Case Studies with X-Ways

We are WAY ahead of our planned writing schedule, mostly because of the XWF Guide writing and editing team are getting things done, fast.

With that, we are reaching the Case Studies chapter, where we will give specific case flow and XWF usage by the type of case.  That means, we have a section on “How to Use XWF on a Child Pornography Case” and “How to Use XWF in an Electronic Discovery Case”, and more.

case studies

For this chapter to be of most use to the most number of readers, please give us what type of cases you want us to cover.  PLUS, if you have used XWF in a case that worked well, send us your (sanitized) case study and we will add it to the chapter.  Depending on how you’d like credit, we can credit you with the specific case (“case study submitted by ….”), or generically (“so and so” contributed to the case studies chapter), or not at all if you want to remain in the background with a case study.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to keep up with the book’s progress.  It’s going fast and you don’t want to miss out.

I can also say that although I felt I was competent XWF user (since 2004!), the research, testing, and delving in XWF for this book opened my eyes to more capabilities of XWF that I never imagined.  You won’t be disappointed and after reading this book, you will be using that green XWF dongle a lot!

XWFRT updated to 0.4.8

Several fixes based on user testing in this build to include:

  • Added Undo button to reverse the tweaking process
  • Rearranged GUI to make it less congested
  • Undo tweaking automagically if an error occurs to keep report in a known good state
  • A bunch of processing fixes to allow for tweaking more than one report in a row

 

 

XWFIM goes International!

Just released version 0.0.4.8 that includes fixes for international users. The issue had to do with date/time formats and the use of non period decimal separators.

Both should be fixed, but if any of our international friends are having issues, please shoot me an email and I will get it resolved ASAP

XWFRT and XWFIM updated

You can let the latest build of XWFIM from the URL in the X-Ways Forums or just use the auto-update feature in the program by looking in the lower right corner of the program after it starts.

XWFRT was also updated recently. again you can auto update or pull a copy from here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6labcj537jlxnzz/XWFRT.exe

if you run into any reports that cause XWFRT to throw an error, please zip and email me all of the Report*.html files (not any of the directories which contain files) and i will get the issue resolved ASAP

Enjoy!

XWFRT 0.0.4.6 released

New in this version is the ability to attach one or more external files to your report.

This includes things like XWF registry reports (as seen below). You can include any kind of file to the report in this manner. HTML files will be viewable directly in the browser.

The screenshot below shows 2 registry reports being added as external files.

ExternalItem1

And here we see what the report would look like as a result of including the files.

 

 

ExternalItem2

Coming soon…X-Ways Forensics Report Tweaker, or XWFRT for short

Ever generate a report in XWF and ended up with more than one Report*.html page? Ever been stymied by the fact that those handy menus at the top don’t link to anything outside the main Report.html page?

Yea, me too, but no more!

This isnt quite done yet, but its close. here is an overview and some screenshots. In my testing, reports get tweaked in less than a second or 2 for a 9 page XWF report.

 

Here is what the main interface looks like. Basically, choose the case file, choose the directory where you exported your report to, set some other option information (like who you are, your agency, a logo), write a narrative (if you want) and TWEAK!

3-27-2013 9-45-40 AM

 

The Narrative is nice because it supports HTML, so if you wanted to get crazy and write up a nice, fancy report with lists and stuff to include in your report, go for it!

The items at the top, like the logo and the agency, arr taken from what you enter in XWFRT

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The menu on the left contains items for general case info, all evidence items and, if present, audit trail information. Clicking a menu loads the relevant section into the main part of the window (the General tab is shown below).

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here we see the evidence items page

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and finally, clicking on a report table page.

3-27-2013 9-46-02 AM

 

 

I have a bit more polish to put on this thing before i release the first version to include having a setting in the GUI to control the max # of items on a report table page. For example, if you exported 1500 images in report table “Foobar” and set the max per page in XWFRT to 500 items a page, you would get Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 links under the “Foobar” heading.

 

Oh yea, the entire look and feel is all controlled by CSS, so you can, by editing one simple file, completely change the look and feel of the report to suit your department’s needs (colors, layout, borders, EVERYTHING)

 

What else does the community want to see this thing do?

XWFIM updated

Just pushed version 0.4.3 out.

 

This version will now track the last selected version as opposed to always defaulting to the newest available version

I also added a check on startup for any new updates for the last version you selected. That way you will know as soon as you start XWFIM whether there are updates or not.

Finally, i fixed a (stupid) bug related to mplayer install when doing a new or clean install.

 

please report any issues to me here or via email and I will get em fixed ASAP!

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