home depot

All about the Lionel 1033

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , ,
All about the Lionel 1033

The Lionel Multi-control 1033 is a 90 watt transformer produced from 1948 to 1956. They are reasonably durable and were popular in their day, which means there are still a lot of them floating around so they tend to be inexpensive. I paid $70 for one about 15 years ago but the price has come way down; today you can get a serviced 1033 for about half that, and an as-is one for $20-$25.

Even someone who has a larger transformer or multiple larger transformers for the layout might be interested in a 1033 for the test bench, as it has all of the functionality someone would need for testing locomotives and whistling tenders.

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I didn’t winterize my lawnmower but I got away with it. Here’s how.

Dave Farquhar DIY , , , , ,
I didn’t winterize my lawnmower but I got away with it. Here’s how.

Last year I didn’t winterize my lawnmower at the end of the season. Shame on me. So I took some extra precautions this year to avoid a $50 lawn mower repair, and got away with it. Here’s what I did.

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Home Depot’s Ecosmart 40w replacement is a good $5 LED bulb

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , ,

So I took the plunge and bought a package of the Ecosmart 40w equivalent soft white LED bulbs last week. As long as you’re aware that it’s not dimmable–let me repeat that, it’s not dimmable–it’s a really good bulb, especially at $10 for a package of two, assuming no local subsidies.

For $5 each, you get 450 lumens of soft white light while consuming only 6 watts of power.

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LED bulb longevity report

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , , , ,

Now that I’ve had a couple of LED bulbs burn out, I can actually give an LED bulb longevity report.

I’ve been buying LED bulbs since 2010, and now I’ve lost three of them. It’s a little disappointing, but two of the bulbs were Philips 420240 bulbs, which are no longer on the market. The first 420240 failed completely within a couple of weeks of getting it, and I exchanged it for a Cree. The second 420240 lasted a shade over two years. Clearly the 420240 just wasn’t a very good bulb, and it accounted for my first LED bulb mortality.

My other failed bulb is one of the early 40W equivalents I bought at either Lowe’s or Home Depot in 2010 or early 2011. So I got about four years out of that one, which is better than Philips at least.

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Remove black marks from wood floors

Dave Farquhar Landlording ,

I tried to remove black marks from wood floors with Bar Keeper’s Friend recently, and I’m happy to report it worked pretty well.

Here’s the story: I had some mysterious black ring-shaped marks on my hardwood floors. I traced them to metal ends of furniture legs. The long-term solution is to put the furniture on leg cups, but one still has to contend with the damage.

The pros use a floor bleach whose active ingredient is oxalic acid, but finding it is hard, and finding it in household quantities is harder. But there’s a cheap, readily available household alternative: Bar Keeper’s Friend. It costs a couple of dollars and you can buy it at big-box stores like Home Depot, hardware stores, grocery stores, and even some discount stores. It’s usually in the cleaning aisle next to the Comet. It’s good stuff to have on hand anyway, because it does a great job of cleaning up pretty much anything you’d use Comet on, but it literally eats rust spots for lunch so it’ll take care of chores Comet doesn’t.

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Retracing the Home Depot attackers’ steps

Dave Farquhar security , , , , ,

New details emerged on the Home Depot attack that left 56 million consumers with compromised credit cards. The interesting thing in the new details is that it could have been much worse, but maybe not for reasons immediately obvious.

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My favorite LED bulbs for 2014

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , ,

After talking about LEDs last week, a friend asked what my favorite LED bulbs today are. I’m not sure I would say I dislike any of the bulbs that are widely available today, but I do have two favorites.

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More Home Depot details emerge

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Late last week, Home Depot finally released a statement about its data breach. At least they had the decency to call the attack “custom” and not spin it as “advanced” or “sophisticated.” Even “custom” is really a euphemism, as the attack wasn’t all that different from what other retailers experienced earlier in the year. It may have been as simple as recompressing the BlackPOS malware using a different compression algorithm or compression ratio to evade antivirus.

The breach involves about 56 million cards, making it a bigger breach than Target.  Read more

Home Depot: A security pro’s dilemma

Dave Farquhar security , , ,

I was listening to podcasts about the Home Depot breach, and something occurred to me.

Home Depot isn’t talking much about the breach. And it’s driving security pros nuts.

But the general public takes silence as a sign that everything’s going great. So their silence is winning the PR battle in the court that matters, which is public opinion at large. Read more

And… Home Depot confirms it’s been breached

Dave Farquhar security ,

In news that will surprise no one, Home Depot confirmed it’s had credit card data stolen.

I also learned that in an effort to defeat my usual security measures, people increasingly will buy cards local to them, so they can shop in the same zip code, or a very nearby zip code to the victim. They then buy expensive merchandise and/or gift cards. This tactic limits the market but increases the effectiveness if you happen to own the unlucky card that your malicious neighbor buys.

About the only way to defeat this behavior is to keep a close eye on your account statements, which means cutting down on credit card use probably would make it easier for you to notice fraud. And, of course, when your credit card company sends a new card, activate it as quickly as possible.

As for what happened, there’s lots of speculation but no confirmation as of yet. Now the start date has been revised back to perhaps sometime in April, and while the number of stores hasn’t been confirmed, the numbers I’m seeing range from 1,700 to all 2,200 of them.

As far as what’s going on, I think we’re in a situation much like the era of The Cuckoo’s Egg, where the world is changing faster than the security world and the corporations who employ it can keep up. In a few years I’ll look back on it in awe of what I learned, but for now, I have to admit feeling scared more than anything. I think we’ll get through it, but at this point in the battle, I still don’t know how.