Configuring a hosts file on your computer allows your browsing traffic to go to a different server than is listed by public DNS. This can be essential for a few scenarios, such as:
Last week, I passed the MS-101 exam. This completed a goal I have had for a few years, earning me the Microsoft Enterprise Administrator Expert certification.
Continue Reading Microsoft Enterprise Administrator ExpertI recently got a Pixel 6. It’s great. For the previous 3 and a bit years I had been using a BlackBerry Key2. There was lots I liked about the Key2, but 3 years later I had never received an Android version update. I was still getting security updates, but I decided with the Pixel 6 launch it was time for an update.
Continue Reading Android: Email AppsThis is the first in a series setting up a basic DevOps pipeline through local virtual machines, GitLab, a dev server, a staging server, and a production server. This first post will look at the local VM setup. The next step will move on to using this local VM in connection with GitLab for version control and CI/CD.
Continue Reading Vagrant: Oracle Linux VMI recently obtained two Yubikey security keys to boost my personal and professional security. I picked up one Yubikey Bio and one Yubikey 5 NFC. They recommend that you always have a backup in case you lose one, and from what I had learned, I wanted the Bio in several services that would support it, but also the 5 NFC for other services and for mobile NFC authentication.
It’s now been a week, so here are some initial thoughts.
Continue Reading Yubikey: Early ImpressionsKoa11y is another useful website development tool I came across recently. It is a downloadable desktop app that can be used to test out a website’s accessibility. It is not the most user-friendly app – not as intuitive as the WAVE extension in your browser, for example – but a web developer should have no problem sorting out a few extra steps. Most importantly, it did return more detailed issues with the website I first tested against compared to WAVE, which can be valuable information to fix as many accessibility issues as possible.
Continue Reading Koa11y: Accessibility Testing ToolA few months ago it was big news in the programming world when GitHub Copilot was announced. This week, I was accepted into the preview, so now I have a chance to try it out and share my thoughts.
Continue Reading GitHub CopilotI recently gave a presentation introducing some key concepts and answering questions around Microsoft Teams. The context was for those who already have accounts and have used it throughout Covid-19. They didn’t need the day-to-day basics like how to start a meeting, but they needed a better understanding of how all the pieces fit together and when it is best to use what. It was not a full consultation process, but I did put out a call for questions a couple weeks in advance and received several that I made sure to integrate into the presentation.
I’ve edited my notes to be a bit more generic and included those below:
Continue Reading Microsoft Teams: Information SessionThis isn’t the only place I’m posting my writing. I’m also posting to dev.to and Tealfeed. These are other knowledge sharing networks, free to use, and both with options to set your own blog as the canonical URL.
Here are the early pro’s and con’s of each:
Continue Reading Dev.to and TealfeedThis is a quick post about a feature I discovered by accident in Visual Studio Code that I really like:
I was working in a Linux machine and ran a grep in the integrated terminal to find a particular piece of code. The terminal gave me the results in the usual way, with the file names highlighted, the line in the code, and a bit of the code around what I searched for. Then I happened to scroll over the file name in the results and it showed me a tooltip offering that I could open the file by holding Ctrl and clicking on the path.
Continue Reading Visual Studio Code: Grep