2024-03-23 00:11
I’m at Gary Con this weekend (if you’re here, find me and let’s share a beverage). In honor of the con, I made and shared a set of the standard tabletop gaming dice. A 4, 6… Read More
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Krypted.com | Tiny Deathstars Of Foulness Blog
krypted.com
Here's a little app to sync data from a DynamoDB database to an iOS device. Includes the ability to search. Simply edit the constants file to link it to your
2024-03-21 00:20
Posted this at https://www.secretchest.io/post/a-deeper-dive-into-augmented-reality-graphics-and-how-we-got-here but thought I’d throw it in here too Read More
2024-03-04 20:07
Just posted this little project to script batch processing of .stl to .obj or vice versa. It’s uncompiled so requires Xcode to build and run, but is fast and efficient because it uses… Read More
2024-02-08 02:36
Should you want to print a Bulldog Barbarian… Here’s one. Best paints would be Dragon Red from Army Painter and Maxx Darth (black) from Green Stuff World. But I’m biased a… Read More
2024-02-06 00:14
Sometimes I disappear for a bit to work on this project or that. But I tend to always be writing. I’m not sure if I’d classify it as an addiction at this point, or what… B… Read More
2024-01-18 16:48
Added a post on the Secret Chest blog on finding out what Apps like ours are doing on a machine. Because people deserve to know…
https://www.secret-chest.com/post/find-out-what-app… Read More
2024-01-17 20:50
I put a little article up on the Secret Chest site on Apple’s Keychain, SQL, SQLite, encrypted SQLite, and what lies beyond that. Hope someone finds it somewhat useful: https://www.sec… Read More
2024-01-14 23:49
Just posted a gopherfolk mini. It’s a wizard. Or magic user. Whatever. I recommend painting it like a golden gopher. ‘Cause that was what I did. It’s at https://www.thingiv… Read More
2024-01-01 21:30
Like a kid off to the first year of college, you haven’t heard that much from krypted.com recently. But if you’re still out there following, I’m still out here doing stuffs… Read More
2023-10-03 16:50
Just finished delivering the keynote for MacSysAdmin with Joel Rennich and how wonderful it is to see so many wonderful people who I’ve missed getting to hang out with in person for ye… Read More
2023-09-25 00:33
I don’t write as much about what I do at my day job as I used to. I probably should, because it’s all still relavant to my older readers. One example of that is that I have publi… Read More
2023-09-20 18:47
Here’s a Cha’pa (Beaverfolk) Fighter I just posted on Thingiverse
A friend saw the badger I made and went to Oregon State, sooooooo… I guess Go Beavers!
But also, th… Read More
2023-09-19 18:34
Just posted this Hadozee Monk to Thingiverse
For those who are playing with simian-inspired characters, here’s a Hadozee monk (or humanoid monk-ey hybrid). This one was going for mo… Read More
2023-08-31 14:46
Published this design to Thingiverse for that special spot in the venn diagram – people who went to the University of Wisconsin, play D&D, and like to 3D print your minis. … Read More
2023-08-30 13:18
Here’s a design I just published to print a simple banana stand. Thinking of you, Sweden (see ya’ soon)!
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6191695 Read More
2023-08-21 17:52
Once upon a time, when the COVID was upon us, I retreated into my lab to write a book on the history of computing. I was fortunate, privileged, and delighted to get the chance to interview s… Read More
2023-07-19 16:57
Working on presentations is always fun! Here are two that I’m giving this summer. The first is part one of a deck on Extensions Management (and more on the past of managing them). That… Read More
2023-06-14 14:19
I just posted a new app to GitHub called TestFairy. It’s at https://github.com/krypted/TestFairy. It automatically generates unit tests for either a file or a highlighted piece of swif… Read More
2023-06-12 17:33
It’s not uncommon to expect CIDR notation vs an IP address in a script (e.g. one that’s being passed to another API. So the following script is an example of using the re module… Read More
2023-06-06 12:59
I get prompted any time one of my books is cited in legitimate research journals. A group of Kuwaiti researchers wrote a paper that, to quote the researchers, finds that “In a nutshell… Read More
2023-06-02 15:12
I’ve been writing little machine learning and AI bits of code for a pretty long time and while I’m not very good at it, I feel like the one thing I’ve learned is no… Read More
2023-05-30 16:29
Deepfakes are a type of synthetic media where a person replaces parts of an image or video with something else, like someone’s likeness. The act of creating deepfakes is known as deepf… Read More
2023-05-28 06:00
When you make a request to a web server, the server will respond with a status code. The status code indicates whether the request was successful or not, and if not, what the error was. Ther… Read More
