily replaced devices used for transport. If someone breaks into my car and steals it, I’m sad about it to be sure, but I’m still alive to report the crime to the police. If someone hacks into my pacemaker and causes it to malfunction, I’m just as dead as if they had shot me. In fact, shooting me would probably be far less cruel.

I know that there is a place for security professionals in the software industry, but I’ve become increasingly concerned that they’re focused too much on breaking things and not enough on making them work properly. If these professionals spent their time making software more secure in the first place and giving the bad guys fewer ideas of interesting things to try, then perhaps the software industry wouldn’t be rife with security problems now. Unfortunately, it’s always easier to destroy, than to create. Certainly, this sort of negative research gives the security professionals something to talk about even though it potentially destroys someone’s life in the process.

I’d like to say that this kind of behavior will diminish in the future, but history says otherwise. Unless laws are put in place to make such research illegal, well meaning security professionals will continue dabbling in matters that would be best left alone until someone dies (and even then the legal system will be slow in reacting to a significant problem). I doubt very much that time spent hacking into special needs devices to see just how much damage one can do helps anyone. What is your thought on the matter? Does this sort of research benefit anyone? Let me know what you think at [email protected].

Understanding the Connection Between Application Output and ErrorLevel

Many readers have a disconnect between application output and the ErrorLevel variable found in batch files. I’ve received more than a few e-mails where readers don’t quite understand the whole concept behind the ErrorLevel variable. They think it actually signifies some sort of mystical operating system derived error, when it isn’t anything of the sort.

A large part of the problem is that those readers who commonly work with batch files aren’t developers and many developers don’t work with batch files. In fact, even though many administrators are moving back to command line utilities because working with the GUI is time consuming and inefficient, many developers have decided to eschew the console application in favor of GUIs with fancier user interfaces.

Another problem is that ErrorLevel is inappropriately named. It should really be named ApplicationOutput. I’m sure that at one time the intention truly was to convey some sort of error information, but even Microsoft uses ErrorLevel for other purposes.

Let’s take a practical look at the whole concept of ErrorLevel beginning with a simple C# application to generate the codes. When working with C#, you’ll find that the output is now called an ExitCode as shown here.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
 
namespace GenerateOutput
{
    class ExitCode
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Create a variable to hold the exit
            // value.
            Int32 Value;
 
            // Make sure there is a variable provided as input.
            if (args.Count() > 0)
            {
 
                // Determine whether the input is actually a number.
                if (Int32.TryParse(args[0], out Value))
 
                    // If it is, then exit using that number.
                    Environment.Exit(Value);
                else
 
                    // Otherwise, exit with an error value of -2.
                    Environment.Exit(-2);
            }
            else
 
                // Exit with an error value of -1
                Environment.Exit(-1);
        }
    }
}

The only purpose of this application is to generate exit codes given certain circumstances. The first check determines whether the user has supplied any sort of input at all. If not, if the user simply types GenerateOutput without any arguments at all, then the application exits with a value of -1 to indicate an error. Likewise, if the user types something other than a number, such as GenerateOutput Hello, the application exits with a value of -2 to indicate a different sort of error. Only when the user supplies a number does the application exit with a numeric value.

The batch file used to test this application is equally simple. All it does is call GenerateOutput with the value (if any) that the user provides to the batch file, TestOutput.bat. Here’s the batch file code.

@Echo Off
 
REM Run the application.
GenerateOutput %1
 
REM Most application output are status indicators.
If ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO HighOutput
 
REM You can perform specific actions for a specific status.
If ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO ValueOne
 
REM Applications can also provide a success indicator.
If ERRORLEVEL 0 GOTO Success
 
REM Errors are normally negative numbers, but can be anything.
If ERRORLEVEL -1 GOTO Error1
If ERRORLEVEL -2 GOTO Error2
 
:HighOutput
ECHO The value you provided is higher than 1.
GOTO End
 
:ValueOne
ECHO You provided an input of precisely 1.
GOTO End
 
:Success
ECHO An output value of 0 indicates success!
GOTO End
 
REM Here is the beginning of the various messages.
:Error1
ECHO You must supply a number as an argument!
GOTO End
 
:Error2
ECHO You must supply a number and not text or special characters!
GOTO End
 
REM Here is the ending point.
:End

As you can see, the tests check for errors, success messages, and non-error application output. Any combination of console application and batch file can do the same thing provided the developer and administrator get together to work out the details or the developer at least documents the exit codes.

The process is the same each time. Test for an ErrorLevel value, then go to the label specified, execute the directions, and then go to the end of the batch file. The ErrorLevel values must appear in order from greatest to least in order to work correctly. Here is some test output from this test application and batch file pair.

ErrorLevel01

The point of this exercise is to ensure that developer and administrator alike realize the importance of the exit code (ErrorLevel). The application should use it to provide some sort of status information that the administrator can then use to track how well the application works in an automated setting. Let me know if you have any questions at [email protected].

