The net is buzzing with fierce and fiery comments about Apple and their recently released Final Cut Pro X.

However, for me it doesn’t really matter. I’ve played with previous releases of FCP and although there is no doubt that Apple released FCPX very and admittedly early, for the non-pro user (like myself), it is simply an amazing application.

I grabbed a copy of it along with Compressor and Motion to work on a few promotional / marketing videos for Aanval (http://www.aanval.com). The change in technology-realms helps to clear my mind and removes me from my daily grind of information security, development and book writing.

Surprisingly, I found I really enjoyed working with FCPX and have since grabbed a Blue Yeti, M-Audio FastTrack Pro and a couple of KRK Rokit studio monitor speakers to create my own tiny audio / video editing studio. I can now definitely understand the magnetic addiction that so many people have to audio / video editing. So much fun.

Ultimately after investing a little bit into my new hobby, I wanted to first throw together a short video preview of Aanval to cut my teeth and put some of my newly learned skills to test.

I did this in the form of a 1 minute, Aanval Preview (Rough Edit — I call it this, because it still needs quite a bit of work). It can be found at http://www.aanval.com/preview/ or on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1uhlqR1BI.

Have a look and enjoy.

~moses

All of those hours I thought I had wasted playing in flight simulators paid off as we took off from Boeing Field, headed north for a quick touch-and-go at Paine Field, then turned out over Puget Sound to eventually land back at Boeing Field.

Running through the pre-flight checklist.

I was busy focusing on that giant piece of earth coming at the windshield, while a buddy snapped a picture. That is Boeing Field in south Seattle, WA.

This is a snapshot of Paine Field in Everett, WA during our touch-and-go, before heading back to Boeing Field. Note all of the Boeing 787′s parked about.

Had an excellent time and a great instructor. There will definitely be more of this in the near future.

Enjoy.

~moses

I’m pretty excited to see more of these types of Apps showing up on mobile devices. The information security sector although very technical by nature seems to have been left behind when it comes to usability and native integration.

Our industry needs and wants more access to this data and it seems the guys over at Tenable feel the same way we do.

The Nessus App along with the Aanval iPhone / iPad App makes mobile network security management that much easier with nessus and snort in your pocket.

If you are a Nessus user, go snag it.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/nessus/id390891776?mt=8

Description (from iTunes App Store)

The Nessus iPhone app, from Tenable Network Security Inc., enables you to log into your Nessus scanners and start, stop and pause vulnerability scans as well as analyze the results directly from your iPhone.

This mobility helps improving the efficiency of your Incident Response process by letting you quickly log into a Nessus scanner from your phone to search previous scan results or check the status of an on-going scan.

(Requires an access to version 4.2 of the Nessus server, or newer)

Enjoy.

~moses

It just makes me so happy!

~moses

I put together a quick little video recorded from a 3GS of some game play of Real Racing on the new iPhone 4. It’s pretty basic and I apologize in advance for the horrible glare and reflections… I am definitely not a cinematographer and my lack of natural ability in this theater is quite obvious.

Essentially, if you can’t say something nice… well, your mother probably told you the rest.

I’ve been told this will be the first gaming video on the iPhone 4, so ha!

Enjoy.

As of last night my shipping status still showed a delivery date of the 24th even though I had received the email from Apple informing me of a possible early delivery on the 23rd.

Was quite surprised this morning when my wife handed me a box from FedEx and it said “Assembled in China” on the side. I was actually expecting a few other FedEx / UPS deliveries, but not the iPhone for 2 more days.

Regarding activation; I simply powered it on, plugged it in, punched in the requested details from iTunes and it was up and running in about 15 seconds. I was able to immediately make and receive calls within seconds of activation, which was quite surprising. I feel bad for those who received it but are unable to activate theirs. That’s brutal.

Thus far the screen is brilliant and clear and almost has a surreal feel to it, the display is so crisp it simply looks fake. The phone is extremely thin, feels hefty and the sharp corners seem to make it a little easier to grip.

