Reality Bytes » IT

Visual Studio 2010, Released!

jesh — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:35:26 +0000

Microsoft just announced the release of a new member of their development series. Behold, the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010! The latest Visual Studio release integrated with the latest .NET 4.0 Framework and the latest version of Silverlight.

VS 2010 introduces various edition variants to fit developers’ needs.

Features for these respective editions are quite many to mention so I provided links of these editions’ respective profile and overview. :)

Express edition for 2010 is also available for free.

Visual Basic 2010 Express
Visual C# 2010 Express
Visual C++ 2010 Express
Visual Web Developer 2010 Express
Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP

These express edition applications are available for download in this link. Microsoft also offers a free trial of MS VS 2010 Professional. You can also check out this link for more information. :)

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The package has arrived! :)

jesh — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:51:15 +0000

Finally, after many weeks of waiting, my Windows 7 upgrade order finally arrived! *yey!* But still, I was dissapointed of how the shipping process turned out. It took almost a month instead of the promised 9-12 days. whew! There were a lot of inactivity going on until I thought of receiving my order was already impossible. The whole delivery process really had a lot of customers getting frustrated with how their processing turned out. I hope Mentor Media would be able to resolve those issues with some other customers who have not yet received their orders. :)

Now that I finally have a genuine Windows 7 installed into my system, it’s working above satisfactory so far. It is less resource hungry than that of my previous system. There were a lot of improvements especially in running Lenovo applications and drivers. Sound and video also improved. My Windows 7 experience is so far, so good. I just hope I don’t run into problems in the future.

Philippine Election Automation-Sequel

jesh — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:14:46 +0000

Recently, I have just published a blog entry with regards to my views and opinion regarding the challenge being imposed on the new Election System. An automated system which is foreseen to be used for the 2010 Philippine National elections. I have also been reading some articles and doing some research related to the same hacking challenge that is being imposed to this so-called sturdy election system.

An article in SlashDot was recently published talking about Chinese hackers trying to infiltrate NYPD workstations. The article states that NYPD claims to log a total of 70,000 attempts per day. They seem unsuccessful but there attempts are endless. Whatever are their motives and intentions, this is still yet to be known.

Another source states that the Pentagon cyberspace was also infused by cyberspies (also been identified to be China-based hackers) stealing information and unveiling design details of the US’s F-35 air fighter. With this incident, the jet fighter’s electronic system design is now known to that attacker.

An extortionist was arrested after he was reported to be exploiting communication lines of two companies in the United States. However, with the FBI’s fast preventive actions, the extortionist was caught with the help of a Spyware that the FBI used to identify and track the exploiter’s activity over the internet.

Within the country, there was also another news that a company based in Makati, Philippines, had it’s computer network system infiltrated by one of their employees who had resigned some period prior to the hacking incident.

There are more incidents on cyberspace intrution and the like. All of which are either unique in intentions or unique in operations. This is not to discourage various sectors of the IT industry. Hence, this is a challenge of strengthening our plans of prevention and to provide the constancy of change. We will never know what motives may lie behind each and every attack. But as long as you obtain relevant and valuable information, you will always be a target.

IT Industry at a struggle

jesh — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:37:48 +0000

I was browsing over the newspaper just this morning when a very big headline struck my attention. Since the down fall of the economy for this past few weeks, months or so, this dilemma has finally got into the way of the IT industry.

Just this morning, I’ve read from the Inquirer that the Intel plant in the Philippines is closing. Moreover, the Philippine government fears that there might be a possible loss of 60,000 employments within the IT industry. I dug into some articles in the Inquirer’s website, and there I found more news in the arena where I’m in; Computer Technology and Information Technology. This does not only include the closure of one manufacturing plant of Intel in the Philippines, but also the cutting up of jobs in Microsoft and the freezing of Yahoo employee salaries. Moreover, Intel’s rival; AMD has also reduced their employee population and salary wages. Also, Accenture RP lays off some of their workers. By reading through this articles, the IT industry might be at critical state.

Some of these companies might state of good cause why they are reducing their employees. Some of them might be greatly affected by the current state of the economy.

C# Prank Program: Making use of PC Speaker and CD ROM Drive

jesh — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:42:11 +0000

I created this prank program (just for fun) and also at the same time, learn controlling hardware devices, through C#.NET. This program is quite simple; as soon as the program starts, your disc tray ejects and closes and the PC speaker beeps for a second, and this entire routine is executed endlessly. Of course, it ends if the application closes/exits.

For this program, you will need to import the following:

    using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
    using System.Text;

Next, insert this block of code inside your C# class and outside any method:

[DllImport("winmm.dll", EntryPoint = "mciSendStringA", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi)]
protected static extern int mciSendString(string lpstrCommand, StringBuilder lpstrReturnString, int uReturnLength, IntPtr hwndCallback);

[DllImport("KERNEL32.DLL", EntryPoint = "Beep")]
public static extern bool Beep(int tone, int length);

Lastly, key in this code in your Main() or any method that you wish to call to trigger the opening and closing of cd tray and beeping of the speaker:

while (true)
{
    int ret = mciSendString("set cdaudio door open", null, 0, IntPtr.Zero);
    Beep(1000, 1000);
    ret = mciSendString("set cdaudio door closed", null, 0, IntPtr.Zero);
    Beep(1000, 1000);
}

There you have it. Basically, the important part of this program is when you make the CD ROM drive open and close and the PC Speaker beep. You can use this minor code block in the second and last blockquotes to any program that you wish to make. I just made this tutorial fun and enjoying. Learning is best when it is fun. :)

A Simple Checklist Guide in Web and Application Development

Blogspot to Drupal

jesh — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:24:44 +0000

It was just a few months ago that I have decided to develop my own website. I decided to use Drupal for this to be able to exhaust Drupal’s full capability as a Content Management System. Since I already of an existing Domain Name and blog account in Blogspot (or Blogger), I wanted to migrate my blog entries from Blogspot to Drupal. So far, I haven’t found a direct and straightforward solution to this but I have discovered another way. This involves only a few clicks and soon enough you’ll just realize, the migration is complete. Also note that this is only applicable to Drupal version 5.x. Here are the things/installations that you will be needing:

A Blogger/Blogspot blog site (of course, where will get your data if you have none)
Drupal site (a local site will do)
WordPress blog account (this will be our bridge)
Some Drupal modules. All available at the Drupal Modules download section.

