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Seeing the Invisible: My First Deep Dive into Nmap and Wireshark

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  Introduction This is Blog #9 on Net with Hiru - and honestly, this one felt different.😀 Every other lab I've done, I more or less knew what tools I needed before I started. This time? I sat down to run my first Nmap scan and hit an immediate wall: Nmap wasn't even installed on my machine. That tiny obstacle turned into the most satisfying lab I've done so far  because by the time I got past it, I wasn't just following steps. I actually understood what I was doing and why. In this post I'll walk you through how I set up a local Python web server, installed Nmap, ran two different port scans (SYN and TCP Connect), and then  the really cool part - verified everything I saw in the terminal using Wireshark packet captures . Real packets, real evidence, real understanding. What is a Port Scanner - and Why Should You Care? Imagine a building with hundreds of doors. A port scanner is someone walking down the hallway, knocking on each door, and listening for a response -...
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So You Want to Set Up a Home Router? Let's Do It Step by Step

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  When Your Router Turns Out to Be a Server: My WTNP Home Network Adventure Blog #8 - Net with Hiru I walked into this WTNP practical thinking "how hard can building a home network be?" Turns out - pretty entertaining, actually. Here's the full story of designing a wired + wireless home network in Cisco Packet Tracer, including the moment I accidentally tried to run Wi-Fi off a device that has never broadcast a single radio wave in its life. The Brief Design a home network with both wired and wireless devices, configure the home router properly (not just drag-and-drop-and-hope), secure it, and understand why each setting exists - not just click through it. Simple on paper. Chaotic in practice. Let's go. Step 1: Placing the Devices ( My First Mistake 😏) I placed a router, a switch, 3 PCs, a laptop, a smartphone and 2 tablets. Nothing connected wirelessly. No SSID. No radio waves. Nothing. Turns out - I'd grabbed a Cisco 2901 ISR router from the Routers...
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EXCELL WITH AI 👀☝ Stop Memorizing Formulas. Start Thinking in Excel. How combining Excel mastery with AI tools like Claude can turn hours of repetitive work into seconds - and make you the most valuable person in any room. Have you ever watched someone finish in 30 seconds what took you two hours? They weren't smarter. They weren't even working harder. They just knew something you didn't. That something is Excel with AI  - and by the end of this post, you'll understand exactly what that means, why it matters for your career, and how to get there even if you have zero programming background. Excel Is Not a Subject. It's a Skill.💥 Let's get one thing clear from the start: Excel is not a subject you study for an exam and forget. It's a practical skill - like driving, cooking, or speaking a second language. The moment you stop practicing, you start losing it. More importantly, Excel is a thinking tool . The real power isn't in the calculations. I...
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  I Let AI Build My Apps in Replit - And  Things Got Interesting 🤯 If my last blog was about discovering vibe coding, this one is about going deeper. This time, I used Replit  - and I built three things in one session that I genuinely didn't expect to pull off. First, What Is Replit? Replit is a browser-based coding platform - no installation, no setup, no "it works on my machine" pain. You open a browser, start a project and write or run code right there. But what makes it different now is the AI agent built right into it . You describe what you want, and it doesn't just write code , it thinks through the problem, plans the steps, installs the dependencies, builds the app and runs it. You can literally watch it work. That "AI is thinking" panel? It's oddly satisfying to watch. And the best part - you can see the full code it generated. Every file, every line, fully open.                 Project 1: Landmark Map Explorer 🗺...
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  I Tried Vibe Coding for the First Time  And Built a Real Stock App I had no idea what "vibe coding" was 😜! That's honestly where this story starts. I kept seeing the term pop up and I had zero clue what it meant. So I did what anyone does  I searched YouTube. I found a video called Vibe Coding Full Course for Beginners by Naman Gupta (9.43k subscribers at the time), and decided to just follow along and figure it out. So What Even Is Vibe Coding? 😏 Once I started watching, it actually made sense. Vibe coding is basically describing what you want to build in plain language and letting AI do the heavy lifting. You're not writing syntax line by line. You're describing your idea, your vibe and the AI turns it into a working app. And I thought  okay, let me actually try this. 😎💪 My First Build: A Live Stock Price App 💸🤑 I wanted to test something real. Not a to-do list, not a counter app. Something that actually pulls live data and does something usef...
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  How I Hacked My First Machine Using Telnet - A Beginner's Journey 🎯 Blog #4 — Ethical Hacking Series A Quick Note Before We Start If you haven't read my previous blogs, I covered installing Kali Linux in Blog #3. Go check that out first , you'll need Kali before trying anything in this post! Also, one big tip from me: use YouTube AND AI tools together . YouTube is amazing when you're confused about a concept  watching someone do it visually really helps. Then when you get stuck on a specific step, come back to AI tools like Claude to ask questions. That combo is powerful. Trust me, it saved me many times while writing this blog! 😄 What is Ethical Hacking? ⚖️ Before we do anything, let's be clear E thical hacking means hacking with permission . Everything we do here is on our own machines in a safe lab. Never try this on anyone else's system without written permission. That's illegal and can get you in serious trouble. Ethical hacking = legal 😁  Hackin...
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