As for performance, you’d expect me to say that it is extremely snappy… and well, I have to say that it really is. The whole family has had a turn on it since it arrived and we all feel the exact same. It actually feels very much over powered from a performance perspective, everything is quick and smooth.

Call quality thus far is pretty frustrating, I’m having wide swings from full signal to absolutely nothing with more than 5 dropped calls so far. Hoping this doesn’t continue.

Battery is quite impressive, my son played Jelly Car 2 for about 45 minutes or so and depleted a measly 8% of the battery.

In regards to heat, it does feel a little warm, like hand-warmer warm… nothing serious.

The rear facing camera, which is by far one of the most popular features is just incredible, the videos and snapshots below don’t do it justice… I’m not a photographer so it’s easy to see why they look so amateurish.

The camera display while taking snapshots and recording video is breath taking, colors are amazing.

Over all, super-impressed.

I’ll include a number of pictures and some video here and a few links to the blogs that are posting them as well.

Press

Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/22/first-iphone-4-units-on-vehicles-for-delivery-throngs-take-im/

CNET:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20008513-233.html?tag=mncol;title

MacRumors:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=945855

WhenWillApple:
http://whenwillapple.com/blog/2010/06/22/one-lucky-bastard-already-got-his-iphone-4/

fonearea:
iPhone4 First Unboxing Pics

Mashable:
http://mashable.com/2010/06/22/iphone-4-arriving-early/

Touch Arcade:
http://toucharcade.com/2010/06/22/full-size-iphone-4-flight-control-screenshots-posted/

Youtube Videos

Vertical Indoors – iPhone 4 HD (720p) Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQrFoiFp-g

Horizontal Outdoors – iPhone 4 HD (720p) Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3SgsfgYSfo

Another video outdoors, this time of a rabbit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Us-s8ZT-2w

Another video of a tree (up close):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpRMiGLiQEA

A low light video for all those asking for one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAmFT6C0zvo

iPhone 4 with Real Racing:
http://www.loyalmoses.com/2010/06/iphone-4-with-real-racing-in-hd/

Pictures

Enjoy!

Some might have noticed that I do use Twitter on a pretty regular basis; I can defend against social network hypocrisy accusations as I use Twitter much like any instant messaging client. Twitter for me is tool that allows me to follow notable individuals and the happenings of my industry as well as communicate my likes / dislikes in a very informal manner. Much like I said above, Twitter for me is more of a tool or utility than a social medium.

moving on…

This WIRED article caught my attention; and nearly mirrors my exact thoughts on the service regarding control, manipulation and power over data. If you caught a few of my more recent speaking tracks, you’ll easily identify the parallels.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/

Enjoy!

~moses

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s now been 6 or 7 years, of which I have spoken at least one time per year.

That is quite a few conferences, and I look forward to the next one if the opportunity is presented.

Thanks again, and feel free to drop me a call or email if you have any questions or additional interest in anything that was covered.

~moses

APPLE 17″ MACBOOK PRO 2.8 GHZ UNIBODY GLOSSY SCREEN NEW – $1200

Of course, the pleasant aroma of SUCKERS-CLICK-HERE was wafting all about, but I have to admit I have a second little addiction; telling these little punks exactly what I think of them, then reporting the behavior.

Why? well, besides it just really making me mad… I have friends, family and colleagues who’ve been burned for $1000′s of dollars. It’s no good all around.

Another reason, is that quite a few of these scams target westerners in a dual purpose fashion. Taking our money to use it against us; snag the cash, then ship it off to a little anti-American terrorist group that in my opinion needs a GPS guided gift with a Made in America stamp from a Predator drone at 35,000 feet.

Counting slowly… 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… deep breath… much better; moving on.

I sent Marky-mark a little bait email to get him all excited about a potential sucker-transaction. He replied quite quickly with the following:

“Hello,

Still available. The price is correct and not negotiable.
I’m willing to pay for all shipping and insurance fees because I’m from London, UK. I have a small electronics wholesale company here and I sold a lot of products in United States, in collaboration with a partner there. We stopped our work and now I have available in my warehouse a large quantity of products in US version.
All products are BRAND NEW in box, with receipt and 2 years international warranty.
Just let me know your full name, shipping address and personal email address then I’ll arrange the shipment through UPS 2nd Day Air.