And here are the steps:

Prepare and setup your Drupal locally.
If you have an existing WordPress account (the free account will do), this has an import feature that allows you to migrate your Blogspot blog entries to WordPress.
After importing has completed and now that your Blogspot blogs are in your WordPress, you can proceed by exporting your WordPress blog entries (that was previously blogspot entires). Again, WordPress has another Export feature included for you to be able to do this. WordPress allows you to export your entries to an XML file.
Next, you need to download and install into your prepared Drupal site the WordPress Import Module. Go to your Drupal Adminstration section and select on the WordPress Import, select the exported XML file and proceed with the import. Click on your drupal blog section and there you have your Blogspot imported to Drupal.

I hope this tutorial is useful for you. This solution worked for me and I hope it would work for you too.

PhilNITS 10192008

jesh — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:20:42 +0000

Finally, it has all paid off. For months of mock exam failures and multiple times of repetitive reading of the PhilNITS Reviewer, my hard work has finally paid off. Now, I’m certified. Since college, I’ve taken the PhilNITS Certification Exam for two times and still failed. Now I’ve taken it with preparation and review and I finally passed. I was so happy seeing my name in the list of passers for our company and in the PhilNITS passers list. Right now, I’m still waiting for my certificate to arrive and have it framed *laughs*.

Next challenge: Pass PhilNITS SW! yipee!

PhilNITS Review Course **

jesh — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:05:00 +0000

PhilNITS* Foundation shall be hosting an FE Review Course for all IT professionals, teachers and students, to be conducted by the PhilNITS Society in their offices in Makati, Cebu and Davao. For Davao, this will be handled by a veteran Trainor/Lecturer of the PhilNITS Society, Mr. Aloysius L. Torres (with PhilNITS-FE Certificate No. 2003-0037).

The review courses are designed for beginners and/or experienced IT professionals who want to pass the PhilNITS FE exam. There are two tracks of the Review Courses to choose from.

For more information, please feel free to call Ms. Joy Alferez, Davao Office, at telephone no. 227-9448

Grab this opportunity and outwit IT Engineers and have the IT Advantage. Prove your competence and be certified with PhilNITS. See this ad for more details.

* – Exam sites and Foundation offices based at Makati, Cebu and Davao.
** – offer available in Davao City only

Linux hails and MAC goes down the drain in CanSecWest hacking contest

jesh — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:52:00 +0000

I was waiting for a work order at the office while I was browsing over some forum sites. It was just recently last March 26-28, 2008 that CanSecWest held its annual PWN2OWN contest. The name of the game is simple. Any registered attendee of CanSecWest 2008 can participate as a contestant. One contestant, one machine and hack at least one, if not, all machines running in different operating systems. You hack the machine, and you own the machine. Basically, you “pawn” and you “own”.

Here are the contest rules:

There are three target platforms all set and installed with typical client and user configurations. Once you are able to hack it, you get to keep it. These are the target:
- VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running with Linux Ubuntu 7.10
- Fujitsu U810 running with Vista Ultimate Edition SP1
- MacBook Air running in OSX 10.5.2
Each of these machines contains a special text file that holds the procedure in claiming another set of prize/s.
In the contest’s three-day duration. Target machines are set with higher security level. First day involves hacking only with the operating system. Then moving to the second and third day, more applications will be installed on these target machines to increase its potential security level.
The contest was not used to exploit the performance of these platforms in terms of security. This was just to guide the vendors and buyers by addressing the vulnerability of these platforms.

Throughout the whole duration of this contest and with over 400 participants, two (2) persons emerged to successfully pawn these machines with one laptop each. These are in the name of Shane McCauley and Charlie Miller winning the MacBook Air and Windows Vista respectively.

MacBook Air was hacked first in this contest with just two minutes upon the start of the contest. This was done by utilizing some loopholes that the hacker found within the Safari Web Browser. Every thing was set in the first day and was successfully hacked on the second minute of the second day after applying user interaction with an email opened in Safari.

Second hacked was the Vista Ultimate Edition SP1. It was in some hours after the start of the second day when Vista’s system was successfully dominated. It was through the Java software installed in the system. It was some in flaw of the Java-Windows combination that allowed this attack to succeed.

And the last man or the last “system” standing was the Linux System having been surviving multiple attacks from 400 hackers. There were some bugs found in the Ubuntu Linux operating system but the attendees did not want to work in making the exploit code for such bug.

With this, I leave you with your own critiques in lieu with these operating system platforms. It might impress or it might depress.

More detailed information can be found on these links:
http://cansecwest.com/post/2008-03-20.21:33:00.CanSecWest_PWN2OWN_2008
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=393788#393788
http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/08/03/28/0126221.shtml

PGO is looking for layout artists!

jesh — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:51:00 +0000

Philippine Global Outsourcing, formerly IDS Media, is in need of layout artists and web developers. Capture humanity in human resource. Be one of the best layout artists and developers with Philippine Global Outsourcing. To know more about Philippine Global Outsourcing, you can visit their official website at www.philippineglobaloutsourcing.com.

Note: *This demand is available only within Davao City.