2023-05-27 06:00
This function takes JSON data as an input, uses the json and yaml modules to convert JSON data to YAML and then returns with the YAML. Deploy the function, as a Python 3.7 runtime, pasting t… Read More
2023-05-26 18:20
I’ve been working on this presentation for a long time, so it was awesome to get the first chunk of it out there. Then I saw Graham Pugh publish his with presenter notes included and w… Read More
2023-05-26 06:00
Large language models (LLMs) are a type of artificial intelligence that generates text, translates languages, writes different kinds of creative content, creates net-new artistic works, and… Read More
2023-05-25 06:00
We hear more and more about the pros and cons of AI. There is a movement to regulate the use, movies about dangers of sentient robots, and those who think AI will free humanity from any bori… Read More
2023-05-24 06:00
The following is a Google Cloud Function that converts JSON to a property list. It uses the json and plistlib modules to return the property list data. Deploy the function as a Python 3.7 ru… Read More
2023-05-23 06:00
Posted scripts to return browser extensions installed in Firefox, Google Chrome, and Windows Edge at https://github.com/krypted/extensionsmanager/tree/main/Windows%20Extensions. There’… Read More
2023-05-22 08:54
One of my favorite ways to find escape defects in code is to employ a generic fuzzer. I typically have 5-10 laptops running fuzzers for various projects at a time. I was recently doing some… Read More
2023-05-22 08:46
TLDR: Just posted this little Google Cloud Function to https://github.com/krypted/tinyconverters/blob/main/YAML_to_JSON.py.
This Google Cloud Function converts YAML to JSON. The function… Read More
2023-05-21 08:47
TLDR: The GCF at https://github.com/krypted/tinyconverters/blob/main/GCF_YAML_to_PLIST.py will convert basic YAML to PLISTs.
Here’s a Google Cloud Function that converts YAML to a… Read More
2023-05-19 14:51
The physical editions aren’t shipping just yet, but the book I wrote last year with Chip Pearson and Amy Larson Pearson is now available for download through Kindle and the Apple Books… Read More
2023-05-18 14:06
Below is a Lambda function to return the number of fields in a JSON document. This Lambda function expects the JSON document in a body field of the event. It loads the JSON document using th… Read More
2023-05-17 18:24
The post Bluetooth: From Viking Kings To Personal Area Networks appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-05-16 14:05
Here’s a Lambda function to calculate a checksum. The JSON document will be passed in the body field and the script loads the JSON document using json.loads(). The MD5 checksum of the… Read More
2023-05-12 15:37
The following is a simple Google Cloud Function that will validate that text entered into a field (passed to the function in the request body when called) is a valid format of an email addre… Read More
2023-05-06 13:13
Here’s a Google Cloud Function that takes some arbitrary json (in json_data) and posts it to a new record in a Cloud SQL database. No error handling or deduplication/matching, just a s… Read More
2023-05-05 07:13
Here’s a Google Cloud Function that creates a Google Doc based on a title and body from a json document:
https://github.com/krypted/tinyconverters/blob/main/json_to_new_google_doc… Read More
2023-05-05 06:28
Here’s a Google Cloud Function that uses the Google Sheets API to add arbitrary json to a Google Sheet: https://github.com/krypted/tinyconverters/blob/main/json_to_GoogleSheet.py
To… Read More
2023-05-04 16:51
I recently posted some converters to handle different types of data transmogrification. When handling document structures, we should lint them pre- and post-processing, so here are some Goog… Read More
2023-05-04 16:33
Sometimes you just need a little microservice to check that a port is up before you try and send some data to it. This does just that…
https://github.com/krypted/NestMonitor/blob/m… Read More
2023-05-03 16:33
The post One Simple History Of 3D Printing appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-05-02 16:48
I’ve written a lot of little scripts to convert files or types from one format to another, over the years. It’s easier to import something that can do the work for you and just u… Read More
2023-05-01 19:02
Sometimes we want to test a function to see how… robust it is. This is a small example fuzzing function to input randomly generated characters that get passed to another function. It… Read More
2023-04-29 17:15
TLDR: See https://github.com/krypted/DropboxScripts for some python scripts for the Dropbox API
I recently needed to get a list of changes to all files on Dropbox. To get there, I first f… Read More
2023-04-27 19:33
To use this function, create a Google Cloud Function that uses the encrypt_json() function in Google Cloud Console or the gcloud command-line tool.