Thanks“

Marks a nice guy! Free 2nd day shipping from the UK! Ya know, you don’t often find great businessmen like this anymore… wait a minute. He wouldn’t be scamming me would he?!

WARNING

If you have read up to this point and really think this is a good deal and want a piece of it, please close your browser window, go outside and try and clear your head. You are not thinking clearly enough to be on the Internet right now.

This is my response to Mark; but I fear I won’t get a reply.

“Mark, mark, mark…

What a dirtbag.

Of course you are in the UK selling Apple computers to people on Craigslist in the Seattle area at less than 1/2 of retail pricing.

I own an information security company and have an Apple reseller account and get a measly 8% discount off of retail pricing in one of their highest reseller tiers. Apple machines are premium sellers today, so the one and only reason to be listing a new machine at this price is to try and hook poor suckers deeper than their caution and common sense normally allows.

My guess is, you would like payment in the form of a money transfer, maybe Western Union or just be happy to take my credit card information. Of course to make me feel comfortable you’ll give me a UPS tracking number to convince me that the product is shipping, when in fact a tracking number means nothing if the product is never picked up or dropped off at UPS for delivery.

UPS 2nd day / express would run you about $400 US to send it to me. So of course you offer this at no charge, cause you are just such a nice guy and this makes the deal so amazing.

In addition to these obvious signs of lame criminal behavior, you are using a random @gmail address which of course a quick google search shows no results, so its obvious that you don’t do legitimate business with it.

I’ve already notified the FTC as well as the high tech crimes department of our local police agency as well as the FBI’s high tech crimes division. Chances are, there is nothing that will come of this based on my reports, but you’ll eventually get nailed. You losers always do.

My recommendation for you is to realize the full extent of what you are really doing here, crawl back in your little hole, clean your act up and try and become a productive member of society. Whatever your reasons are, realize this is absolutely wrong.

Hope you get caught sooner than later.

Loyal.“

Okay, truthfully… I only filled out the FTC’s online fraud forms, but never contacted the local high-tech crimes departments… not like Marky cares either way, but it made me feel better to call on such big guns even though they really don’t care either. Seriously… am I the only one that cares?!

Of course, I do realize this does nothing, but it sure makes me feel better. Like a super-hero, patrolling the dark streets of the World-Wide-Web…

This is Mark Wayne’s Gmail address for anyone who thinks I am nuts and wants a sweet deal on a 17″ MacBook Pro, shipped freely from the UK: waynemark4545@gmail.com

And a note to those who do use @gmail, @hotmail, @msn, @live, @mac/me, @yahoo, etc addresses, IMHO there is absolutely nothing professional about any of these free or semi-free email services… even though a domain and hosting service takes almost as little effort to setup and maintain, it lends a little something-something to your Internet appearance.

UPDATE : It was removed from craigslist about 25 minutes after my email.

Oh well, back to browsing Craigslist.

Enjoy.

~moses

Prior to Intel my Mac’s were loaded with IBM PowerPC G4 and G5 processors and a reboot was NEVER necessary (it seemed)…

The anti-Apple crew will tell you this isn’t true (because they didn’t use them… because they cost too much. ), but ask any long time Mac user, and they’ll tell you the same. PowerPC processors and the iterations of Panther and Tiger were absolutely amazing when it came to stability and uptime.

The need to reboot after an update is eerily similar to repressed memories of Microsoft Windows, and I completely understand that logically it can’t be directly tied to Intel processors… but it helps by giving me someplace to direct my frustrations.

Apple did an amazing job porting an entire mainstream OS from IBM to Intel architecture, in total secrecy I might add. And in fact, they are the only OS vendor to have successfully accomplished such a feat up to this point.

With all of that aside, IMHO, Intel it is your fault that I have to close 20 some-odd applications and dozens of windows so your chip can rest a few moments…

~moses