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In the parent article I mentioned that my advice would be unconventional and controversial. This is definitely the case with my approach to budgeting. If you believe you have the discipline to follow a plan like this, then you will reap many benefits. Be warned though, it won’t be easy!

Budgeting and reducing your outgoings are the two quickest ways to increase your personal profit. Your outgoings will consist of regular payments, such as a mortgage, energy bills, rent, car loan, gym subscription, TV package, magazine subscription etc and then one-off payments such as furniture purchases, restaurant bills, video games, clothes and shoes etc. Some of these will be absolutely essential to your survival, including food bills. Many are not. TV packages and expensive clothes are good examples. Budgeting is about cleverly reducing your outgoings so that you increase your personal profit, which will later fund your investments.

Budgeting is very simple. It requires nothing more than an hour of your time and a computer. The basic premise is to make a list of all your current outgoings, both monthly payments and one-off, in a table with headings: Outgoing, Frequency, Cost, Annual Cost, Subtotal and then finally total up your annual costs at the end.

The next step is to determine the items that you do not need. My advice is to eliminate all commercial subscriptions immediately. By this I mean expensive mobile phone contracts, magazine subscriptions, TV packages and gym subscriptions. We will find ways of replacing these in time. For now, you will need to save the money. Another area to drastically reduce spending is in the habitual daily coffees or pint after work. I have personally given up coffee and alcohol, so can attest to the myriad of benefits, on top of the financial savings. Let’s calculate how much this might save:

Assuming a mobile phone contract of £50 a month, magazine subscription costs of £50 a year, TV and gym subscription each costing £50 a month, each working day coffee at £2.75 x 2 a day plus £75 in alcohol a month (those pints and bottles of wine add up), this will save you: (50*12) + 50 + (50*12) + (50*12) + (2.75*2*5*48) + (75*12) = £4,070 a year (£340 a month). Assuming perfect inflation/interest rate matching (a bad but workable assumption), you will save £122,000 over 30 years. You will likely get an average of about 5% real return on any investments, so the total amount will be much more. This is the power of budgeting.

Now we will look at some common one-off payments. Clothes, video games, cinema, restaurants, concerts all add up. Assuming you could cut £100 on clothes per month, a new video game once a month (£50), cinema once a month (£15 in London with food!), restaurants (£60 once a month), maybe a concert every 3 months (£60). Amount spent: (100+50+15+60)*12 + (60*4) = £2,940 a year (£245 a month). That is about £88,000 over 30 years (again, perfect inflation/interest rate matching).

That leads to a 30 year saving of £210,000. Again, the true cost is much higher as you will be able to get a much better return on this capital. This post alone should make you realise why so many people are not wealthy. It’s because they spend money on items they do not really need rather than investing it in assets which would generate a yield and help them become wealthy.

Visual Studio 2012 is a very good tool to use when creating websites, especially ones that use Microsoft’s coding languages such as C#. When testing these websites it’s almost essential that testing is done in all browsers that you want to guarantee as usable with that site. From experience I’m sure you know that although browsers do follow the same standards there are many times that things look different, or even break.

One of the least found problems now of course is the dreaded Internet Explorer 6 issue where developers literally had to add CSS code and code behind the pages to know when this browser was being used and to code around the known issues. As developers we can’t just assume that a browser such as this is still not being used though we have to do the very opposite and still know that somewhere out there somebody is using a browser that could break all your hard worked on design, and the person to be to blame in the users eyes is of course you.

Browsing Options When Debugging Websites in Visual Studio 2012

The ability to select which browser you can debug with is a nice touch in Visual Studio, but in the new version it’s been extended to add some very useful functionality. One of the first things you’ll notice on the browser options is that you can now select “Browse With”. If you click on this you will find that you can select multiple browsers instead of just one. Selecting multiple browsers then clicking on browse will make the browsers open and run the website. Developers will I’m sure like this option as it saves from having to select a browser then re-test again to select another.

