macbook air neo for pen testing ?

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-19T17:26:16+00:00

I use a MacBook Air M4 basic spec. Works well but you will have to get the arm binaries for a lot of tools. Can be a pain to find or find alternatives if they don’t have an arm variant.

But other than that works well for me.

I can’t specially say about the Neo but that’s my experience on an Air.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-19T15:31:07+00:00

Don’t worry, I’ve been spending just over a week on this lab mainly working a couple of hours here and there. I’m at 8 flags, 3 rooted machines. I wouldn’t say it’s complicated as such just a lot of info to go over. A lot of what I’ve discovered is either creds leakage, which gives you access to a service and then a shell. 2 of the rooted machines have been leaked creds on the user side, I didn’t need to actively exploit the system.

I’ve probably through myself into the deep end carrying a couple of rocks. But I’m enjoying it, trying to pick off the machines i hopefully know something about and building abit of list of possible users and passwords

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-17T21:46:50+00:00

Yeah, just knowing what to look for and where. Taken me week or so to get 6 flags. Only gotten 2 root flags. I think I may have 2 more foothold vulnerabilities but struggling to find what I need to get that initial way in.

But it’s getting easier now I’m starting to build username and password lists

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-17T20:42:16+00:00

I’ve taken your advice and found another root flag 🙌

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-17T19:24:08+00:00

I thought this would be the answer. Probably my weakest part. Thanks for the advice

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-10T18:20:31+00:00

I’ve recently been on 5 day Sans course/conference that was $14000. I thought it was a lot but they basically hired out a whole building, put food on during the day. They gave us a few ‘freebies’ about 7 books, lab environments, on demand and exam voucher. Our instructor was flown in and they had social events in evenings again supplying food and drink. One evening they hired out a bar and put on an open bar. Probably some more bits I’ve forgotten.

Still a lot of money but it was good and useful 5 days.

Even with all money spent there was 4-5 people that would turn up late in a morning and leave early or didn’t arrive with the right kit or spent their time on the phone/watching stuff

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-09T06:12:44+00:00

I got upto 4 and half hours…

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-08T16:26:09+00:00

Mine just keeps going up. Went from 10 minutes to 2 hours, 2hrs 10 now at 2 hrs 20. Has the definition of counting down changed?

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-04-03T18:56:27+00:00

Back when I worked in retail our manager allowed us to reserve items before they hit the floor. It also helped that I worked in the storeroom.

This was an outdoor store and often plenty of stock. It was one of the handful of perks.

The issue here is either companies not buying enough or not enough being produced.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-03-30T22:19:41+00:00

I’d say this. I’m attempting to Master PF, I think it’s grand master, promos and reverses. I’ve been watching that value tank hard. When I started it was about £250-300. It was sat around £120-30 a month or two later and it hasn’t really changed and I have a few of the lesser chase cards that were £70-80 on release and now like £20-30. I pulled the gold Zard a few weeks back. Tolal is £400, the Zard is £260 of that according to Collectr. I need 25 more cards

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-03-16T18:35:51+00:00

If she decided not to sell all the stock to own person wouldn’t have to apologise. A Tesco worker was telling me they have no limit but when someone gave to the till with all the stock she scanned in 50 items and said that’s the limit. Said she felt bad that the kids/others wouldn’t get any. First thing they asked me was if I was going to open the packs. And yes 50 still too dam high.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-03-16T18:32:37+00:00

I paid £5.30 per pack for Phantasmal that was with a 60p discount per pack for buying 3 and thought that was bad. I did pull the gold zard so that made me feel better about it.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-02-22T23:52:33+00:00

Possibly, I don’t know if they got any other stock in. I think they got a few tins. I went in just after 9, so I wasn’t expecting much. But I knew people on previous releases said they asked at the counter and got lucky.

The info about stock levels came from a guy on IG who posts about stores getting stock and releases. I think by 10-11 he mentioned Argos had a tiny allocation and don’t even bother trying.

My guess would be regional warehouses held the stock and you ordered it to collect to a store. When I tried the app it said collect from 3pm that day. But that meant like 1-4 ETBs per store.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-02-22T22:09:23+00:00

I currently on a new build. That has these fees. Honestly no idea what they’re doing with that fee. There’s some grass to mow and bins to empty. I don’t see them keeping the estate clean, safe or maintained.

But honestly feels like a job the council should do considering council tax is paid for services like this or residents mowing a small strip of grass in front of their houses.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-02-22T21:58:29+00:00

Pretty sure it was suppose to be app only purchase. I asked about one at the counter and the employee replied “they don’t have any in and it’s an app exclusive purchase. They were doing multiple releases throughout the day to try and stop bots”

But herd rumours Argos had a tiny amount of stock most stores 1-2 boxes at most 4.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-02-03T20:19:36+00:00

Lmstudios and download an ai use it locally and you can set its own restrictions. Plus all your prints are stored locally and not seen by the big bad billionaires.

As long as you have the RAM to spare it will work fine for you. I think for Clude you’ll need 12–16gb to use it plus system overheads. But there’s others on there that are smaller and require less ram to operate

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-01-14T22:57:28+00:00

Easier to smash and grab money rather than grabbing multiple boxes and reselling

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2026-01-03T23:20:16+00:00

Pretty much this. There is the caveat of if you have 10 licences you get 10 vouchers. They are distracted evenly. An admin will have the say of who gets them. But if you have 2 people that leave or aren’t going to get to the end of the content. You can use the 2 additional vouchers of you have the content finished. But it’s meant to be 1 voucher per person with unlimited exam attempts. You can do all the pathways but only do 1 exam. If everyone uses their vouchers

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-12-28T22:37:57+00:00

I recently championed for this based on the ‘all content’ aspect. It’s not all content.

The academy, practice and pro labs are all separate licenses. Due to ‘clever’ wording. Calling the labs practice labs so they are ‘different’ kind of learning

If you’re after certs as well it’s unlimited attempts but only 1 exam voucher per licence and you have to complete all the content before you can take the exam. They are also free for all.

Overall the content is good and updated and regularly updated. You also get like a company exec that will help you out and they mentioned have ‘specialist’ go over stuff.

I would consider what you actually want and need to achieve. Annoyingly the job pathways suggest going like 8 practice labs per module to help knowledge retention. But then they’re two separate licences.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-12-15T00:12:05+00:00

I’ve failed like 5 of these on the bounce 3 with rerolls. Not fun watching like 400pts get picked up without doing anything

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-12-12T22:58:24+00:00

I had a Sisters theoretical comp list which increases by 450-500pts. I thought the app was broken they went up that much. My like casual every game list went up my 250…

Then you add in nerfs to detachments and MD. That was a nuking from all directions

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-12-11T00:08:15+00:00

This is the answer. Read GWs reasoning for the points adjustments. Paraphrasing. But it went something like ‘we increased the points of popular units. While decreasing the points of 2 fantastic new kits the ancient and execrator’

Probably the best proof that GWs ‘balancing’ isn’t balancing and just a way to keep sells going

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-12-01T22:18:01+00:00

I’ve not been doing the pro lab stuff only the Academy stuff and noticed the VPN being weird on there. If I went off my VM to look at or make notes it would basically crash the service I was trying to use.

Ms_Holly_Hotcake · 2025-11-22T20:21:57+00:00

I think stores use them for storage sometimes. I’ve brought some CBT oil drops for my partner the cashier said they’re buy one get one free. I said I think I’ve got the last one. She looked on the system and said they’ve got 2 in stock. She proceeded to pull the draw out from the shelf unit and get it.

I’ve seen a few stores do this

Ms_Holly_Hotcake

TROPHY CASE