import json
import base64
from google.c… Read More
2023-04-27 15:33
The following was written to act as a Google Cloud Function or Lambda, and sends a simple POST to a standard rest endpoint at https://krypted.com/api/v1/sites with the json defined in jsonOb… Read More
2023-04-26 16:03
Have a few scripts that I’ve been bringing into projects for awhile (and altering for each so ymmv on the state, but you’ll get the general idea). https://github.com/krypted/tiny… Read More
2023-04-25 15:53
Unit tests are one of those things that evolve over time. When we talk about test coverage, anyone that thinks they have full coverage is kidding themselves, but it’s not uncommon for… Read More
2023-04-17 16:30
The post The History of Adobe; On Pueblos, Fonts, Graphics, && Marketing Clouds appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-04-10 16:28
The post The Evolution of Fonts appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-03-30 14:16
Yesterday, I wrote up how to compile your own version of an open source Xcode app and used NoMAD as an example, for those who didn’t want to use the precompiled application bundle. Man… Read More
2023-03-29 13:00
There are plenty of apps out there that can be beneficial to an organization, but don’t really make sense to live on an app store. This might be because the app uses private APIs, brea… Read More
2023-03-28 14:56
tldr: here’s a slightly modernized fork of NoMAD that needs a little testing: https://gitlab.com/krypted1/nomad2
Been working on a fork of NoMAD that will hopefull just modernize co… Read More
2023-03-21 16:58
It’s cold out. So gaming indoors is still a thing! Feel free to remix this, replace the laser gun with a sword or staff or other instrument of whatever.
https://www.thingiverse.com… Read More
2023-03-18 18:54
Not life-sized cobblestones, mind you. But those for miniature wargaming. Although according to the size of the printer, I guess you could. The goal with this stl was to be able to print a t… Read More
2023-03-16 16:39
The post SABRE and the History of the Travel Global Distribution System appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-03-14 20:47
TLDR: Download the coin from my Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5908546. I’ve also put all the coins into a collection at https://www.thingiverse.com/krypted/collectio… Read More
2023-03-13 18:31
TLDR: Download the coin here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5904625
The Chinese used had shells well before 1,000 BCE as gifts, especially those bestowed upon the people from their ar… Read More
2023-03-12 18:12
Just posted a .stl file for a Byzantine Coin at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5902779.
The Roman empire had been unified in 27 BCE and the western empire fell in the 400s CE. By then… Read More
2023-03-11 13:00
Just posted another coin, this time a post Roman empire coin from the next to claim the title: Charlemagne: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5902572
After the fall of the Western Roman e… Read More
2023-03-10 21:34
tldr: Posted this anomaly detector that uses ChatGPT at https://github.com/krypted/Lightweight-GPT-Log-Anomaly-Detector. Can be used untrained or with lightly trained troves of macOS system… Read More
2023-03-09 16:13
Download the .stl to print this coin at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5900608.Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE in Babylon in 323 BC. Coins had been in circulation for a little less th… Read More
2023-03-08 13:00
Posted another coin to Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5900668.
This one is of a coin from the Mauryan empire. Chandragupta Maurya established the Mauryan Empire in the… Read More
2023-03-07 20:00
The post The History of Computing: Intel appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-03-04 22:08
TLDR: Just posted this .stl for 3d printing to Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5897427. The first coin I posted was of the Lydian Stater, for that see https://krypted.com/th… Read More
2023-03-02 14:48
tldr: Download it from thingiverse here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5886433
Lydia And The Stater
Lydia was an empire that began in 1200 BC and was conquered by the Persians arou… Read More
2023-03-01 19:15
Sometimes when we download an Xcode project, there are dependencies. Those that use swift packages might need to download the package (if it’s publicly available) or have it linked. Pr… Read More
2023-02-28 20:06
As usual, the wonderfully timely (yes, that was two adverbs in a row) Rich Trouton posted about our latest book, the second edition of Apple Device Management, finally shipping. Ironically w… Read More
2023-02-27 18:12
Apple introduced custom domain names for iCloud email in August of 2021 (I think, but feel free to correct me and I’ll correct this). The easiest way to set this up is probably to just… Read More
2023-02-22 22:30
The post 70 Years of AI Hype Cycles and AI Winters On The Way To ChatGPT appeared first on krypted Read More
2023-02-21 17:43
Spammers have been getting craftier with how they get through the bayesian and other heuristic filters many mail providers use to deliver only legitimate emails to recipients. One of the way… Read More
2023-02-14 16:52
I received a piece of malware today and as one will do, I of course opened it up on my test machine. Like with a lot of phishing-types of emails, it was really just trying to get at a passwo… Read More
2023-02-10 15:36