 

Decorating with Doilies

Many people view “old world” housing in museums and wonder why people took so much time to colorfully decorate their houses. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because they had time to kill and needed something to do with their hands. The answer is simplepeople spent a considerable amount of time at their home. Trips into town were rare and there were no vacations in some other city. A home with aesthetic appeal is a necessity in such a situation. It’s important to have some color present and more than a little comfort. Otherwise, you’ll quickly find yourself getting depressed and not very happy about your self-sufficient lifestyle.

We haven’t taken to stenciling our ceilings or using exotic colors in our home, just the occasional wall decals spotted around. However, there is a certain amount of decorative clutter that exists to provide comfort and color. You’ve seen some of my offerings in previous posts such as Knitting for the Gentleman Farmer. Colorful hats and blankets are nice, but I lack the dexterity required to do much more. That’s where Rebecca comes into play. She creates items of significant artistic appeal such as the doily shown here:

Doily

Rebecca actually made this particular doily for a dear friend of ours, but we have others that she’s made throughout the house. It amazes me that she’s able to work on such fine crochet and that it comes out so nice. The important thing to consider is that we’re both working to make our home livable and enjoyable. When you’re self-sufficient, you need to consider the amount of time you’ll be spending at your home and make it as comfortable as possible. What sorts of decorations do you find inviting. Let me know at [email protected].

Working with Chicken Tractors

In the previous post, Working with Young Chickens, the chickens were just starting to get big enough to put outside. We were hardening them off so that they’d survive the elements. The chickens are most definitely large enough now to go outside (and have been for about two weeks). Each chicken has about 2 square feet of space in a chicken tractor. However, the chicken only lives in that space for a few days. During the time the chickens are living in the chicken tractors, they’ll actually use a 24-foot × 80-foot area (or about 25.6-feet per chicken).

Of course, the question is, “What is a chicken tractor?” Our version of the chicken tractor is a square bottomless cage with a roof that allows the chickens to access bugs, grass, dirt, and other items that a chicken would normally want to access, but in a safe environment. Here’s one of our older chicken tractors.

ChickenTractor01

This particular chicken tractor is 4-feet wide and 8-feet long. It has handles at either end for moving it from place-to-place. Chicken tractors come a wide variety of forms, but the idea in all cases is to provide a movable cage that lacks a bottom. When the birds are young, we move our chicken tractors once a week. As they get older, we move them progressively more often until we’re moving them every three days before we process the last of them.

We build our chicken tractors from standard pine or fir boards and 24-inch high ¼-inch hardware cloth. Each chicken tractor requires about 40-feet of hardware cloth (24-feet for the sides and 16-feet across the top), so a single roll will build two chicken tractors that can house a total of 32 full grown birds comfortably. (Initially, you can put up to 64 birds in the two chicken tractors if you plan to cull the smaller ones for use in canned chicken, which requires three to four pound chickens, but larger birds require a minimum of 2 square feet each to be comfortable and to grow well.)

You shouldn’t use pressure treated lumber for your chicken tractor because the chickens peck at the wood. Anything the chickens eat, you also eat. That’s the same reason you don’t want to paint the lumber unless you want to invest in non-toxic paint. The only exception that you can reasonably make is to use ½-inch CDX plywood for the roofs because the chickens don’t get anywhere near them. Unfortunately, the use of non-treated wood means that we have to perform repairs on the chicken tractors each spring, but so far, the repairs have been minimal.

It looks like each chicken tractor will last six to eight years (perhaps longer as I gain experience). At that point, you need to build an entirely new wooden frame because the old one will rot enough to require replacement, but the hardware cloth, handles, and hinges are still perfectly good, so you can recycle them. In fact, it’s possible that you can even reuse some of the staples used to hold the hardware cloth in place. The cost to build a chicken tractor is about $240.00 with the hardware cloth, so you need to factor $30.00 to $40.00 into your costs each year to account for wear and tear on them.

As with any building enterprise, I made mistakes with the first few chicken tractors. For one thing, I tried using chicken wire the first time. The racoons demonstrated that they can easily overcome chicken wire and had a good chicken dinner as a result. Another thought I had was to build the chicken tractors with hinged joints so I could take them down each winter for storage. The solution proved problematic and the rotting was actually worse than if I had left the cages up all winter. I also made the door on the top of the cage too large the first time and the chickens demonstrated an unswerving ability to get out of the chicken tractor while I was trying to feed themleading to Keystone Cop episodes of chicken catching. I’m sure I’ll continue to learn new tricks as I build new chicken tractors.

