Simo’s Sagacity

Like many people I upgraded my iPod Touch to iOS4… In general it
works well and the new folders feature is brilliant… I am not so
keen on the multitasking and that isn’t Apple’s fault, I have an
Android phone and I don’t like the multitasking on that either… The
most used apps on my phone and my iPod Touch are their task managers
to kill off the running apps… Anyway I digress…

Since my iPod Touch has the same processor as the iPhone 3GS, iOS 4 is
quite quick and I don’t see any lags or delays that older iPod Touch
users can see… But one thing that was bad was the battery life… I
say “was” as I have now found a solution!

During the first night after my iPod Touch had iOS 4 installed, the
battery went flat while it was in “sleep” mode. The next night I made
sure that there were no back ground tasks running, but again the same
thing. In the end I stumbled upon using airplane mode to silence the
network activity and wow, the battery didn’t go flat. Now I could use
it as an iPod and a games device without the battery going flat, but
it was pain to have to keep flipping in and out of airplane mode all
the time.

Finally I came across some instructions which finally tamed by iPod
Touch and let me leave airplane mode off without worrying about my
battery.

The trick is to make sure that there is no background network access.
To do this you need to turn off Notifications, Fetch New Data (for
email) and New Invitation Alerts (for Calendars):

Settings -> Notifications = Off

Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data -> Push = Off

Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Calendars -> New Invitation
Alerts = Off

In fact the first two where switched off already, but that third one
caught me, I didn’t realize that this little “New Invitation Alerts”
setting could flatten my battery so quick.

So there you have it, now my battery life is better. I still have a
sneaky feeling that the game, video and Internet usage is down but I
need to double yet that with some real numbers!

We are very pleased to announce the release of  version 1.1 of SundayWorship.

This release adds two major features to SundayWorship.

   * Support for running Microsoft PowerPoint presentations from SundayWorship
   * The ability to import songs from EasiSlides.

You can download the latest version from here.

I have started working on an idea I had for a multi-node (cluster
aware) ESMTP server. I have decided to write it using Google’s Go
language (for reasons which aren’t absolutely clear at the moment).

Designed from the ground up to work as a cluster, each node keeps an
index of the available messages by using hashes which are distribute
throughout the cluster.

If a message is requested (over POP3 only at the moment, no IMAP4)
that is not available on the local node, a request is sent to the node
with the original message for transmission to the POP3 client.

There is also a rudimentary level of replication and caching for
redundancy and to minimize the inter-node traffic.

NOTE: Goesmtp is EXPERIMENTAL and is not yet ready for beta testing or
for production deployment.

The initial source code has been uploaded…

The project can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/goesmtp/

For further updates please follow the GoESMTP development blog here:
http://goesmtp.posterous.com/

McGrew Security have published a review comparing the Live Hackign CD
with Backtrak4:
http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/2010/05/10/live-hacking-cd-vs-backtrack-4/#comm…
. Although the review is generally well balanced, I want to add a few
comments:

1) Competition is good for everyone, the LHCD has only just come out
of beta and is relatively young, where as BT has been around much
longer. The LHCD team are looking to release more versions in the
future and they are all looking for people who would like to
contribute to make the LHCD better.

2) As you quite rightly say “they are two very different beasts” and
they are… The LHCD is designed as a first step into the world of
information security. It is an area that many IT professionals and
managers neglect. The LHCD (and its accompanying book and workshops)
are designed to make people more aware of the need for information
security training and knowledge. A distro like BT can appear to be big
and daunting and so discourage those who want to learn more and start
looking at the basic tools and techniques.

3) Dantevios’ comment “Thank you for sparing me from these knock offs”
is a bit unfair. The LHCD is not a knock-off in any sense, it has been
built from scratch and doesn’t try to imitate or copy BT4 is anyway…
It is a new, young and vibrant distro built as an introduction to
ethical hacking… How can that be a knock off?