Another nice addition is that you can “Add” another browser, but actually add one that already exists in the list. Why would you do this? The answer is that you can add parameters then give this browser option a name, for example “Dev Profile” with the browser set in a development mode. This again is very useful when debugging as it allows you to stop add ins on that version of the browser, and add other functionality that you may need when testing. When set this means that it will now be in your list of selectable browsers (with the name you have set for it).

When providing tools like Visual Studio Microsoft aim to give developers all the tools they need to provide the best software you can provide. To do this it has to be debugged and tested in all possible scenarios, or ones that you can think of. Bugs will always exist in code and sometimes they survive into the website/application going live (just ask any big company like Microsoft about that problem) but as developers we can only strive to make our code work as bug free as possible.

A beautiful example of design is usually put up on a pedestal for the entire world to see, so we did some digging to find out what is the best looking Smartphone to recently hit the shelves. Much to our surprise, the new Blackberry Z3 has both the design and specs that deserves major props.

The new Blackberry Z3 has been dubbed as the Smartphone for emerging markets for good reason. One of the major reasons being the Z3 will blow your mind with its simple, yet efficient design, which makes this device perfect for those who are looking for a standard Smartphone.

According to the latest production technology news, the Smartphone which hit the market recently was announced by Blackberry and their strategic partner, Foxconn in December. The Z3 embodies all what the Blackberry 10 had to offer and more, making it both a reliable communication device with exceptional features for its price point. Built exclusively for Indonesia, the time between its inception to production was only a few months, so it looks like the partnership worked in the end.

Specifications

Chipset Qualcomm MSM8230 Snapdragon 400

CPU Dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait 200

GPU Adreno 305

540 x 960 pixels, 5.0 inches

1.5 GB RAM

8 GB storage

Bluetooth, Wi Fi connectivity

5 MP camera

BlackBerry 10.2.1 OS

Dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7

Non-removable Li-Ion 2500 mAh battery

Up to 384 hours stand-by time

Design & Build

Design and Build

The Blackberry Z3 is not to be considered as your average budget Smartphone, firstly, because the phone does not at all feel cheap, and we would even go as far as saying that the Z3 looks a tad better than Blackberry’s previous offering, the Z30, even though it’s made of plastic.

The 5-inch smartphone has the name “Jakarta” inscribed on the back, because it’s been designed mainly for the Indonesian market. The phone weighs around 164g and measures at 9.3mm in depth, which means that it’s not the slimmest phones around. Nevertheless, the Z3 is sturdy, light and more importantly, durable to say the least. Fan boys of Blackberry will also be pleased to know that the Z3 is made up from the same material as other Blackberry devices, giving it the premium feel we are all used to. The Z3 is a large phone, with a 5-inch display and top and bottom bezels. The back of the Z3 is textured with the usual crosshatch pattern and also has a rectangular bump towards the bottom of the phone for the main speaker. The edges of the Z3 have a slight roll to them this time around, but they aren’t as rounded as the Z10.

The 5-inch screen boasts a 960×540 pixel resolution which is nothing to write home about, but still serves its purpose well. That being said the display of the Z3 does look dimmer and less dense than the 720p AMOLED of the BlackBerry Z30. Overall, the colors on the display screen are vibrant and punchy. All the buttons are placed along the left side, while the right hand side of the phone houses the ports for the micro-SIM and micro SD card. For those who feel like the buttons are a bit of a stretch to use, gestures can be used to wake the screen. This time around, the Blackberry Z3 has ditched the micro HDMI port to obviously cut costs.

Hardware

The Blackberry Z3 features a dual-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 MSM8230 processor with 1.5 GB of RAM and an Adreno 305 graphics processor, nothing fancy, but it works well for the average user. The RAM here is what sells the tickets for the Z3. The 1.5 GB RAM is battery suited for carrying out fast processing so that data travels faster.