The chickens require boards to roost on inside the chicken tractor. Otherwise, they’ll get diseased easily and their breast feathers will become almost useless to them. Chickens also need exercise and a place to get their feet off the ground from time-to-time. Our chicken tractors have 2×4 roost like the ones shown here:

ChickenTractor02

We supply two roosts to divide the cage into thirds. The left side contains their water dish and the right contains the food dish. The center is completely free of any encumbrance so the chickens have a free space in which to roam. The roosts are 2-inches above the ground so that they aren’t too high to reach, yet provide complete protection from the ground, even when it rains.

A lot of people use specialized feeders for their chickens. It’s actually better to use a short pan so that the chickens have good access to food and water. The water pan also serves as a bath, so we change the water at least twice a day (more often after a storm because the birds want to get any mud off). Here are the pans that we use:

ChickenTractor03

As you can see, it’s nothing fancy. A pan like this will last around five years. It holds 3 gallons of water, which is more than enough for the chickens in the chicken tractor. If you have any questions about these chicken tractors, let me know at [email protected].

 

Automating Your Configuration with a Daily Batch

Batch files are still an important part of your system, especially if you find that you need to perform certain configuration tasks every day. Both Administering Windows Server 2008 Server Core and Windows Command-Line Administration Instant Reference discuss batch files, but this post is about a practical example of a batch file in daily use.

My system has a daily batch file. It runs every morning when I start the system up. (To save electricity, I do turn off my system every night and find that things also run better because I do.) The main reason for using a daily batch file is to configure my system so I don’t end up performing the same repetitive tasks every day. I tell the computer what to do and it performs the required configuration for me. After I get my cup of coffee, my system is ready to go—fully configured for my use.

The daily batch file appears as an entry in the Startup folder on my system. Placing the file in the Startup folder means that it runs automatically, but that I can also easily disable the batch file should I wish to do so. Use these instructions to add a daily batch file to your Startup folder:

 

  1. Choose Start > All Programs. You see a list of entries including Startup.
  2. Right click Startup and choose Open from the context menu. (Unless you want everyone to use the same automatic batch file, you don’t want to choose Open All Users.) You see a copy of Windows Explorer open for the Startup folder.
  3. Right click anywhere in the right Windows Explorer pane and choose New > Text Document from the context menu. Windows will create a new text document named New Text Document.txthowever, only the New Text Document part of the filename is highlighted.
  4. Highlight the entire filename and type Daily Tasks.bat. Make absolutely certain that you also overwrite the .txt part of the filenameDaily Tasks.bat.txt won’t do anything for you.
  5. Press Enter. You see a Rename dialog box that asks whether you’re sure that you want to change the extension of the file.
  6. Click Yes. Windows renames the file.

Of course, the file is empty at this point. Right click Daily Tasks.bat and choose Edit from the context menu. Windows will open a copy of Notepad with the empty batch file loaded. At this point, you can start typing commands for Windows to execute automatically when you start up in the morning. It’s possible to execute many commands directlyespecially those that are meant to execute at the command line, such as W32Tm /Resync, which forces an update of the system clock. Other commands require that you use the Start command to execute them. For example, you might want to tell Firefox to automatically open the Astronomy Picture of the Day site using this command:

 

Start “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox” http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/

<font<> <font<>The Start command starts Firefox in this case. It passes the URL you provide to Firefox as a command line parameter. Obviously, the application must support command line parameters for this technique to work. More applications than you might think do support command line parameters (many undocumented), so a little research can provide a lot in automation.

Any command that you can execute in any other batch file is also available when you’re starting Windows. There is one special consideration. You’ll likely find that executing one command immediately after another causes timing problems when Windows is initially starting. For example, if you try to open several Web sites, you’ll find that Windows actually misses opening a few unless you provide some sort of wait period between commands. Fortunately, the Choice command fulfills this task perfectly. For example, the following command provides a 15 second delay that you can insert between commands:

 

@CHOICE /C:N /N /T:15 /D:N


Using this command the user won’t even be aware of the delay. The @ symbol makes the Choice command invisible. The /C command line switch provides the available choices (which consists solely of N in this case). The /N command line switch hides the list of choices from view. You create the actual timeout value using the /T command line switch, which is set for 15 seconds in this example. However, the /D command line switch actuates the delay by automatically choosing N after the 15 seconds. In short, this entire command line is a wait statement.

If you want your batch to run more or less invisibly, make sure you start it with an @Echo Off command. Otherwise, every command appears in the window. It’s helpful to check for errors when you first put the batch file together and when you make changes. Adding an @Pause at the end of the batch file keeps the command window visible so you can check for errors.

After you finish the batch file, you can execute it as you would any other batch file. The only difference in this situation is that this batch file executes automatically each day because it resides in the Startup folder. When you need to make changes to this file you can choose Start > All Programs > Startup, then right click Daily Tasks.bat, and choose Edit from the context menu. The file will open in Notepad for you.

This is one of the more interesting and useful ways to employ batch files. What are your favorite batch processing techniques? Let me know at [email protected].