A common task for those who manage devices is trying to get a list of things installed on a computer. Plenty of the things are apps. But increasingly there are extensions in apps that expand… Read More
2023-02-08 16:06
Just released v2 of a Chrome Extension that overrides the navigator.credentials.get and navigator.credentials.create endpoints to show the json that is sent and received from a webauthn tran… Read More
2023-01-19 16:37
Just uploaded a new version of Extensions Manager to GitHub at https://github.com/krypted/extensionsmanager. Now it has a search function and can sort by column. These make it much quicker t… Read More
2023-01-17 17:37
Just posted a graphical interface to see what extensions are running on Macs, the version of extension, what type of extension each is, the status, path, and SDK. This is a rebirth of the sl… Read More
2023-01-03 17:57
Extension Manager was an important app for those who managed Macs in the System 8 and System 9 era. It allowed us to see all of the extensions loaded in the classic OS and disable them. It w… Read More
2022-12-22 18:41
Shells come with a magic variable $0 for performing various operations. We can use these to perform certain functions. In its simplest incantation we can just echo out $0 to get the path a s… Read More
2022-12-21 17:54
Some shell commands are internal built-in commands. This allows them to change shell process states and when they’re internal they can be really fast as they don’t have to load a… Read More
2022-12-20 17:21
The Offload Unused Apps feature on an iPhone is great to save space and keep devices secure. This keeps documents and settings for apps that haven’t been used for awhile but removes th… Read More
2022-12-18 14:39
A Mach-O object file is a file format used for executables, libraries, object code, and core dumps. These are binary files. There’s a Mach-O header and then load commands and segments… Read More
2022-12-17 15:09
Yesterday I posted https://krypted.com/mac-security/script-to-list-extensions-running-on-a-mac/ to scriptify some research on App Extensions and System Extensions. I mentioned that it’… Read More
2022-12-16 21:16
I wrote an article about extensions on macOS a few weeks ago, and have since written a couple of other extensions. The interesting thing about modern extensions is that different types of ex… Read More
2022-12-05 20:44
I recently had two or three different projects that involved taking files from classic Apple computers and getting them up to modern Apple hardware; notably to my MacBook that runs Ventura… Read More
2022-12-04 15:41
There’s a cute little command in /usr/bin/banner to produce… ASCII art banners. Since it’s the holiday season, let’s make a greeting ready to be printed and taped ov… Read More
2022-11-28 15:40
macOS has a built-in, simple bandwidth analysis tool that tests access to Apple’s CDN to check upload and download speeds. The /usr/bin/networkQuality command can be run with no flags… Read More
2022-11-26 16:58
We’re going to make a disk image of a floppy in this article. Before we start it’s best to use what we call a write blocker. These are devices that can block the ability to write… Read More
2022-11-25 03:36
The reason Ken Thompson wrote the Thompson Shell (/bin/sh) when he and the team at Bell Labs developed Unix was that they didn’t want to have to teach programming to people in the pate… Read More
2022-11-23 19:00
The /usr/bin/shortcuts command can be used to run, well, shortcuts. Shortcuts are small scripts that are interpreted by the Shortcuts app. They can run shell scripts, JavaScripts, and even S… Read More
2022-11-22 19:36
One of my favorite moments at Apple’s WWDC was when I got to see the developers of Shazam show off their new creation. A few years later, in 2017, Apple acquired Shazam. In the few yea… Read More
2022-11-17 15:45
One of the packages that can be installed with homebrew is mbedtls, which gives access to a number of cryptographic libraries. To install mbedtls:
brew install mbedtls
Encrypting a fil… Read More
2022-11-16 14:15
Application extensions allow developers to import common SDKs into projects so they can build increasingly interesting apps without developing a lot of code for those things vendors expose… Read More
2022-11-15 19:12
Here we load in a list of Apps in the /Applications directory and then echo them along with the kMDItemLastUsedDate from Spotlight via mdls:
ls /Applications | while read APP;do echo "$AP… Read More
2022-11-14 17:49
Rich beat me to posting about the second edition of the book we just finished, soooooo: https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2022/11/12/apple-device-management-second-edition-book-coming-soon/… Read More
2022-11-04 16:49
The amount of free space required to upgrade a Mac has increased drastically in the run-up to and since the introduction of apfs-based snapshots in 2016. The amount of required free space ha… Read More
2022-11-02 17:40
Extensions have gotten a pretty substantial overhaul over the past few years. Traditionally, a kernel extension (or kext for short) would usually be located in /Library/Extensions or /System… Read More
2022-10-24 17:58
Amazon SNS makes implementing Apple Push Notifications (APNs) a breeze. This might seem like a longer article but it’s really not as many steps as it seems (although buttons on web pag… Read More
2022-10-21 14:59
I was talking to Jeff Butts at Mac Observer yesterday and he mentioned something I hadn’t noticed: macOS Ventura removes the option to schedule an automatic reboot from the graphical i… Read More
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