Skip to main content

Posts

ARM Templates / Infrastructure as Code with Azure Bicep

 An unintentional part 1. So Bicep is like Terraform but a different language that's native to Azure ! That's fun. Here's a video about it (I love how enthusiastic the person is) Now that you get it, let's try it. First we have our resource group; This is where things like virtual machines (virtual computers), storage account, and some configurations are stored for organizational ease. az group create --name runtcp  -l eastus 💡 Check the naming convention of the locations. I kept putting in us-east Ala AWS Then we make the storage account to go in! this can store resources that can be open to the greater internet for people to download - Or it can have the proper security measures in place for certain people to have access to. az group deployment create --resource-group runtcp  --template-file main.bicep --mode Complete A very cool thing the video Azure Bicep Crash Course, by Meet Kamal Today does is use an array to push the same resource in multiple regions (3:30) ...

How to Build an Online Professional Presence Without Using LinkedIn

 (This is a bit of a departure but I'm still waiting for my cables to use my MacBook Air and finish the Bicep work.) On LinkedIn, saw a post by one of my connections -   " You don't have to post on websites you don't like to build your 'brand'. "  It was so simple and succinct that I went "You know what? Yeah, they're right." -- And, after 6 years of use, hibernated my LinkedIn account on about October 18th 2023 without warning. I don't have to read a bunch of cringey nonsense or watch companies accept bad behavior while "Hey, bigotry is bad" is "not a value alignment with our company". It's great.  I do miss the head-nod-glance acknowledgements of my connections, who have been greatly helpful, as well as watching animators spoil future Dreamworks projects by having them on their profiles and box office news. I do miss being able to send a message to someone to get some insight or let them know of an issue with the...

Fix Your Tumblr Page

  I was hired to fix up a tumblr website of Minorities in Publishing through a mutual friend, a podcast that focuses on the voices of the global majority. I like projects like this; You give voice to typically excluded people and find interesting books to read. So, what was the issue? 😬The old website was dated, with an impersonal, grey aesthetic, having last been updated circa 2012 or so. 😬 It wasn't optimized for smaller viewports. What is a viewport? When you adjust your browser window (on desktop or mobile) to be bigger or smaller. 😬 It couldn't be easily updated with new information; The old code was no longer maintained. While a lot of the feed functionality has been eliminated, I; 📙 Fixed outdated side pages of links while providing a template that improved workflow , so they could easily update the pages. 📘 Improved navigation; Instead of linking to individual MP3s, I directed the 'Episodes' link to head to their libsyn library, so people can play the...

Review: Logitech Marathon M705 - AKA, More (Computer) Mouse Madness

Yep, this is another mouse review, and about nine months. I have a tendency to move around a lot with my mind, and I end up dropping them a bit. So my Anker mouse can't really take a drop. The scroll wheel is busted to the point where I have to scroll multiple times to go down once - before it pops back up. But now, I have this; The Logitech Marathon M705; @runtcpip varies a little with other opersting systems but you're smart you can figure it out. runtcpip.com #techhelp ♬ original sound - runtcpip I teach people simple computer stuff over on TikTok. When I plugged the USB dongle into my MacBook Pro, Apple immediately decided it was a keyboard for reasons unknown.  I specifically wanted a Mouse with a USB dongle, because I do not like having my Bluetooth on all the time. That is a vector for attack. Then again, everything is a vector for attack, but I just like having a dongle there because my Bluetooth is going to be off 97.54% of the time. My MacBook needs a Apple US...

The Great Domain Migration to NameCheap

  As you may not know, but now know, Google Domains is being sold to Squarespace -- To the annoyed groans of many around the world, myself included.  Word spread on Twitter (I will not call it X) on how Squarespace was often a costlier option for people. I don't remember exact numbers people had experience with, but it was more. 36$/yr sticks in my head, but check for yourself. With a domain costing 12$ through Google, I thought above making the choice to transfer myself; and after perusing this Twitter thread , decided to go with Namecheap on a whim. I didn't know there were so many choices to host domains, DNS options, email services. That would actually be a field of interest to own a business in. It has that old internet charm (robot text anyone?). Now, this very site is hosted on Blogger, which is owned (and ignored) by Google, so it probably isn't being killed anytime soon (I hope). Google Domains was owned by, well, Google, so attaching the domain to the site was qu...

Securing Terraform and You, Part 3 -- The Finish Line

9/20: The open source version of Terraform is now OpenTofu   I swear, this is not a recurring series. The problem just -- finally -- got solved. Part 2 is over here . I went back to tfsec after seeing the simple start guide posted here , by Liam Galvin at Ghost Security. There are two aspects of my code:  Allow buckets starting with [word]  deny buckets that don't start with [word].  The initial guide only has "don't allow buckets that are exactly named this", but that's all I needed to actually get going! The problems could have been; The rego file and the terraform file don't play well in the same folder. Having the options in two separate subfolders helped even though there was a command that I used to read both files in the same folder. Trivy ... I don't know. Maybe the metadata setup was incorrect - but if it's set up as comments -- readable by the program but not acknowledged in the rego -- who knows. I can work on that in the future. The code w...

The flickering of a 2019 MacBook Pro

  It started, late one summer evening... This laptop is pretty much lightly used, was package well for shipping, and only sat on my desk after arrival.  description:  a computer monitor with a silver base and black border with a photo of a desert landscape. white lines dance across the surface. I see other people have tried steps listed as to remedy the problem, to no solution. One person on Apple's forums even received an entirely new (to them) machine, and it still persisted, so I'm thinking it's a software problem.  After restarting several times, I restarted into the diagnostics tools. I had dead pixels on my old MacBook Air and I dropped that more than once - no flickering. How can a laptop that simply sat for a few months flicker on the display? [ I forgot to make a video while the issue was happening. If it starts again - hopefully not - I will edit one in ] The stripe is only on light backgrounds.  Anything darker than white does not see the stripe. ...