OS

The Z3 uses the BB 10.2.1 OS, which has the strong touch of the BB UI along with the Priority Hub. This enables users to organize their content and enables them to stay focused on what’s important to them. The QNX software runs faster with less CPU power too, which makes it snappier than the iPhone 5. Syncing the Z3 with Google is quite terrible. For instance, the iPhone or Android Smartphone will take a few minutes to sync Gmail, the Z3 takes far longer, which is not a big issue, but can be annoying to some.

Features

The Z3 comes with 10.2.1 out of the box, along with APK installations, various themes for icons and UI elements, actionable lock screen notifications and so on. The biggest new feature for the Z3 is that there is no longer a need for users to convert APKs to BARs before side loading Android apps. All users need to do now is download APKs to the local storage and it will be converted to a BlackBerry BAR file, ready to be installed, on the fly. And while Google Play cannot be directly accessed, third party Android stores or Amazon’s Appstore can be used to fill the gap.

The Blackberry Z3 is quick to pin-point the user’s current location; however, maps do take a while to load. Users also have the option to toggle between traffic information as well for selected locations only. The Z3 also offers turn-by-turn navigation which is pretty cool, but the experience cannot be compared to Google Maps. The BlackBerry Z3 supports both tri-band 3G and quad-band 2G. Users also get to have the usual Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0, GPS and NFC, minus USBOTG and GLONASS features.

Playing Media Files

The Blackberry Z3 makes playing files simpler not to say that its previous devices made you complete crossword puzzles. It’s just that BlackBerry Link is optional in the Z3, so the phone shows up a portable media device in Windows. And as long as users add their favorite media files in the respective folders, they are instantly recognizable by the respective apps. The audio player doesn’t have an equalizer setting in the Z3, but the quality is quite good even without it.

Blackberry Hub

Blackberry Hub

BlackBerry Hub is a great single-point communication hub while includes instant messaging, e-mail, social networks and breaking news updates. The new feature enables users to instantly filter their message list while on the go. Users can also now customize the Hub as they wish, so flagged messages, drafts, meeting invites, or level 1 alerts can be accessed with a pinch gesture on the Hub’s message list.

Memory

According to the latest production technology news, the BlackBerry Z3 features a micro SD-card slot for up to 64GB storage space. Of the 8 GB of internal memory that the Z3 has, 5.9 GB of it is usable, while the rest has the OS and other important features on it.

The Camera

BlackBerry Z3 features a 5-megapixel primary camera with 5x digital zoom for a little flavor, and a 1.1MP front-facing snapper. The primary camera is capable of recording HD videos, (1080p for the rear camera and 720p for the front camera). And while you cannot expect much from a 5-megapixel camera, it does provide decent shots that are good enough for your Facebook updates and pictures that fit in a postcard sized photo frame.

The Battery

Under the hood, the Blackberry Z3 BlackBerry has a non-removable battery of 2500 mAh capacity, “non-removable” being the keyword here. The battery is able to give up to 15.5 hours of 3G talk time and at least 10 hours of video playback before getting juiced out. The Z3 also has battery optimization features in the operating system. While the non-removable battery isn’t that bad, any attempts to remove the battery can void the warranty.

Our Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, the Z3 is built by Foxconn and jointly designed by BlackBerry and Foxconn, with the Taiwanese ODM taking up supply chain risks. The Z3 is at the low end of the Blackberry 10 line of devices. Due to the superior quality of the design, impressive specs, and affordable price tag, considering the market it was designed for, the Z3 now squarely competes with the Z10, which should have been its more premium predecessor.

Also, features such as, BBM Voice and Video on these phones and BlackBerry’s legacy of using less data, the Z3 is also a very attractive alternative for the Z30, which is considered one of Blackberry’s high end devices. The new Z3 is a welcome addition to the Blackberry line of devices, because of the simple fact that not everybody can afford to sign a two-year contract and be stuck with an expensive plan. This is where Blackberry’s tactic to enter the low-midrange market of off-contract Smartphones can come into play. In the end, the Z3 makes an excellent competitor to other Android/Windows Smartphones of a similar price point and even though it is highly unlikely to ever come to the U.S., the two reasons we would recommend the Blackberry Z3 is because of its large display and very long battery life.

