Andrew Craig Mackenzie

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Here you will find links to some of my favourite sites, many of which contain tons of amazing information and are not well known outside of the "nerd" community.

Creativity and Science/Engineering Based

Hacked Gadgets - This site contains a collection of some of the worlds most amazing devices, many of which are home made by hobbyists, some of which are made by companies and most of it is built from existing devices that have been modified or recycled.

Instructables - Instructables is a community oriented site that is all about teaching and learning. Members build, make, repair and modify everything and anything, from food to clothing and textiles to machinery, electronics and art; they then write a set of instructions, including photographs and videos and upload them for the world to see and build for themselves.

High Altitude Glider Project - This site is the home of Art Vanden Berg's home made autonomous (computer controlled) glider. Even though it hasn't been updated in 4 years, there is a lot on there and I always enjoy visiting it and reading parts I have not already read or have skimmed over or even just rereading flight notes and construction details.

Air Command Rockets - Here you will find George Katz amazing water rockets. George and his family spend their free time designing and building amazing water rockets from soft drink bottles. Many of his rockets are multi-stage, contain computerised parachute deployment and altimeter recordings and cameras, which isn't something you see in average water rockets. The site is filled with beginners instructions, pages of information on design, equipment and flight logs. There are also plenty of pictures and video documenting their experiments and launches.

Bernard Klinc's XMOS Challenge Project - XMOS are running a competition to promote their new chip, this site documents one of my friends attempts at their challenge, a very interesting site indeed!

Security Based

Bleeping Computer - A brilliant website with information about common start up programs, including the nasties, virus and malware removal guides and support forums. An excellent place to visit when you have a virus or other computer related problem.

Wilders Security Forums - Another brilliant site to visit when you are having malware issues.

Threat Expert - Have a suspicious file or a known virus that you are struggling to remove? Submit it to Threat Experts automated system and within about 10 minutes you will have loads of useful information on the changes the file makes to your system, including registry modifications, file drops, TCP/IP and UDP data transferred and more!

Virus Total - Next time you download a file from the internet that you do not trust, upload it to Virus Total. Virus Total has a range of 40+ of the most common virus scanners; when you submit your file it is sent to each virus scanner in turn and the results are displayed in real time, so you can determine the trustworthiness of the file.

MSN Virus Removal - My own site, which contains software and information for the removal of MSN viruses and fixing account hijacking.