The Live Hacking Mini CD is a new small Linux distribution designed
for ethical computer hacking. Based on its bigger brother (the Live
Hacking CD) this mini distribution contains the tools and utilities
you need to test and hack your own network by using the tools and
techniques employed by more malicious hackers.

The Live Hacking Mini CD is a ‘Live CD’ meaning that it runs directly
from the CD and doesn’t need installing on your hard-drive. Once
booted you can use the included utilities to perform penetration tests
and ethically hack on your own network to ensure that it is secure
from outside intruders.

To reduce this Linux distribution to a smaller size, the GNOME user
interface has been removed, meaning that this is a command-line only
distribution. However this doesn’t detract from the power of the tools
and utilities included as most of the penetration testing and ethical
hacking tools are command line tools. As well as the standard Linux
networking tools the Live Hacking Mini CD has tools for DNS
enumeration and reconnaissance as well as utilities for foot-printing,
password cracking and network sniffing. It also has programs for
spoofing and a set of wireless networking utilities. Once booted
checkout the /lh directory to see the tools included.

You can download it from http://www.livehacking.com

Sunday Worship V1.0 has been released. The SundayWorship.net software is designed to easily display songs, scriptures and multimedia for use during your church meetings. By using a laptop or computer with two video outputs, a single computer can control a projector and its normal monitor at the same time.

The normal monitor shows the SundayWorship.net software which allows songs, scriptures and multimedia files to be selected, previewed and queued for displaying on the projector.

The congregation see what they need to ease worship while the operator can prepare for what is coming next.

Fred Brooks the author of the legendary The Mythical Man-Month book
has just released a new book The Design of Design. I’ve managed to get
my hands on a review copy and here is what I thought about it:
http://www.gaj-it.com/17304/from-music-to-gadget-are-the-principles-of-design…

This is a FREE version of Nova Ball the space/sci-fi accelerometer
game. In the game you control the ball by holding your device parallel
to the floor and tilting.

The full game has three modes: arcade, mayhem and missions. In arcade
mode you need to see how fast you clear each level. Mayhem is all
about survival; stop the stars reaching critical mass. In mission mode
you have to clear each level to progress to the next.

Arcade: This mode is all about speed. Collect the stars to clear the
level. The race is against the clock!

Mayhem: Stop the stars reaching critical mass when the star coverage
reaches 75% then critical mass will be reached. Not good! On the first
level you need to survive for 75 seconds and then with each level you
need last 5 seconds longer, e.g. 80 seconds for the 2nd level, 85 for
the 3rd and so on. (Note: Mayhem mode is not available in the free
version).

Mission: Clear each level to progress further and further. The full
game has 50 fun levels to play through.

Differences between the FREE and FULL versions:

– Mayhem mode has been disabled.
– There are only 6 missions to play rather than the full 50.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/nova-ball-free/id357822431?mt=8

My first (and maybe last) game for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad is
available in App Store: http://bit.ly/c13q7F

Nova Ball is a space/sci-fi accelerometer game. In the game you
control the ball by holding your device parallel to the floor and
tilting.

The game has three modes: arcade, mayhem and missions. In arcade mode
you need to see how fast you clear each level. Mayhem is all about
survival; stop the stars reaching critical mass. In mission mode you
have to clear each level to progress to the next.

I will be updating my iPhone App (http://iphone.garysims.co.uk) soon…

I have been working as part of a team with Dr. Ali Jahangiri to make an ethical hacking Linux distribution…

The Live Hacking CD is a new Linux distribution packed with tools and utilities for ethical computer hacking, penetration testing and countermeasure verification. Based on Ubuntu this ‘Live CD” runs directly from the a CD and doesn’t require installation on your hard-drive. Once booted you can use the included tools to test, check and ethically hack your own network to make sure that it is secure from outside intruders.

The CD includes hacking tools for DNS, reconnaissance, foot-printing (gathering information about computers on the network), password cracking, network sniffing, spoofing (or masquerading) and wireless networking utilities.

The response so far has been great with over 380 downloads in just 4 days… You can get hold of a copy at http://www.livehacking.com