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Something Different

He is back!

Robert MacLean
4 February 2009

The  man who has more friends that are robot’s than are human (check the pics on his blog posts), kids who fly supersonic speeds (soon) and has never attempted a Rubik cube is back online with his blog! Yep, Willy-Peter Schaub is now blogging with Microsoft branding ;) Go follow him at http://blogs.msdn.com/willy-peter_schaub - His blog on dotnet.org.za will still be their but will focus on personal items.

Yes we can!

Robert MacLean
9 December 2008

I thought that stealing Obama’s now famous chant to highlight that nothing is impossible within the celebration of democracy would be appropriate for this post. Over a year ago I posted about a blog which I felt was written by the biggest loser in the world (See What A Loser). This idiot was churning out the kind of rhetoric that a small, vocal minority loves to in South Africa about how much they hate it and how bad it it. It’s a narrow one-sided very and those sort of people need to be shipped off to a place they feel is not bad and leave the rest of us, who believe in South Africa and want to make it great to do so. I followed it up with a call to report the blog (See Report the Idiot), and then I forgot about it.

Today someone commented on it and I went to look up what has happened in a year (quick Google search):

Let me say it once more, when it comes to removing idiots from the web the answer is definitely Yes We Can! Now about removing them from here, anyone got a boat to lend ;)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Robert MacLean
2 August 2008
Last week was a special week, as it was the last week I worked at The i5 Group, and it was the week I started at BB&D in the ATC group. I will definitely be going into more of what that means in the future but for now know it means I work with an AMAZING team in a non-client role :)
Before I finish, I will be at TechEd Africa next week and will likely not be posting until Thursday or Friday. If you are attending come and see my talk on WPF!!

Speaking at Tech-Ed Africa

Robert MacLean
27 June 2008

I can now officially let out one of my many secrets, which is I am speaking at Tech-Ed Africa this year! Oddly enough I am speaking about something I have never blogged about, WPF and building business applications with it. I will be co-speaking with a good friend Simon (from Blacklight) who is an amazing designer. It will be a very fun talk. For more details see the Tech-Ed Africa site at http://www.tech-ed.co.za

South African ID Number Checker

Robert MacLean
31 January 2008
Update 26 August 2010: A new and better version of this Excel file has been made available. Please go to South African ID Number Checker in Excel version 2 to get it.
Update 11 August 2011: Want this as an app for your smartphone? Click here
A few days back I wanted to validate a list of ID numbers, and previously I have done the basics (length, date etc...) but I decided to do the full thing this time. So I search for the rules and found this post, which explains it nicely and contains some C# code. However for me C# didn't cut it as I wanted to process an Excel spreadsheet. So I whipped together a nice one which does the following checks:
  • Length
  • Valid Date
  • Date is in the past
  • Gender Flag
  • Nationality Flag
  • Check Bit
I've hidden the calculation cells so you can just unhide if you want to see the calculations. When I ran my list through it the failures came in two forms, obvious failures (things like 1000000000000) or check bit failures. Since I don't know which are real/valid in my list I am not sure if the check bit is 100%, but it did work fine for real ones I put in myself.
Anyway you can grab it below in the attachments section (You can grab the version 2 from the link above).

24 Jan 2010: I have disabled comments on this post as I am getting a lot of people asking me about who ID numbers belong to, how to track people based on ID's or what someones ID is. None of those I can answer as I do not work for the govt, police etc... If you have questions on the technical aspects of ID numbers please contact me using the contact form option.

Trend Micro OfficeScan Password when Uninstall - How to Bypass

Robert MacLean
9 January 2008
This is a great proof of how NOT to protect software. When you try to uninstall it can ask for a password configured by the network admin, but what it the server admin, servers or entire infrastructure is gone basically giving you no chance of getting the password back. Well facing that scenario myself, I hacked around and found a work around.
First off I would not have figured this out if it wasn't for a similar post about bypassing the protection on the server available at http://www.sbsfaq.com/Lists/FAQs/DispForm.aspx?ID=23
The differences on the client side (compared with article above) start with the location of the file it's in C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\OfficeScan Client. Next the keys are a little different, first you need to find the [INI_CLIENT_SECTION] and in that file, change the following keys:
  • Client_Allow_Uninstall to 1
  • Client_Allow_Unload to 1
  • Uninstall_Pwd to 70
  • Unload_Protect to 0
  • RemoveCTA to 1
Save the ini file and launch the uninstall. Now enter 1 as the password and viola it's gone! From a development point of view this is an example of how not to use encryption. The machine encryption in the patterns&practises Enterprise Library is a much better place to start, and in addition you should also look into using hash to sign files like this, so that tampering with them, invalidates them and requires an update from the server.

There is blood in my alcohol stream

Robert MacLean
2 January 2008
Long running comment with people I know is the one "There is blood in my alcohol stream" (sometimes changed to "There is blood in my coffee stream"). Anyway someone finally proved it is possible, albeit that it is scary that it was only found out because she was driving at the time (or passing out while driving). More on her at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004094566_webdui27m.html (via http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/02/6950841.aspx).

My wandering thoughts

Robert MacLean
22 October 2007

So after travelling so much last week (around 3000km, but not all at once) I finally enjoyed around 12 hours of sleep after the Bokke win against the English on Saturday. However during travelling I had some interesting thoughts I wanted to share:

  • Why can you gargle in private without messing, but not in public?
  • Why do I always get a seat on an airline with something wrong with it, forcing me to talk to airhostesses?
  • Men serving drinks on a plane are airhostesses.
  • I love how, when someone from a competitor company joins, there is almost a want to tie him to a chair in a dark room with a bright light until he tells all his secrets.
  • Why does the rain ALWAYS follow me to the coast?
  • Real developers get together after 7pm.
  • The state of confusion with woman is not a constant for men, it increases exponentially with each interaction.
  • Never trust a project manager.
  • When someone is truly grateful for my help, I feel bad about charging them.
  • I'm glad project managers charge for my time and not me.
  • Ever notice how people driving slower than you are idiots while people driving faster are reckless? Love how I am always perfect ;)
  • I am glad I am not English (as in the country, not language)
  • I wish the national pride that swells from 80 minutes of rugby could last 80 years.
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