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While Ubuntu is still my Linux flavor of choice, I like using different distributions as well, and OpenSUSE is my second favorite and I think it gives me the best KDE experience. However, I was trying to install the Heimdall suite and unfortunately only .deb packages were available. So after some quick research I found alien. A command-line tool that tries to convert deb packages along with dependencies to a fully functional rpm format. While its not guaranteed to work on all packages, it worked just fine on Heimdall and a coupe of other .deb packages I tested it on.

alien -r deb_package.deb --scripts

Cool stuff!

Sony has been going through some rough times lately. Their support of SOPA didnt exactly do the company any favors. However, Sony has now gotten the idea that they want to compete with Spotify and other similar services by launching their own, called Sony Music Unlimited. 

While I generally agree that competition is a good thing, I just have the urge to express my opinion on this.

Read on for more..

Read more: Sony Music Unlimited. Why its a fail

My latest development project has finally reached the point of no return. Global Military Ranks has now been published to the Android Market and is ready for your enjoyment. A free version is also available. 

Browse ranks from numerous countries around the world with more being added. Currently featuring the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway and Russia with more than 14 additional countries being implemented depending on demand. Each rank is labeled with its corresponding NATO rank code or other equivalent. All branches and ranks have their associated insignias as well.

Test your knowledge with the quiz mode and see how many points you can get. Hidden easter eggs await those who master memorizing the ranks!

Read up more on the appsite and be sure to check it out on the Android Market as well. 

Let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Sadly, Im a bit late this year, but better late than never, right? 

I hope everyone of you is having a lovely holiday and enjoying it with friends and family. Thank you for keep checking the site even in times when there is little to nothing going on. I will try to be better, I promise! :)

Anyways, again, have a very awesome xmas and a happy new year!

Kind regards,

E

I recently came across a tookit from Microsoft called EMET, Enhanced Mitigation Experience toolkit. I had never heard of it before but after reading it and trying it out for myself on a couple of systems I must say that I am clueless as to why its not included with Windows by default now. 

Basically what it enables you to do is set system wide policies for DEP, ASLR and SEHOP. Meaning instead of applications opting in, you can set it to opt out (or with DEP you can also enable "always on"). Furthermore you can configure the security policy for each individual application. It works well and in theory at least adds a very significant layer of security. I wont dive into details but my impression is that it works really well and that exploits will have a very hard time bypassing EMET unless specifically crafted to do so. As far as Ive been able to tell, this has never been achieved, thanks in large to the EAF filtering and the fancy new "Bottom-Up Rand" mitigation Microsoft has so cleverly come up with.

I must say that EMET goes in line with a select few other pieces of Microsoft developed software that is simply amazing yet hardly advertised. WinDBG and the Sysinternals toolkit are other examples.

So I strongly recommend you give EMET a go!

Although I tend to be quite the Android fanatic, there is one area Ive always felt has been neglected a bit by developers. The responsiveness of the graphical user interface. Many think it its an Android specific issue and that Android has always been inferior to iOS and now also Windows Phone 7 in this matter.

Even after Android received support for full graphics hardware acceleration in Honeycomb (3.0), it is still failing to reach up to the competitors. 

Andrew Munn, a former Android team intern tries to shed some light on the matter. While he does have some valid points on why an Android device, no matter how powerful, feels less responsive and smooth than an iPhone or Windows Phone 7 device, he is in my opinion missing the point. Unfortunately, this lag issue in Android wont change in quite some time, but I dont think its for the reasons Andrew Munn describe.

Read the full post here then read on for my personal commentary

Read more: Why the Android graphics lag behind