Recently I’ve been trying to get some nice prints of some holiday snaps I took a couple of years ago. You know the kind I mean, they’re blurry, are with a lot of people I’ve hardly met before and are from the time you dropped your camera in the sand. So when my ex-boyfriend was telling me about the different ways software can now ‘fix’ your photos without being a Photoshop guru, I thought there would be no better time to get all the trial software my little machine could install, so here’s what I found out:

Photoshop

At the top of the list is favourite from all those thick-rimmed glasses wearing graphic design students, who are probably making icons for your next app. In Photoshop, you are going to have to watch a few tutorial videos if you’re a complete novice, but the learning curve isn’t that steep – even for me! You simply select the area you’re after, then you simply lighten or darken the areas you want (there’s a lot of inbuilt filters and colour adjustments under the filter and edit menus), then you’re on your way to becoming as instagram famous as you’ve always dreamt of.

Gimp

Gimp. No, really, it’s not what you think. Gimp good in many ways, like being free. If you’ve used other photoediting software in the past, you might notice that most of the features are quite similar, so what’s the catch? Well Gimp is sort of like Tesco’s own brand. It’s in the cupboard when you want it – It works when you need it, but it won’t do every little thing you might in your life. That’s its only real downfall, but apart from that, you’ve got the linux community ready to help you at every turn with this one (It comes free with ubuntu and other distros, and that means you’ve got useful forums for whatever problems you might have. It connects people together and isn’t that what the internet was made for?

Pixlr.com Speaking of what the internet was made for, for this option, you’ll probably need a fibre optic broadband connection. This is because we live in 2014, and now, your software can come through your browser (as well as anything else you want). Dubbing itself as the “Most popular online photo editor in the world” I thought I’d check it out. Again, it’s really easy to use if you’ve got experience or seen a few tutorials on Youtube. The tools are basically the same and having used all three, I would have to say that the accuracy of selecting and processing depends on your internet connection and how much ram you’ve got to spare. This software was pretty though, so I liked it.

I’d have to say that all this software feels pretty similar, and they’re easy to set up, so if you’re after a photo editing package, you’ve only got yourself to blame if you don’t check out these three. They’re what I’m now recommending to all my unphotogenic friends and family members!

With gas costs steady increasing every day іt is nо wonder thе hybrid cars arе finally becoming common. Because оf thе rising cost of gas hybrid vehicles are a verу new idea to a great many people. The weight оf а vehicle, whether or not gas or hybrid, can truly play а determining thing іn utilizing less gas. Check out hybrid cars that weigh less аnԁ compare thеir gas mileage. When you compare a standard vehicle tо a hybrid in this aspect, the gas savings quickly add up.

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More particularly, Hybrid vehicles are accessible a tax credit as per the stimulus package. All cars purchased from the year 2006 аre eligible for thе hybrid automobile tax credit. The manufacturing enterprise iѕ not аn eligibility criterion anԁ aѕ оf currently around 500,000 cars аre eligible fоr tax credits. It price around $19,000 whіch is the cheapest оut оf the three. Costing about thе $20,000 mark it ranks vеrу high for fantastic gas mileage.

Prices can very yet it has a price in the $20,000 dollar range. The price tag of somewhere bеlow $25,000 as well justifies thе selection. The price of gas is by no means steady for lengthy.

While the inventors haԁ little success back then, that hаs changed right now wіth the price of gas. Gas mileage varies bеtwеen 47 аnԁ 48 mpg. Although slower in power makes uр fоr that in gas savings. Increases аrе best lots of individuals to abandon theіr gas guzzlers оf the past. Nice family vehicle, it hаs room fоr five individuals tо comfortable ride іn.

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When you look at headphones especially the ones that are made to fit over your ears and almost make a statement as you wear them on the street, or on celebrities as they walk past the camera it’s often the case that the make becomes a victim of their own style and price. This is the case of Beats by Dr Dre, you can often look at social media sites and see people complain how they would never wear them how rubbish they are, and this is very likely without having even tried them.

