Scarier Than Halloween?

For the most part of my engineering career, I performed repairs (surgeries) on countless PCBs. It didn't dawn on me that one day, I would have to undergo one myself. Warning: graphic image in this post, so be warned!

Recently I had a regular dental visit to clean my teeth. My dentist friend noticed the gum above my front top left incisor was darkened and inflamed. She did a check and found recesses of 5mm and 9mm around the affected tooth. X-ray revealed the foundation of that incisor had eroded, and she advised me to see a gum specialist.

She cautioned if I leave it untreated, the incisor would slowly loosen and ultimately come off. Moreover, periodontal disease is known to likely affect the brain and heart. After giving it some thought, I accepted her advice. She recommended me a gum specialist and I made an appointment for consultation the following week.  

The day came and I visited the specialist's clinic for a more thorough examination, after which he proposed a perio guided tissue regeneration (GTR) procedure to help secure and save the incisor and the neighboring teeth. A quick discussion with my wife and I went ahead with the surgery on the same day. The surgeon administered about ten jabs of anesthesia around the area before carrying out the procedure (I will spare you the gory details). It was over in about 45 minutes and I was prescribed two courses of antibiotics, anti-swelling medication, mouthwash, and painkillers.

The surgery set me back $1500 but in view of the risk of loosing my incisor and possibly my health, it's a price worth paying. Thankfully, the wounds are healing well and I didn't end up looking like a hamster. Will be going back for review in two weeks' time. 

Meanwhile, I'm taking baby food and resting as much as needed...

 

A Special Meetup

A few days before I flew off to Taiwan for holiday with my wife, I received a message from Antriksh, founder of Hardwear.io, via LinkedIn. He told me he'd be coming to Singapore on a business visit and would like to meet up with me, and have me sign my books. I was delighted, of course.

Soon after returning from my overseas trip, I fixed a lunch date with him on July 18 at City Hall station which is central. Well, he didn't come alone but had a friend, Aseem, the co-founder of Hardwear.io, in company. Being the host, I treated them to lunch at the Coffee Club in Raffles City.

We had a good time sharing our personal stories in the career journey we undertook. I also got to know about the nature of their business proposals to the various government agencies on IoT security solutions. As a surprise, Antrisksh brought some souvenirs from the recent Hardwear.io USA 2023 conference for me, two T-shirts,  two luggage tags, a tout bag and a mini hand carrier.

It was an hour-and-a-half meetup and they were off to meet Bunny Huang, author of The Hardware Hacker book. Before we parted ways, Antrisksh asked if I would be interested to give a four-hour presentation and workshop at the next Hardwear.io conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands sometime in November. I felt honored to be invited and told him I will work out something and plan my schedule. It's still preliminary at this stage, though my incentive for going will be to meet Joe Grand in person there.

Maybe someday,  I will link up with Bunny Huang and meet him over coffee. After all, we're both living in the same city-state, though our paths have not crossed so far. Life is full of surprises, so who knows...?

Speakers and Books

This year's Hardwear.io event featured nearly thirty speakers from various fields relating to hardware and security:

Interested readers can go over to YouTube and subscribe to the channel to be notified when the videos for this event is uploaded.

Incidentally, all my engineering books were showcased alongside other renown authors writing on similar subject matters:

I'm sure some of the winners at this event would have been delighted to receive a copy for a prize in their participation. But don't just wish or wait for the next event to come by and try your luck. The books are available as print and ebooks on Amazon for order. Just click on the covers displayed on the right side bar to preview before purchase.

 

Hardwear.io USA 2023

Just last Sunday, Antriksh Shah from Hardwear.io contacted me on LinkedIn and expressed interest in procuring two sets of my PCB-RE books, hoping to give them away as prizes for participants in the upcoming Security Training & Conference at Santa Clara Marriott:

I was delighted with this first encounter and readily offer the books at a discounted price, along with complimentary copies of two other books, Deciphering Schematics and PCB Diagnostics. I am sure the winners would be excited to receive these books should they come out top among the competitors.

If you have not yet signed up for the event, you can go to this link to find out more about the talks and trainings offered. Who knows, you may be one of the lucky winners!

 

hardwear.io USA 2022

It's an exciting time at the Delta Hotels in Santa Clara as the much awaited hardwear.io USA 2022 event kick-started. Below is the schedule of the two-day programmes:

Many experts from various fields of hardware hacking will be giving their talks, demonstrating their tools and techniques, and answering questions from participants. Among them are keynote speakers Joe Grand and Window Snyder, and invited speakers Andy Nguyen, Cristofaro Mune, Damien Marion, Duy-Phuc Pham & Annelie Heuser, Daniel Genkin & Roei Schuster, David Kaplan, Derek & Ryan Chow, Francesco Restuccia, Karim Abdellatif, Laura Abbott, Sick Codes, Steffen Robertz, Steve Povolny & Sam Quinn, Jay Cox & Nic Watson, John McMaster, and Marcus Richerson.

A day or two before the event, speakers and hardwear.io staff could be seen setting up their wares and equipment to impress the participants:

Of course, such a large-scale event could not have happen without strong support from sponsors like Google, Leviathan Security Group, Quarkslab:

I'm certain those who made it to this event will have a smashing time learning new skills and winning some prizes, not to mention meeting these hardware legends in person.

hardware.io PCB-RE Book Giveaways

I seldom receive more than three notifications on my Twitter account, simply because I'm quite careful who I follow to prevent being overwhelmed with indiscreet posts. However, today I received 20 post notification from a single thread started by hardwear.io featuring Joe Grand aka 'Kingpin':

Was wondering what's causing the buzz and realized there was a book giveaway promotion featuring my latest work, Manual PCB-RE - The Essentials:

This is certainly one effective way to create interest and draw a following to an event, much like ScanCAD who give out two of my books at their exhibition booth in-country and across Europe, with much fanfare and success in attracting potential customers to link up with their businesses. Another company that give away my books is Teel Technologies which specializes in providing training workshops on Mobile Forensics.

If you're running a seminar, workshop or exhibiting your business at a trade fair, maybe you want to consider this idea as well. Take it from the pros and see your sales improve!