Gray Hat Python for Windows

In my career, Python was the first programming language that I have learned. I then learned programming in Java and C++. I looked back to Python for it's simplicity and versatility. That is why I decided to pick up Gray Hat Python for Windows to learn what Python can do in hacking and reverse engineering since that is something I am interested in.

The author's writing style is clear, direct, and mature. The format of the book is clean and well structured which makes it easier to maneuver. The problem I had with the book was that the code in the book is unreliable. The code in the book and the code in the website do not match. Also, the book is Windows oriented which may be a disappointment for some people.

Overall, there was an abundance of valuable information in the book that grabbed my attention such as fuzzing and the debugging. The book covers a lot of subjects such as debugging, hooking, code injection, and more. The author does a very good job with consolidating the information in the book.

Running a Script in a Loop without Cron

There are times when using cron is an over kill for a small task so it makes sense to whip up a small script and use one of the many system commands to repeatedly call it in a loop. BTW, if you have a better way of accomplishing this, I would like you to share it.

That said, here's is an example. I wanted to perform a copy task every 12 minutes whilst working on a sample project. One quick option is to use the watch command - but if you find yourself requiring more cycle then a while loop would also help. But for now, this seems to get the job done. Not the best... hey, but it did  what I required

while [ 1 ]
do
  cp source dest
  sleep 12
done

Surprisingly, this worked quite well allowing me to take control of the script an its execution without resorting to the cron system. Nice and handy tip.

Now over to you - how would you run a script every specified minutes without using cron. Please post your thoughts in the comments.

On a totally different topic: I just finished my second Twitter app for another client. That brings together a total of 5 custom apps I've developed for private clients in the last 2 years. 

This last one took me less than a day to finish it. They wanted a specific feature which was the only thing that took me a bit of backwards and forward to finally finish. So, this weekend I did quite a bit more than I wanted, and I'm pleased with myself.

oDesk Making Freelancing Easier

We all like it when companies pay you for doing what you do everyday. This is what oDesk. is doing lately. They have changed the way their freelancing process works - which means you can now pick more than 5 jobs at a time. These are good paying tasks that any self-respecting software person out there can do.

The even have videos to show you how to get started. I thought I should post it here because in the last couple of weeks, I've been seeing lots of traffic to this blog - all looking for information on getting started with oDesk.

If however, you already know how their new system works, you may also want to check out Hubpages as well. I've only spent a few months on and off getting to know the site well.

Which ever works for you, please leave a comment below and would like to know your thoughts.

Anyway, I recently got a notification that 21st Century C has been released. As a former C programmer, I thought I should get a copy.

This book is ok, it does not present any thing new other than talk about different approach you could take today to solve the problems you had decades ago. C has not changed, but programming techniques, technology and design patterns have evolved - so that's basically what this book is all about. One thing though that this book has going for it is the POSIX standard that its used through out.

So, if you are looking to brush up your C experience, you might find this book quite useful. And writing C code that is portable across many different platforms will not be an issue because this book focuses on standard C.