The most recent version of Beats are known as Beats Executive and with their silver/grey colouring look for a more understated look, but still feature a high price tag and are highly visible. The question is though as stated above is the main attack on the style of the headphones themselves and the fact that they are a victim of their own brand, or do they actually have the specs to live up to the name they proudly show off to the world.

Design

The interesting thing about the Beats Executive range is that they are in fact bigger on the head than the average Beats, this makes them more noticeable. The counter side of this though is that they are able to offer more comfort and actual have a more natural fit. The headphones themselves take two AAA batteries and these are fitted in a hidden batter cover on the left ear cup. The wire that runs from the headphones and to the music source stands out with its red colouring, which seems odd as black may have been a better choice, this fits with the original beats colouring though.

The Beats Executive headphones are built for comfort and in some ways extra style even with the bigger design. They are also easy to store as they fold up to fit into the new slim line case that has been provided. Another added plus is the extra wire that is provided as backup in case the one in use fails.

Sound Quality

As always with headphones the most important thing is the sound quality, especially with the premium priced variety. The sound is detailed and built to be loud with plenty of bass. The Beats are designed to give excellent performance and do manage to outdo a lot of the competition in this variety. If anything the Beats range are a victim of their own success and marketing as a fashion product. The fact is though that people may complain about them but the audio quality is there even at a premium price that may put many off.

Verdict

The Beats range of headphones are often seen as a fashion statement, especially when you see celebrities wearing them like the latest thing to be seen wearing. The fact is though they are headphones that can back themselves up especially in the price range that they are released in. At £269/$300 these will be pricey for some, but for people willing to spend that much they do stand up against the competition. They aren’t the best headphones out there, and if you pay more you will get better, for what they are though they do live up to the hype even if they over rely on batteries for some of the sound quality, and when the batteries run out you’ll be left with no headphones, which is obviously something that will be annoying.

Looking for an affordable and mega-protective case for your iPhone 4? The Ballistic HC (hard core) case may be the one for you. Priced at $50, this case gives you 4 layers of protection that will protect your iPhone from more than the average drop. Also included is a nice belt clip/holster so that your iPhone 4 can stay securely on your side. Review and photo gallery after the break!

The first layer of the case is a industrial-strength plastic shell. Integrated in this shell is a screen protector (the second layer?), that works very well with the iPhone 4. If you’d like, you can use this hard shell without the third layer (the silicone layer, which is up next). You already get a huge amount of protection as well as an amazing amount of grip. Nearly everything is covered: power button, volume buttons, screen, home button. There are a few cutouts for things that require access, like the headset jack, noise cancellation microphone, silent switch, microphone, 30-pin dock connector, speaker, and camera/flash. Should you want to use just this portion of the case, keep in mind that a few drops will disassemble the case from the phone; the top layer of the case that keep everything put together can come apart.

The third layer is the thick and heavy duty silicone layer. This adds even more protection and even more of a grip. It adds more protection by covering up the 30-pin dock connector with a flap, as well as covering up the silent switch with a flap.

The fourth layer is the included holster with a 360 degree rotating belt clip. You can put your phone screen-first into the holster, and it will stay securely in place.

This case will add a good amount of bulk to your iPhone 4, but you can rest assured that your iPhone 4 will be safe from nearly any drop, scrape, scratch, and anything else you can think of. I personally haven’t done any sort of drop test with this case, as I’m paranoid and won’t drop my iPhone 4 on purpose no matter what it’s in. But, I have done some “accidental” drops from about 5 feet high, and my iPhone 4 was just fine afterwards.

There are a few alternatives to this case, such as the Otterbox Defender, which I’ve never used and can’t comment on.

Overall, I love this. I can put my iPhone 4 into this case and won’t have to worry about it getting scratched up or received a crack on the glass after a number of drops. The price at $50 is very reasonable for a super-protective case, such as this one.

