Announcement

I will leave this site as is for people to enjoy but won't be updating it anymore. I was doing quite a few blogs and copying and pasting between them. Google penalizes you if you do this & gives you a lower rank in their search engine. I will only be maintaining 7 blogs which are all on different subjects. The sites are:
computing - http://scratbag.me
technology - http://scratbagroberts.com
history - http://scratbagdave.com
business - http://melissaball86.com
arts & crafts - http://claireabella29.com
health - http://daveroberts69.wordpress.com
fiction books - http://oldscratbag.com
Please give them a visit.

Finn - The Finn Brothers

I am reviewing the album Finn by The finn Brothers, Neil & Tim & it's an excellent album. The best track is Kiss the Road to Rarotonga but all the tracks are great. After the Beatles, Crowded House are my favourite group. In New Zealand where they live they are an institution. There best track ever is probably Pineapple Head. Their music is a combination of rock and alternative music. The album Together Alone by Crowded House is one of my all time favourite albums. Crowded House contained a 3rd member but at the time of this album they were doing various projects outside of that. I think this album would be great to play on a beach on a sunny day on a powerful ghettoblaster. Neil & Tim have done several solo albums to.

Digital Triage Forensics

The book I read to research this post was Digital Triage Forensics by Richard Watson et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is about combing a crime scene & applying digital forensics to things like media cards and smartphones. Digital forensics isn't just about policework, increasingly with insurgents planting IED's in places like Iraq the military are finding it saves lives if they can find the perpetrators of crimes against soldiers. In a theatre of war at best you might get 5-60 minutes to examine a scene after a battle has taken place. At worst there may be heavy fighting and they may have to retreat & maybe just collect a couple of unlabelled items. Often if you can get a terrorists smartphone it will contain all that persons criminal activity because often they have to provide proof in order to get paid. In Iraq & Afghanistan there has been an emphasis on providing soldiers at the expense of providing scenes of crimes officers which has resulted in a decrease in convictions for this type of crime. If you look at a site such as http://sourceforge.net you can do a search for cellphone or cell-phone and there is lots of digital forensics software often cheap or free. A cellphone will normally be put in a faraday bag then transferred to an isolation chamber for examination. This is a metal box with a glass viewing screen & 2 integrated gloves so you can examine stuff. There is also an integrated closing lid with a lock. It's a good idea to use a stylus for jobs like examining the sim card. EnCase is probably the primary pc program for examining media cards. There is also a program called DDS which helps examine a mobile phone and is easy to use.

Trouble - Ray LaMontagne

I am reviewing the album Trouble by Ray LaMontagne which is very good. The title track was also quite a big hit single in Britain & is the best track on the album. Most of the tracks are quite good. The music is folk & the title track has quite a catchy tune. Ray did release a follow up album but it didn't enjoy as much success as this album. It does have a bit of a strange cover which isn't very good.

Digital Forensics & the Internet

The book I read to research this post was digital forensics for network, internet & cloud computing by various authors which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Digital forensics is about getting information from digital devices like computers, smartphones & game consoles. In this book they look at networks, the internet in general and cloud networks. More and more companies are using cloud computing & when you consider you can rent the equivalent of a server for around $40 a month you can see why it's so popular. It also takes out the headaches of setting up things like a firewall as your cloud provider takes care of it. Amazon lets you install windows server 2008 or linux on your partition and it functions just like one of your own servers. Rackspace only works with linux. Microsoft has a cloud database called Azure but hasn't embrassed cloud computing as successfully as some other companies. Whether it's cracking passwords or sniffing packets of wireless data the number of programs that can be used in digital forensics is endless. There is a program called Rapier which while it will tell you what's on a computer or network can't be used for digital forensics because it's likely to change some of the data. Forensics use programs like snort, wireshark, tcpdump & md5. Snort and wireshark are packet sniffers. Snort will examine a network while wireshark examines wireless networks. Md5 will make a copy of a hard drive. Tcpdump examines what is on a computer and will produce a dump file. Normally a cloud network will have good security because the provider has to reassure clients they can have peace of mind. It only takes 1 cloud network to get hacked and the provider is in deep trouble. Wireshark has lots of add ons which extend the functionality of the program. Many of the smaller cloud providers use Vmware as it's economical in the space it takes up.

The Madman's Return - Snap

I am reviewing the album The Madman's Return by Snap which is a very good album. Most of the tracks are very good too. Snap had 2 number ones in Britain, The Power & Rhythm Is A Dancer. The latter was the biggest selling single of 1992 & is the best song on this album. Exterminate & Do You See The Light were also top 10 hits. A lot of groups in this era and type of music were one hit wonders & Snap did well to carve out a career. A group particularly reminiscent of their sound is The Black Eyed peas. It's definitely worth a listen.

Our Version of Events - Emeli Sande

I am reviewing the album Our Version of Events by Emeli Sande which is excellent. This is a great soul album. The best track is Next to Me which was also a successful single. This is currently No 1 on the album chart in Britain & I think deservedly so. I think her first hit was featuring on a record with Chipmunk & she has a fantastic voice. Every track on this album is great. I think this is the kind of album you could just snuggle upto your girlfriend & have a romantic night in and listen to. Some of the tracks are quite upbeat & wouldn't be out of place at a party.

Greatest Hits Vol. 2 - Madonna

I am reviewing the album Greatest Hits Vol. 2 by Madonna which is an excellent greatest hits compilation. Volume 1 was the Immaculate Collection which had her hits reworked & it's a shame this sequel didn't do the same. Most of the tracks are just the single versions. There's a couple of ropey tracks like Bedtime Stories but most of the tracks are pretty good. The best tracks are probably Secret & The Power of Goodbye. She has released a compilation called Celebration since this album which is more upto date. This album is interesting if only for the limited number of remixes on it.

The Beginning - The Black Eyed Peas

I am reviewing the album The Beginning by The Black Eyed Peas which is an excellent dance album. The cover has representations of the band as old 1980's computer graphics & I think it's inspired like a lot of their music by the house & club revolution of the late 80's. I think their music reminds me of all that was good about that style of music. The best track is Don't Stop the Party but all the tracks are very good. I think this album would be ideal to play at a party & must be one of the best albums to come out of 2010. Their previous album which I think was called The NRG Generation is even better.