Archives
-
Obfuscation - Making Reverse Engineering Harder
In a previous article I have demonstrated how easy it is to decompile and reverse engineer .NET assemblies using Reflector and Reflexil. I've also shown that applying a strong name to your assembly does not protect your code from reverse engineering. So, what else is left?
-
Party Game Guitar Hero for PC
Ever heard of the very popular game for the PlayStation 2, called Guitar Hero? Until recently, I only vaguely picked it up here and there, but not being a big PlayStation gamer, I never payed much attention. That is, until today. A friend of mine gave me a link to Frets On Fire, which claims to be the PC variant of Guitar Hero. Seeing it was free, I downloaded it and gave it a try, and I have to admit, it's addictive!
-
Efficient Compound Index Usage
Today I was made aware by Filip, a colleague of mine, about the importance of columns used in a where clause with a compound index. I decided to investigate this a bit more in detail, with proper profiling and comparisons on a large data set.
-
String Concatenation vs Memory Allocation
Over the years, plenty has been written about string performance, lots of comparisons between String.Concat and StringBuilder. Today I decided to do some of my own research into the subject and contribute to the knowledge already out there. More specifically, I'll be taking a look at the memory usage for various concatenation methods and compiler optimizations used to generate the IL.
-
Code Signing as Reverse Engineering Protection
In my last post I spoke about reverse engineering .NET assemblies upon which Gregory asked how to protect his code against it.
-
Reverse Engineering with Reflector and Reflexil
I've always been a big fan of Reflector, allowing me to have a look in assemblies to learn new things, debug in case of problems and provide usefull information when creating bug reports. Combined with the Reflexil Add-in it's now easy to also modify assemblies yourself.
-
Open-Source Disk Encryption
Are you concerned about the confidentiality of your files? Take a look at TrueCrypt, a great tool to create encrypted volumes.
-
Temporary Break - Request for Subjects
After 21 days of posting something daily, I need a little break, for several reasons:
-
Booting for Lazy People - Wake On LAN
Wake Up!
-
Explorer Bug, Long Path, damaged directories
Long ago, I found something strange in Windows Explorer, which I wanted to retry on Vista today.
-
The Selfish Side of Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking, one of the Web 2.0 hypes, allows you to share links with each other. This great video from Common Craft very clearly explains what social bookmarking is all about. While this is very useful, there’s also a selfish advantage to it.
-
Using PowerShell, Writing and Debugging Cmdlets
The prompt is dead, long live the prompt! That's the feeling PowerShell should give you, the new command line shell from Microsoft. Today, I'll try to determine exactly what the Power part in PowerShell stands for.
-
Daemon Tools - The Disk Image Emulator
Ever wanted to install something but couldn't be bothered to burn it to a disc first? Like the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 discs for example. Daemon Tools is the answer!
-
Writing an Outlook Add-in
Yesterday I talked about personalizing Outlook Today to make it look more sexy. One of the things I had on my Outlook Today, was my picture with a direct link to my contact details. To get this link, I wrote a small Outlook Add-in to give me the exact name.
-
Personalizing Outlook Today
Do you find Outlook Today too boring? I do! Let's have a look at how we can transform it into something more visually appealing, something like this: (click the image for a full view)
-
Free TV Guide - GUIDE+
Recently, I bought a new DVD player/recorder with an internal hard disk. One of the nice features I discovered when playing with it is a free tv guide! GUIDE+ shows me all programs on the major television channels in my region and allows me to easily select them for recording with one press of a button.
-
Different Actions - Same Result
Long ago, I had a chat with someone about the fact that there are too many different ways in Photoshop to do the same thing. He believed this was a bad thing, while I didn’t find anything wrong with it. Having thought about this afterwards, I have formed my opinion about it, with arguments.
-
Boxing/Unboxing In .NET
In the .NET Framework there is a feature called boxing, which goes hand in hand with unboxing. Boxing is an implicit conversion of a value-type to the object type. While this is a very nice feature when programming normal applications, this overhead becomes a big performance hit when working with algorithms that need to do lots of operations, such as path finding.
-
The Bits & Bytes Religion
Time for some Monday morning fun... These days we got so many religions, why not add another one? I give you the Bits & Bytes Religion!
-
Sync FLAC Library with iPod
Yesterday I explained how you could manage your iPod through Windows Explorer. Having this ability opens up more powerful ways of managing your iPod. One of these ways for example is the ability to automatically sync your master archive stored on your computer, with your iPod.
-
Manage iPod through Windows Explorer
Do you own an iPod? Are you tired of using iTunes? If you answered positive to both questions, read on! This article describes how you can manage your iPod through Windows Explorer.
-
Listen to High Quality Music
You’re an audiophile, and you wish to listen to music in the highest possible quality, but on the other hand, you don’t have that much disk space at your disposal to store everything as wave files. What are you to do?
-
Visual Studio 2008 and PHP Coloring
Long ago, I write a post about Visual Studio.NET and PHP Coloring. Today I'm revisting the approach for Visual Studio 2008, with screenshots, updated keyword files and ready to use registry files.
-
allTunes/Mp3Sparks/AllOfMp3 Business model
Everyone knows them, the controversial Russian-based online music store.
This won't be another post questioning the legality of the company, there are plenty of those around. What I do want to have a look at however, is it's technological business model and compare it to the mainstream alternative. -
Moved Site - United Domain
After 3 years of blogging on weblogs.asp.net, I've taken the big decision of moving out.
In the very beginning, I was honored to be able to blog here, but as years went by and blogging became more and more mainstream, I feel the urge to write under my own domain.
I'm convinced this has several benefits. First of all, I have total control of the look and feel of the site, without having to hack too much around. I can easily make a change whenever I want to. The other benefit is more a matter of credibility. It's possible to get credibility from content and actions, but a feeling of professionalism and maturity is also important. And that's exactly what I hope to achieve by writing under my own domain.
I'll be moving some of the content over the next few days, some nice gems collected over the years. After that, it'll be all fresh new subjects! I don't think I'll be getting that much of traffic in the beginning, but I aim to increase it over time when more and more quality content gets added. And with a bit of luck, some links to it ;)
Together with the move, I switched to a new design, inspired by Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror and the Fluid Solution template from Arcsin. I modified it to include Technorati and Digg links, switched the style from 3-columns to 2-columns, moved the navigation over, added nice titles and some minor design changes.
Thanks to old readers who follow me, and to all new readers! Be sure to add blog.cumps.be to your favorites! -
Searching inside SQL Files
This post has been moved to http://blog.cumps.be/search-file-contents/
-
WebDD 2007 Is Over
Hello there!
-
Visiting WebDD - Reading
Today I got a letter from Microsoft UK personally confirming my registration for the WebDD event for next weekend.