Category Computing

Shellcodes, explained.

Many friends often ask me 'What are buffer overflows?' or 'What is an exploit' and often they are people with some programming experience but little or no understanding of lower level programming. I usually describe the process in simple terms and if someone wants more info I refer them to a good book or an online tutorial. This article is a very good short introduction for someone quasi-knowledgeable in C and/or some x86 asm with a casual interest in security.

The day-after Apple woes.

In 2001, they touted Titanium. They Failed. Then they turned to anodised aluminium. They Failed once again. It's been slightly more than a day since the Macbook came out. It seems that it flakes. They probably failed again...Where did that QA dept. go? In other news, OS X is no longer Open Source at any level [1] as Apple removed the source for the Intel version of the OS. Very sad. Back in 2002 they were advertising its 'Openness':

Open at the Source

The Darwin project coordinates contributions from thousands of programmers in the open source community. Through the open source model, Apple engineers and the open source community collaborate to create a better, faster and more reliable foundation for Mac OS X.

I guess all that rhetoric just joined the QA dept. :)

Smart vectors.

A somewhat interesting flash exhibition of computer art.

Some more on Biofuels.

Just days after my article on Petroleum I found a Google Techtalk by Vinod Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and a renowned venture capitalist, who talks on the matter. I am embedding the video from his talk below. Click on the ‘play’ button to view it or go to the respective Google […]

Will Wright on the Computer History Museum (Google Video)

The man behind the SimCity and the Sims series of games, some of the world's most successful and original games of all time, speaks about game design, invoking the user imagination, modelling, and his own approach to gaming. Fascinating.

Computer History Museum on Google Video

I’ve written before about academic/technical/educational video content online, (MURL, Google Techtalks). Here’s some more. There are several interesting lectures by prominent figures from the industry, academia and research in a series of videos by the Computer History Museum available on Google Video. Some are more technical than others, but many cover well-known products, technologies and […]

ADSL2+

This is a rant. Τον περασμένο Νοέμβριο, αν δε με απατά η μνήμη μου, ένας φίλος με κάλεσε σε μια εκδήλωση της Hellas On Line, ενός από τους μικρούς-αλλά-γνωστούς ISPs της Ελλάδος. Η εκδήλωση λίγο πολύ αφορούσε σε νέα προϊόντα της εν λόγω εταιρίας, με στόχο κυρίως επιχειρήσεις, όπως τηλεδιάσκεψη, ευρυζωνικότητα με QoS κλπ. Έκείνη […]

Net neutrality at risk.

Or "How the Markey Amendment got Shot Down by Congress". More e-patent-type barriers to entry for innovative startups. Also, read some more here and here.

DMCA 2.0

Freedom, Rights, Privacy: Going, going, gone.