Recently, I’ve decided I need to commit some time to application development and, given the amount of free resources for an in-demand platform (Android), I figured I’d get started.  Of course, my affinity for free and/or open source means I’m running apps on a Linux box, specifically, Ubuntu.  (More recently Xubuntu as the romance between GNOME and I has long since faded)

Creating virtual devices with the Android Virtual Device Manager (AVD) to debug an application is fairly simple, however, debugging on an actual device gives you a real test of how the app will behave across specific phones or tablets. Read more

A hacker using the alias, ComodoHacker, recently compromised the integrity of a Dutch certificate authority, DigiNotar, by accessing private servers wherein he was able to generate and post online fraudulent digital certificates.  ComodoHacker has also taken responsibility for several other similar attacks earlier this year and has claimed to have breached GlobalSign as well as four other CA’s he’s refused to name.  Read more

Recently, I had the opportunity to swap out some parts between two busted phones and wanted to provide this tutorial.  In this semi-quick tutorial, you’ll strip down a Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S (SPH-D700). Read more

So, having recently started building my gaming rig, I’ve felt an overwhelming urge to get nostalgic and find games missing from my library.  (It’s only about 5 games but you tell me how small a library can be.)  My search for a stable, well supported solution led me to Mupen64Plus, a cross platform N64 emulator.

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According to a recent analysis by Avast! Labs, roughly half of their client base is running un-patched, outdated versions of Adobe Reader.  What is greatest cause for alarm is that many of the exploits are actually part of the PDF standard and, as a consequence, using a different PDF reader may not always help!

The vulnerability in the PDF standard also means that virtually any platform can potentially be compromised: Windows, OS X, Linux, even Android devices.  Despite Adobe and other firms attempts to fix and release patches as quickly as possible, there have been 45 reported exploits in Adobe Reader since February of this year alone! Read more

If you play games online (I don’t mean Farmville), or use Skype, or need to access your computer remotely, you’ll have to setup port forwarding on your wireless router.  Of course, I am assuming you aren’t reading this from a computer directly connected to the internet considering the rather ubiquitous nature of wireless devices these days.

What are ports?

Ports are used to specify a process or application for which a transmission is destined, indicated in the TCP/UDP header.  The port is, quite literally, a number; a 16-bit integer, ranging from 0 to 65535.  Within that range there are three categories: Read more

If you’re following me on Twitter, you might have already caught Derek Newton’s post concerning the authentication method Dropbox uses to sync files across all your devices.  If not, here’s the breakdown:

The issue revolves around Dropbox’s use of an SQLite database which contains the information such as where the root sync folder is on your system, the email address associated with the account, but more importantly, the host_id.  Read more