Filtering based on any old byte(s) in Wireshark

Well this one is no doubt somewhere in Google, but knowing what to type in wasn't obvious for me at least. I wanted to filter some (well, over a million) captured packets in wireshark that had a protocol not in the list. I looked at... hmm nobody cares about this story do they. Short version is that you select the 'frame' protocol, which is actually a dummy protocol that gives you the whole frame. In the filter 'Expression' dialogue, choose 'frame' for protocol, but just select the top level item. Then select your operator, type the test bytes in the top right data-to-test-on box, then in the bottom right box labelled something like 'Range' enter the byte offset and number of bytes you are planning to filter on. in my case 209:1. More details at http://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages/wireshark-filter.html#the_slice_operator

Xilinx ISE Global Signals (VHDL)

No, they don't work. You can add probes in the FPGA editor, or, to avoid having to edit loads of modules to bring signals up to the top level in the code, put 'records' in the port definitions instead of normal signals. These can easily be edited in a package file to add more signals (e.g. for debugging).

Disable McAfee splash screen

To disable McAfee 'Security As A Service' corporate antivirus splash screen, use regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mcafee\ManagedServices\DesktopUI\Tray\Splash  dwEnabled = 0

 You probably need admin rights on your PC, and I guess this could get stomped by a group policy or something (though it didn't for me).

[edit] yeah this did get stomped at some point, but for me at least this is rare enough to not be an issue (i've had to redo it once so far).