The No Starch Press Blog

It’s DEFCON time and that means Vegas. And as tempting as the $1.99 buffet might be, maybe you’ve had all the cheap steak you want for the day. Check out Bill’s restaurant map for other ideas. There’s a wide range represented, from Himalayan cuisine to good ol’ American food. If you’ve been to any of these restaurants, or have other suggestions, please edit the map.

Restaurant Map

(The Riviera Hotel, home of DEFCON)

Shmoocon seemed really lively this year. I’ve been to two or three past Shmoocon events and always had a good time, even though I’ve seen the show mostly from behind a table. (You know, the No Starch Press Kissing Booth. Kiss the Vendor.)

I arrived late in the afternoon, retrieved our boxes, and I was just going to leave everything under our table. Then I thought I’d be responsible and put some books out on the table. Wow, the table was mobbed. It was as if as soon as I put books out someone would try to buy them. That was so cool.

I sold what we had of Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd edition in about the first 30 minutes that I had them on the table. Security Data Visualization moved at about the same rate. I guess we’re doing something right.

I sold pretty much everything that we sent, including a case of our TCP/IP Guide (not bad for a book that’s not cheap). We also moved several copies of Linux Firewalls (thanks to author Michael Rash for hanging out, helping out at the table, and for signing his book, and to Greg Conti for doing his part with Security Data Visualization). We had a lot of interest in our BSD titles (though, unfortunately, none to sell at the show), and great comments on some forthcoming titles.

All in all, this was a great conference. I couldn’t have asked for a better reception, either.

If any of our readers are planning to attend SCALE (http://www.socallinuxexpo.com/) this weekend in Los Angeles, be sure to visit the No Starch Exhibition Booth. Tyler and I will be at the conference, selling books and entertaining stoppers-by*.

In other SCALE news: A good friend of No Starch, Don Marti, will be giving a talk on the potential power of offline productivity (once you get over the shakes). From what I’ve heard, it’ll be Lifehacker meets The Onion. So get ready to enter this into your “Hipster PDA”, Don Marti Sat 11:30 GO.

Moving on, I agree with Sacha and Bill that the inner workings of publishing make for good blogging. We’re always working a wide variety of projects, but there’s much more to it than that. For each function of an Editor’s job, we’re drawing upon vastly different skills and personae. On any given day, you can be a Negotiator, a Diplomat, a Creative, an Academic, a Salesman, etc. And on really great days, you find the time to be all those things and even do some editing.

I find that Twitter is a good outlet for updates on what I’m doing. It’s particularly useful, because our readership is well represented on Twitter. That gives me a chance to see what our readers are working on, what ideas they like, and what they’re brainstorming to do next. (For anyone who’s interested, http://twitter.com/awright415)

Until next time.

* – Actual entertainment value not guaranteed.

Mike Schrenk, author of Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers, and Greg Conti, author of the upcoming Security Data Visualization, are speaking at Defcon. From Defcon.org:

The Executable Image Exploit

8:00-8:50 PM, Friday August 3, Track 3
Michael Schrenk
The “Executable Image Exploit” lets you insert a dynamic program into any community website that allows references to off-domain images, like MySpace or eBay. By uploading the following line of HTML to a community website,

<img src=”http://www.mydomain.com/executable.jpg” /> you can launch a dynamic program that masquerades as a static image and capable of reading and writing cookies, analyzing referrer (and other browser) variables and access databases. It is even possible to create an image that causes a browser to execute JavaScript.

Satellite Imagery Analysis

1:00-1:50 PM, Sunday August 5, Track 2
Greg Conti, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Military Academy
Satellite imagery was once restricted to organizations like CTU, but now it is freely available to us all via powerful free online tools and commercial services. In this talk we will look at commercial collection platforms and capabilities, orbital mechanics and a variety of imagery analysis techniques. We will analyze examples from interesting places around the world and explore issues surrounding the future of satellite surveillance.

No Starch will also be there. Drop by and say hello!

A few months back I attempted to become a vegetarian. It didn’t work. Now I’m back to being a true carnivore.

I’m on vacation this week in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale Florida area (or at least pretending to be), and on a never-ending search for barbecue. You know the stuff.

Today we head to the Everglades and I’ve got a couple of barbecue places picked out. Yes, my vacation is all about food. If I find good food, I have a good time. And so far, so good. High on today’s hit list is Shiver’s Bar-b-q in Homestead, Florida. We’ll see if it’s as good as people say it is; that is, if my family doesn’t protest ;)

Tom Jenkins BBQ in Ft Lauderdale is quite good, but what I’m really looking forward to is a visit to Hot Boyz (not what you might think) this Saturday. Apparently, this is a one-day-a-week only thing. A giant kettle like BBQ roaster thing and a lot of people lined up for their Q. We’ll see.

Oh, and I’m still reading Vista reviews. I intend to go check it out this week. I don’t doubt that Microsoft put a lot of work into Vista. I just don’t see why anyone would want to pay for it. But then, I’ve never cared to have the newest-new thing. That’s why our youngest vehicle is from 1996. Not that that’s a good thing, btw; I think we should consider picking up a car with lower emissions (though ours — including my 1985 Volvo 240 turbo wagon– aren’t bad).

I’ve considered converting a diesel to run on SVO (straight vegetable oil) but I don’t want to collect the stuff. There’s the hybrid option, of course, but those still run gasoline. And then there’s the bio-diesel option which may be a good one.

Has anyone tried hydrogen boosting their cars? Do you even know what I’m talking about? Is that like cold fusion?

How did I go from BBQ to hydrogen boost? Maybe I’ll go shave off all of my hair, like Britney.