Jun 29, 2011

Dark Bar from Google

See the dark bar on the top?

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 drops its BETA tag today.

Microsoft published release notes and unveiled tiered pricing plans that start at $6/month per user for small businesses and ranges between $10 and $27/month per user for large enterprises depending on the features needed.

Office 365 combines Office Web Apps with additional collaboration services for businesses, including Outlook through Exchange Online, document sharing with Sharepoint Online, and corporate instant messaging and presence with Lync Server.

Jun 28, 2011

Enhancing your vlookup function

Here's another tip to help enhancing the way how you use your vlookup function by removing the "#N/A" when the unique key isn't available.

We can remedy this by judicious use of Excel’s IF() and ISBLANK() functions. We change our formula from this…
=VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE)
…to this…
=IF(ISBLANK(A11),”",VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE))

Lock the Table_array in vlookup function

A lot of time, we use vlookup function to help us to retrieve information from another table and we will like to lock the Table_array range. By default, Excel doesn't fix the range and keep shifting it when you copy and paste the vlookup function.

Here's the quick fix.

After you create the 1st vlookup function, it will like this:
VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE)
To lock the table range before you copy and paste the function, add the $ to fix the cell reference, as below:
VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A$2:D$7,2,FALSE)
This fix the row 2 to row 7. Of course, you can also fix the column A to column D at the same time:
VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!$A$2:$D$7,2,FALSE)

Using VLOOKUP in Excel

This is a short description on how to use "vlookup" function in Excel.

Vlookup function is one of the the most powerful Excel tips that I learn. It works like a database tables, where it can retrieve information from another database table by supplying it an unique identifier. For instance, you can use vlookup function to retrieve the product description (from another sheet) by supplying it the product code.

From the menu Formulas, Insert functions, search the function called vlookup. You need to supply 3 mandatory parameters and 1 optional parameter:

  • Lookup_value: [ the unique key]
  • Table_array: [ the table range ]
  • Col_index_num: [ the column of the retrieved information in the table range]
  • Range_lookup (optional): [ sorted or unsorted 1st column in the table range ]


Jun 27, 2011

Quickly Remove Blank Row in Excel

Here's a handy way to help you to remove any blank row in a long list.

  1. Remove any blank column manually.
  2. Select the 1st blank cell in the 1st column.
  3. Hit F5 (Edit, Goto).
  4. Click Special.
  5. Select the Blank option and click OK. This will select all the blank row for you.
  6. Now, choose Edit, Delete, select the Entire Row option and click OK.

Jun 3, 2011

SonyPictures.com is Hacked via sqli

Sony Pictures web site is hacked, via SQL injection. All the user ID, emails, and password are shown in plaintext (and available for download).

RSA (March), PSN (April~May), Sony Pictures (June), what's next?

A good write up on Sony PSN attack at Deciphering the Sony PSN Attack.

Jun 1, 2011

Incident Response Methodologies (IRM)

Go download a copy of all the IRM cheat sheets published at CERT Societe Generale. It provides easy to use operational incident best practices. These cheat sheets are dedicated to incident handling and cover multiple fields on which a CERT team can be involved.

There are all in PDF format:

  • IRM-1: Worm infection
  • IRM-2: Windows Intrusion
  • IRM-3: UNIX Intrusion
  • IRM-4: Distributed Denial of Services
  • IRM-5: Malicious Network Behavior
  • IRM-6: Website Defacement