"Not A Blog" by Jay Beale

Changing from DHCP to Static Address and Back on Windows

Aug 17, 2009

One of the other co-Founders of InGuardians, Ed Skoudis, has always been a master of the Windows command line. Before you Unix and Linux people turn up your nose, you should know that he's also amazing on Linux/Unix. Ed has an excellent blog, Command Line Kung Fu, that he collaborates on with Hal Pomeranz, of Deer Run Associates and SANS and Paul Asadoorian of Pauldotcom.

Ed's latest post contains a tip that has proven very useful. It's called Fishing for Network Configs and it shows you how to reconfigure a network interface from DHCP to a static IP and back again from the command line. For anyone testing code, writing networking scripts, or just wishing they didn't have to click through so many menus to change an IP address, this is a total lifesaver.

Enjoy the article and Ed, Hal and Paul's great blog!

Rediscovering the SANS Reading Room

Aug 17, 2009

The SANS Reading Room is like a hidden treasure of security community whitepapers, all written by applicants for their GIAC certifications. It's incredibly useful.

Applications that Really Make the iPhone an Ultramobile Computing Platform

Aug 16, 2009
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It seems that the iPhone and iPod Touch's strongest innovation isn't in the far better design/user interface than previous pocket computers. Instead, it appears to be developing an easy, accessible, distribution channel (in the App Store), instruction (in the videos that teach you how to develop for the platform), and even the libraries, which make it far easier to create highly-functional applications. As developers create more applications, the temptation to "jailbreak" the phone has to be rapidly decreasing for techies and non-techies alike.

This will mention an application regularly that make the iPhone or iPod Touch a particularly useful tool. Here are the first two:

MobileAirMouse - makes your iPhone into a gyroscopic air mouse (great for presentations) or a multitouch trackpad, both with a keyboard and a number of "function" buttons, like play/pause. Uses a server on your Mac or Win PC. Some people use this to add a pinch/zoom trackpad to their machine. $2.99 for the Pro version.

InstaPaper - lets you save articles from your computer's browser to be automatically cached on your iPhone, simply by clicking a Javascript bookmark. Amazing for travelers who want to have something to read on the plane. Free.