Jonsdocs

BIOS passwords - do we still need them?

BIOS passwords - do we still need them?

BIOS passwords - to set or not to set, that is the question.

Screenshot of the top of the convert books window, with many options in drop down menus and text boxes.

Fixing the problem of slow page turns on Kobo (ePub)

Importing ePub files to your Kobo can result in slow page turns. This how to explains how to fix the problem by converting the book to KePub.

Cropped photo showing part of a laptop screen and part of its keyboard. The laptop is on.

Review: Framework 16 laptop - after four weeks

After four weeks with my Framework 16, how am I finding it?

Cropped photograph of the laptop internals.

Framework 16 Laptop - an introduction & building

Unboxing and building my new laptop from Framework.

Cartoon of a long brown haired person sat in front of two monitors.

An insight into my role as a SISO - part three

Looking more into my day job, considering the software development life cycle, customer relationships, and staying up to date.

Cartoon of a long brown haired person sat in front of two monitors.

An insight into my role as a SISO - part two

Continuing a tour into my day job by looking at incident response and investigations.

Cartoon of a long brown haired person sat in front of two monitors.

An insight into my role as a SISO - part one

My job can vary hugely day to day, as a lot of what I do is reactive. Sometimes I get asked what I do, so I've tried to pick a number of activities from my role and collated them into this post. What's a SISO? SISO stands for Senior Information

Screenshot of a configuration utility. The main colour is a black / brown with pale pink. A picture of a keyboard is shown.

Review: Keychron K8 Pro (part 2)

Continuing from part one, where I talk about the keyboard's build and overall feel, in this post I'm going to cover how to program the keyboard, along with how it compares to my WASDv3 and how I've found the keyboard after over two months of on / off usage. Usual disclaimer:

Screenshot showing three icons, one for "PROA MS Videx" and the other two for database files.

Authentication flaws and responsible disclosure

When I worked for the local council it was part of my job to review software and systems that were going to be installed or implemented. On one occasion that led me to review a door entry system that was being offered as part of a tender, and I found

Screenshot from VirusTotal with a honeypot cartoon over the top.

Revisiting SSH honeypots (2022)

A write up of my 2022 honeypot research.

A slanted piece of white paper with check boxes and a list, with a gold padlock over the top.

Security questionnaires

Security questionnaires seem to be never-ending, and present a number of challenges. Here's my experience, along with some tips.

Photograph of the assembled Keychron K8 pro with the UK Windows key setup. The colours are predominantly a dark blue/grey.

Review: Keychron K8 Pro (part 1)

I recently bought a Keychron K8 Pro, and here's what I think so far.

Photograph of a man holding a tablet with eVitabu and APF logos on it. Africa is shown in the background,

eVitabu dev week

eVitabu dev week, January 2024

A summary of the development progress made in January 2024's dev week.

Photograph of two black earbuds in their storage case.

Review: Soundcore by Anker A3i earbuds

My original earbuds broke, so I replaced them with a set of these.

White text on a black background. There is red text on a yellow background saying "password found"

Using Microsoft Co-pilot to help retrieve a password

After forgetting a password that I needed, but being certain I remembered bits of it, I turned to Microsoft Co-pilot to help me write a script to brute force the password.

The number 31 on an upturned page as part of a tear away calendar.

2023 in review

A look at how my 2023 went.

Line art drawing of a man wearing a shirt and tie, sat at an open book, with a shelf of books behind him.

CPE / CPD tips

Tips on how to develop your knowledge and collect those important CPE credits.

"Cecil build" requires intl support

✅ This is a quick post to just address a single issue. If when doing cecil build you get the following error: [ERROR] The Symfony\Component\Intl\Locale\Locale::setDefault() is not implemented. Please install the "intl" extension for full localization capabilities. You're missing a PHP extension that Cecil needs. Solution

Photograph of the Q30 earphones, packed away, cropped to only show the ear pieces.

Review: Soundcore by Anker Life Q30 headphones

After two years of use, I figured I'd review these.

The word "why" in capitals, with a blue gradient getting darkest on "y". An orange question mark.

Why did it happen?

Sometimes you just have to get to the root cause of the issue...

3d text saying "H F CON".The "F" is lying down.There is a pale yellow background with mauve & white shapes at the borders.

Human Firewall Conference

Human Firewall Conference 2023

A summary of my notes from the SoSafe Human Firewall conference, November 2023.

Cartoon image of an orange rucksack labelled "Go Bag", with bottled water, a food packet, and a torch.

Thought exercise: Making a go bag

Disclaimer: This is a thought exercise, not advice!

"ISC2 Spotlight" written in white on a green background, with "secure software development" in blue on a white background.

ISC2 Secure Software Development

ISC2 Spotlight: Secure Software Development conference - day two

Yesterday's conference sessions were interesting (you can read about them here), and today is the last day of the conference. Today's agenda: * Secure by Design: CISA's Plan to Foster Tech Ecosystem Security * SigStore to Secure the Code Supply Chain * What You Need to Know About the EU Cyber Resilience Act

"ISC2 Spotlight" written in white on a green background, with "secure software development" in blue on a white background.

ISC2 Secure Software Development

ISC2 Spotlight: Secure Software Development conference - day one

ISC2 (formerly (ISC)²) ran an online only "spotlight" (conference) on secure software development this week on the 8th and 9th of November. As this directly aligned to my work's industry (I work for a software development company), I took the time to attend this. ISC2 members were able to attend

A login prompt requesting a username and password. There is an orange alert triangle to the left of the text boxes.

Single sign on: why it's good for account management

Single Sign On (SSO) is a mechanism for authenticating to separate systems using a single identity (you can read the Wikipedia article & definition here). Ever seen the "login with Facebook" or "Sign in with Apple" type buttons on websites? That's SSO at work. In this post I'm going to cover