The Archos is the top notch and leading mobile company for manufacturing different Smartphone with ease. In fact, there are many expectations are coming with extraordinary features and specifications of Archos mobiles forever. Certainly, many of the features are expect to get various norms regarding the users review. In fact, it has to get positive reviews by its stunning performance. So, most of the people are looking forward for this upcoming Smartphone at very affordable rates. Hence, the technology is used as GSM, HSPA, and LTE in order to perform with better performance. It was announced in the year of 2014 and not yet released so far.

External features of Archos 50 Helium 4G

The body of the Archos 50 Helium 4G has a dimensions as 145x 71.5x9mm and the weight ranges 160g. Hence, it has micro SIM which has kept for dual SIM options. The touch screen is the most important feature of Archos 50 Oxygen+ 4G is having IPS LCD capacitive touch screen with 16M colors. Also, it can supports for 720×1280 pixels which supports HD quality videos. The operating system will have designed as Android OS V4.3 Jelly Bean to have faster performance forever. However, the chipset has installed with Qualcomm MSM826 snapdragon 400. The CPU has quad core of 1.2 GHz cortex A7 which has designed with speed performance. Moreover, the card slot is specified to insert micro SD slot and supports up to 32 GB memory space.

Camera options

According to the camera options, the primary camera has 8MP which supports 1080pixels with autofocus, LED flash. Also, it has designed with zeo-tagging, touch focus, and face detection without any ease and to enjoy these facilitations, assure to use Flipkart best offers to avail best deals. Hence, the secondary camera has a resolution of 2MP to take selfies forever. With the 3mm head phone jack sets, you can hear music forever. However, the vibration alerts will make such systems for having security options. It supports the Wi-Fi connectivity in order to access the internet in free manner. So, this mobile has Bluetooth to transfer any files and music over the connectivity options.

Battery life and security

Of course, the GPS is the most connectivity to track about the system and provide security for this Smartphone. Obviously, the sensors are able to fix with the accelerometer, proximity, compass for full security options. The browser has a HTML 5 version in order to access the internet in fast manner. According to the battery life, it has to build with Li-Ion 2000 mAh battery to withstand for longer time. However, the panels are designed well with the metal and have shine surface to hold it. Moreover, this Archos 50 Helium 4G have come under many colors such as white, black, blue, and silver and you can choose your favorite options. So, it is the most important features to have beautiful structure and design for using without any ease. At very reasonable rates, they are released in the market place for your need and want. Therefore, the Archos 50 Helium has the admiring options such as 4G to access the internet in fast manner.

I was offered a free scholarship to attend the latest version of EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) v7 course last month, which was touted as the most advanced ethical hacking program in the world. The week-long (five days, 9 to 5) course I attended was the launch class for CEHv7, which includes new and refreshed training material that brings it up-to-date with the constantly evolving hacking scene.

I didn’t actually get to know until the week before it started, and mid-week at that. Regardless, computer security has always been a topic I have been fascinated with, and I jumped at the opportunity.

What is Certified Ethical Hacker?

The premise behind CEH is simple: to validate the defenses of a website or computing resource by trying to hack in. In this vein, CEH is a pure network offensive training program, and contains zero defensive component or materials. If I must draw an analogy, it would be how someone skilled at picking locks is better positioned to select the most secure combination of locks and other security measures to protect his possession.

Starting Class

The course was held at New Horizon Singapore, which is located at Central Plaza. The location was convenient, and being next to the Tiong Bahru MRT makes it easily accessible from all parts of the island. (The CIA Factbook pegs the nation of Singapore is about 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC). As expected, the class started with the usual introduction of the trainer and students. Senior Technical Instructor & Mentor Lead Vaibhav Patel has a nice list of accreditations (MCSE, CEH, Security+ etc) and was friendly and jovial enough – as a lecturer myself, I admit to being biased towards ‘fun’ classes.

