Please come visit me at my new blog site .

Following my recent post about the availability of the new Microsoft Card Module API and Base Smart Card Crypto Provider, I went digging for documentation about the pilot deployment of that technology. I found a good whitepaper here . I can't resist...

To paraphrase Bono, there's been a lot of talk about this next topic ... especially in Business and Entreprenuerial magazines lately. It was certainly a topic of conversation at last night's Northwest Entrepreneur Network - Evening Seminar . The topic...

What is it and why is it relevant? Well, the CardMod API is a new interface for exposing common smart card functionality. It's by far the easiest way for an ISV/IHV to integrate support for their smart cards into Windows, particularly when targeting PKI...

This post can basically be summed up by this VMware KB article ; however, arriving at this bit of knowledge took some trial and error, to say the least, and I still don't know the whole story. Maybe someone out there can fill in the gaps. Until quite...

My boss and I were discussing the types of projects that newbies might want to tackle on their own time, if they aspire to working on some of the components that our team (Windows Security) owns. He first gave an example that was much more exciting than...

It's funny - but I seem to remember back in my undergrad days when this classic paper was re-published in this form - http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ . Actually, I didn't know anything about the paper directly. Rather, around that time, I remember...

I've lately been digging into how NT user mode API calls, as well as system calls into the kernel, can be patched. This began as idle curiosity about system integrity checks, but has evolved into full-blown awe about the detailed analyses of these subjects...

1. Current popular press sentiment on space shuttle Columbia, from MSNBC . The most interesting comment is from one of the astronauts, who expressed "disappointment" that (if I apply my own interpretation of his statement ... :) the engineers on the ground...

I have to admit - I've really had an overall bad experience building this media center PC. At some point a month or so ago, the thing just stopped booting. Subsequent attempts to reinstall were not successful. The main problem I had at that point was...

I seriously doubt I could pull that off - although that's the one day of the standard work week where the concept could conceivably succeed for me. One problem is that it's not enough for me to say to my dev team - "Okay, no email today. If you want something...

Try this search in both http://search.msn.com and http://www.google.com: who is the vice president of the usa? Okay, I'll spoil it - MSN returns the (correct) current VP, right at the top, based on their builtin encyclopedia lookup feature. Google...

I got my new machine up and running! In fact, I'm now listening to the Rush in Rio DVD in Dolby Digital on this machine while I write this post. And since it's in my living room (as opposed to my un-kid-friendly office), it's easy to sit here with the...

I recently bought components to build my own media center PC. The primary purpose is to be able to conveniently rip my CDs to mp3 and listen to them on my stereo. The secondary purpose is to be a Personal Video Recorder, since we don't already have a...

A cool networking event is coming up, if you're in the Puget Sound area. I volunteer with this group - the Northwest Entrepreneur Network - and helped organize our upcoming evening seminar on Homeland Security. It's free, and we always have a good/interactive...

Longhorn has some exciting improvements in the smart card subsystem. For example, the Smart Card Resource Manager (aka "scardsvr"), or SCRM, has been given a reduced attack surface and been made more scalable. Disclaimer - as you know, until the product...

A couple of months ago I built a new machine. It was a cool experience, since I'd been out of the PC hardware world for so long, focusing instead on software (Longhorn, actually ...). Here are the specs for my new box, all from http://www.directron.com...

I just finished one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read - The Tipping Point , by Malcolm Gladwell. The basic premise is that events and trends of significant importance can be triggered by relatively minor contextual changes. The book gives countless...

I just installed a sweet desktop image from DigitalBlasphemy . I was referred there by my buddy Gus via his informative and compelling blog . Also, check out the badass new song by Social Distortion entitled Reach for the Sky , which has been on relatively...

I just read an excellent translation of Sun Tzu's famous book The Art of War . The translation itself is apparently well-known - by Lionel Giles in 1910. But this edition of the book (published by Barnes & Noble - as an aside, I just read in the Wall...

I failed to debug my toilet the other day. I knew there was a problem because it was leaking water onto the bathroom floor. There was even enough water that it was noticeable after I got out of the shower and still had wet feet. My first reaction was...

For about a year now (*) I've been receiving the free zine Queue , published by the ACM. I highly recommend it, especially for software developers, like myself, who enjoy reading up on interesting CS-related research even outside my work area, but don...

Foreword (25 Feb 2004) I recently returned from a three week vacation in Africa . I spent two weeks in Tanzania with my wife, her brother Matt, and our friend Stefan. The last week was just my wife and I in South Africa . The trip was awesome...

Capi perf tips - CryptAcquireContext...

I'm back, and I've got smartcard comments....