IDA Pro is the worlds leading disassembler. This means that given a binary file without any source code IDA Pro will reverse engineer that file and attempt to give you something quite close to the original source.

“The IDA Pro Book” by Chris Eagle, published by No Starch Press, is the book for anyone working with IDA. Chris Eagle is certainly an expert with both Disassembly and IDA Pro.

The first chapters of the book will catch any novice up to speed. However, Intermediate and Advanced users may also benefit from Eagles’ refresher on the world of disassembly and reverse engineering tools.

The book provides many great examples that are easy to follow along and complete yourself. Any of the code examples used in the book are available online.

Eagle is extremely confident in his writing which comforts the reader as he walks you through steps to become an IDA Pro wizard. The author uses technical terms proficiently throughout the book, but he takes good care to explain any new or unfamiliar terms to reader.

The more advanced sections of the book cover everything from Scripting in IDA with Python to Virtual Machine based obfuscation. Even IDA Pro experts must have a copy on their shelf.

In the first appendix Eagle reminds us that Hex-Rays,the company managing the IDA project, has released an older less sophisticated version of IDA as freeware(V5.0). With many versions of the software out there some users may be skeptical about whether or not this book will fulfill their needs, and how long will it be relevant? This is the book you are looking for, and even with the ever changing software releases Eagle has written in such a way that the book will be extremely relevant for a good time to come.

printf(“Happy Coding!”);

Scott J. Krieder
Small Town Geeks
scott@smalltowngeeks.net

http://smalltowngeeks.net/

iPhone 4s

We all knew it was coming. We didn’t know the name eg. (iPhone 4s or iPhone 5) but we knew that it would be here soon.

Let’s take a quick look at the major enhancements of the iPhone 4s over the iPhone 4.

• Siri personal assistant (watch the demo)
• 8mp still camera with additional lens and expanded aperture
• Shoots 1080p video
• Ships with iOS 5
• Pricing: 16GB @ $199.99, 32GB @ 299.99 and 64GB @ $399.99

EFF Opposition to Congress’ Criminal Streaming Bill

If you have a couple extra bucks, also consider donating to the EFF. They do a wonderful job protecting your electronic rights.

Usually when sites come up they have the “XP” look to them because they are targeting Windows. This however looks very legit. You can see the familiar finder look on the left side where it is finding all of the infections. You can also see where it opened the download box to download the “Apple Security Center”. I downloaded the the software (knowing it was a virus but I wanted to test it out) to see if it was like popups in the passed where it would download an “.exe” or an “.msi” but it was indeed a package.

I will have to give them credit, the software looks legit. The software even includes Growl notifications and a shield that tells you that it is scanning.

I have a feeling that many people will fall for this scareware and give this company lots of money. I will say that it was however really easy to get rid of the Virus unlike the many Windows machines that I worked on in the Geeksquad. Please inform your users and your friends of this recent outbreak so you don’t end up doing cleanup on their machines.

Until next time.

Carpe Noctum

TJ

The MySQL preferences pane clearly shows you that the MySQL server is stopped.

You start the server.

You are prompted for your password and nothing happens. So you start the server again….nothing

Still nothing…Not to worry. Fire up the terminal and enter the command:

Press control + z and you are set to go.

Happy Coding,
Scott Krieder

http://smalltowngeeks.net

http://scottkrieder.com

A little back history on this subject, like a lot of people I have multiple  Gmail accounts that I actively use, my personal, my work (K12) and my college account. Up until now I have had to log out of one to login to the other which becomes a pain. Up until this point I had no idea you could stay signed into multiple accounts. Not to mention its easy to setup.

To get started login to your Google account here.

Next click on the “sprocket” link at the top of the browser, and click on “Account settings”:

Click on the “Edit” button under Multiple sign-in section:

Check the “On” button and check all of the boxes. When your done click save.

You may now have to logout of all of your accounts and log back in. Now at the top of your gmail account click on your name. You will now see options to add your other Google Docs accounts.

This has already saved me so much time just by being able to click on my name and switch to my other account. My gmail and gdocs switch instantly.

*Originally appeared on my personal blog: tjhouston.com

Thanks!

TJ

http://www.audible.com/t1/amazon?source_code=AMZGC903CWS040111

So now that Apple has delivered on the camera what improvements can they make in a future version? They can improve the existing hardware but without any groundbreaking features current users will not run out to purchase the latest version.

I believe that in the next couple of weeks the general public will have purchased their new iPads and found all of the bugs and only then will we be able to see what features the new iPad will need. But will that allow enough time for Apple to integrate such features? They have to already be actively working on the iPad 3 and beyond. Only time will tell.

Major technical specs include a:
1GHz A5 cpu
Forward facing camera for Facetime.
Backward facing camera capable of recording HD(720p) content at 30 frames/second.

Unlike the original iPad launch, the iPad 2 will be available on both Apple iPhone carriers AT&T and Verizon. Apple brought the iPad to Verizon last year after it’s debut with AT&T.

The iPad 2 ships March 11.