A CEHv7 package containing of two heavy volumes of textbooks and a small box of DVDs were given to each student. The two books added up to over 1,400 pages (excluding references) with each page containing the PowerPoint slides printed in full color – double-sided, four slides per page. There were five DVDs in total, and are crammed with an assortment of software and tools for immediate and convenient access for the exercises. No electronic copies of the slides were issued. So yeah, regardless of how good you are, you won’t be able to ‘break into’ the books sitting on my shelf.

Each student has access to a fast desktop computer with more than adequate RAM; all the lab sessions are to be done on the preinstalled virtual machines (VMs) using Microsoft Hyper-V. And yes, all participants were required to sign an undertaking not to participate in illicit activities against computer resources or networks that does not belonging to them.

My Thoughts

With 19 modules to cover, the learning pace was kept at about four modules per day. Each module starts off with a lecture generally followed by one or more lab exercises with which to practice the various concepts.

It is important to understand that the lab sessions are merely designed to reinforce the classroom sessions and are by no means guaranteed to help you achieve proficiency. Another point to note is that not all the tools mentioned by the course materials are guaranteed to work – some may only run on older operating systems, or are effective against unpatched vectors. Trainer Patel himself observed that: “I would rate 2 to 3 out of 10 chances of success for the tools.”

Modules listed in the Table of Contents:

Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Footprinting and Reconnaissance

Scanning Networks

Enumeration

System Hacking

Trojan and Backdoors

Viruses and Worms

Sniffers

Social Engineering

Denial of Service

Session Hijacking

Hacking Webservers

Hacking Web Applications

SQL Injection

Hacking Wireless Networks with Tools

Evading IDS, Firewalls, and Honeypots

Buffer Overflow

Cryptography

Penetration

It was clear from the get-go that CEHv7 is a very well-structured affair. I had prior knowledge on a fair number of the topics that were covered, which meant that I found some of the topics relatively easy to grasp. Taken as a whole though, I would rate CEHv7 as a “heavy” course which should be of value even to those versed in the art. It won’t automatically make a hacker out of you, though my opinion is that it does give you the basic skillset to become one, as well as understand how hackers think.

A common problem faced by IT professionals pertains to the question of where to start learning about hacking, as well as identifying the gaps in their learning. It is in this context that savvy IT managers or security administrators should benefit substantially from CEH as they gain a better understanding of the “black hat” aspect of security.

On topics that I’m already familiar with, I have found the printed materials to be a great resource that allowed me to catch up when lagging, or to skim forward on topics that I am already familiar with. And of course, the printed materials allow you to review them at your leisure – I have found the printed volumes invaluable in precisely this manner. The two volumes are just beautiful, and having the tools packed into DVDs is a huge time saver – and eliminates the risk of ending up with Trojan versions of the tools.

There is definitely insufficient perform all the lab exercises in the short span of a week. For the motivated and determined learner though, the lab exercises represent an excellent framework with which to explore and practice the various concepts and principals covered in the course.

The trainer was genuinely knowledgeable; and readily acknowledges it if he’s less than familiar with a specific topic or question. The EC-Council obviously imposes stringent requirements on the selection of its trainers. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been disappointed with less than stellar ‘teachers’ who should have been called ‘presenters’ for their lack of acuity and knowledge in a certain field.

I have yet to take the CEHv7 exam, so no comments on that aspect as yet. I did however write on my ITBusinessEdge SMB Tech blog on How Hackers Target SMBs and How to Deter Them on ITBE.

Signing Up

According to a fellow classmate, the CEH course in Singapore is priced at between S$2 to 3k and includes one free exam attempt. However, I was made to understand that the price may vary due to vendor requests, promotions or possible discounts for taking on a package of courses. As such, do check with Marketing Manager Haris Jumadi (DID: 6373 0869) from New Horizons Singapore for more information and an official price quote. Singaporeans will also be happy to know that that CEH is eligible for IDA’s CITREP funding support . (Update: New Horizons Singapore just dropped me a DM that CEH is no longer CITREP endorsed as of April 2011)