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As more and more companies turn to Linux for mission-critical operations, making sure IT staff have the necessary skills is becoming more important than ever.

That's a significant challenge, because demand for Linux skills now far outstrips supply, making them a particularly hot commodity in the hiring market as companies large and small struggle to equip themselves with the talent they need.

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Those who have been recovering video evidence from CCTV systems for any length of time know that every case starts as a research project. In some cases DCCTV evidence is submitted with little or no information about the recording device. In other cases the entire device may be submitted, but more often than not it’s submitted without any manuals or documentation.

As you may know, version 1.10.4 of Avery Lee's video capture/processing utility was released a little over a month ago. I've packaged it with several of the input plugins I regularly use, with one notable exception; the FFmpeg input plugin. I've had nothing but issues w/version 0.7 of the FFmpeg input plugin when used with version 1.10.4 of VirtualDub, so I've provided the source but did not install the plugin in my v1.10.4 package.

The v1.9.11 package contains all of the same input plugins, and version 0.7 of the FFmpeg input plugin is loaded automatically as well. Head past the break for the links to download.

I've had a handful of inquiries this week about the frequency of our relatively new automated newsletter, so I thought I'd post a brief note for everyone on the topic.  The automated newsletter sends the five most recent articles and five most recent forum posts out to registered members once per week, once every two weeks or once per month.  Members can change these settings or completely unsubscribe from the newsletter by logging in selecting "Newsletter" from the "Community" menu options.

The automated newsletter was implemented to help keep members abreast of site activity.  Changing your preferences is easy and only needs to be done once.  I hope you find the service helpful. - LC

Despite our efforts to educate everyone in the digital evidence chain on the proper way to label and care for CDs, DVDs, and BDs (see CD and DVD Care and Handling: Stop Destroying Your Evidence!), read errors still happen...a lot. Here are two of my favorite tools for repairing and recovering data from disc-based media.

By Sean Hollister

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 hasn't even been officially announced, much less reviewed, but that won't keep you from buying the company's latest Fermi-based graphics card anyhow. Over at Newegg, usual suspects ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI and Palit have fielded twelve models in all, most with slightly different features, thought it seems the base configuration has 336 CUDA cores (down from 352) and a mere 768MB of GDDR5 memory.

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Registration is now open for the Law Enforcement & Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA) 26th Annual Training Conference being held November 2 - 6, 2015 in Clearwater Beach, Fl. Hope to see you there!

Visit LEVA.org

A brand new LEVA course has been designed by and will be taught by two highly respected members of the FVA community: George Reis and Jimmy Schroering.  "AUTOMATION FOR FORENSIC VIDEO ANALYSTS: From Photoshop to Scripting" will be conducted in the LEVA Lab this December 17 - 20 and again May 20 - 23. 2013.

For additional information please visit the LEVA website at www.leva.org 

The site search tool will now search our member forums as well.  Of course, you need to be a registered member to view the forums and posts, but at least now members will be able to search them conveniently.

This fall, CDFS will hold its first elections to the Board of Directors.  There are a total of 13 Board seats.  The current Board has decided to hold staggered elections such that approximately 1/2, or a total of 6 Board seats, will be up for election in the Fall of 2012, and the remainder up for election in the Fall of 2013.  This system has been designed to help CDFS maintain stability and continuity through leadership transitions.

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Resolution Video is planning their 2009 training schedule and would like input from their current and prospective students. To that end, they've published a brief online survey to collect your input and would appreciate your feedback.

Those who participate in the survey prior to September 1, 2008 will be entered to win an Apple iPod Nano. To complete the survey, please click here.

Encryption is all the rage, again. Politicians and government officials apparently have no problem with using fear mongering to conjure up support for backdoors to encrypted devices and data. Privacy advocates keep doing the same, basically, warning that providing big brother with backdoor access to encrypted data is like leaving the cookie jar in your wide-open kitchen window, on Sesame Street.

(The original post included a link to my complete post on this topic on LinkedIn, but those articles no longer exist.)