Statistics on kelma.mt
A few weeks ago I decided to start collecting some statistics on kelma.mt. Turns out most people like to play early in the morning and get it right in 3-4 guesses!
Visualizing AS32934 (Facebook) BGP Outage
A lot has already been said about the 6-hour Facebook outage of 4th October 2021. Instead, I will take a different approach; visualizing it.
Maximizing the chances of finding "the right one" by solving The Secretary Problem
When it comes to love, making long-term decisions is a risky business. How do we know when we've truly found “The One”? Should we settle for the current one? Or is there a better match?
What's Coming in C# 8.0? Ranges and Indices
Ever wanted simple syntax for slicing out a part of an array, string or span? Now you can!
A Weekly, Curated Newsletter
People today suffer from information overload, so I have decided to create a weekly newsletter, curated by me with the articles that (I think) are worthwhile.
Receiving Aircraft Surveillance Data and Contributing to FlightRadar24 and FlightAware
Modern aircraft are equipped with ADS-B; a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via GPS and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked.
Cloudflare Hijacked my Ghost(Pro) Domain
Cloudflare will gladly delegate any of your domains that are pointing to any SaaS provider hosted on their platform. In this article I show how to take back control
Analyzing Data from a Public-Facing Honeypot
What happens if you setup a badly password protected server on the public internet without telling no one? How much time would it take before a botnet would try to hijack it?
Implications of Privacy and Encryption on Smart Devices
In the recent past, there have been numerous debates on the privacy of personal data in devices like smartphones and laptops as well as on online sites like Facebook and Google.
What's Coming in C# 8.0? Records
One of the new features being proposed in C# 8.0 is to introduce Records. They are essentially a very lightweight class that is a collection of fields.
Planning a Wedding the Agile way
One of the duties of the best man is to assist the groom (and bride) in the preparations. It occured to me that Agile might just be the best way to plan a Wedding!
What's Coming in C# 8.0? Default Interface Methods
One of the new features being proposed in C# 8.0 is to add support for virtual extension methods (methods in interfaces with concrete implementations)
What's Coming in C# 8.0? Nullable Reference Types
One of the features being discussed for introduction in C# 8.0 is Nullable Reference Types. A proficient C# Developer might say "What?! Aren't all reference types nullable?"
Bypassing Active Directory Group Policy
Networks that run with users as local administrators have no way to enforce policies on their organization's computers. In this post, I show how and why.
Meeting Woz
What an honor to meet the Silicon Valley icon who has shaped the computing industry in the early days with his design of Apple's first line of products the Apple I and II, and his influence on the Mac
Never accept an MDM policy on your personal phone
With BYOD, companies are more than ever keen on protecting their data. MDM tools, like Google Apps, do more than that; they invade your privacy.
Inspecting the Meltdown and Spectre CPU Vulnerabilities
A CPU predicts you will walk into a bar, you do not. Your credit card has been stolen. The drinks are 30% more expensive. (Oh, and the bartender was insider trading)
Analyzing Software Failure on the NASA Mars Climate Orbiter
What went wrong with NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, $327.6 million probe? What can we learn from the mistake?
Misconception on Idempotency in REST APIs
It is a common misconception that idempotent REST requests MUST return the same response for repeated requests. Why is it wrong?
Open Source IT Professional Calendar
An open-source calendar with a collection IT Professional Dates. Contribute or Use.
Brotli Compression in .NET Standard
Brotli is a relatively new general-purpose lossless compression algorithm. Microsoft has officially endorsed Brotli in .NET Standard and we see how to use it.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Byzantine Fault Tolerance is a characteristic of a system that tolerates failures known as the Byzantine Generals' Problem; for which there is an unsolvability proof.
Linux Essentials - From Starter to Beginner
Open source slides (licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License) for my Linux Knowledge Sharing session which explores Linux History and some basic commands.
What is a Blockchain?
A Blockchain is an immutable, decentralized, secure and distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of chronological records called blocks.
What is Serverless Architecture?
Serverless is a style of architecture where we rely running our own functions over abstracted Software and Hardware Servers
Response Compression in ASP.NET Core
As part of ASP.NET Core 1.1, Microsoft introduced the Response Compression Middleware. Here, you can see how to apply this to your ASP.NET Core Web Apps.
What is a Leap Second and why is it worth your time?
Leap Seconds. A new one is being injected at the end of 2016. Why should you care? Is your infrastructure and software prepared for the issues it brings with it?
Receiving Radio Contacts from the International Space Station
The ISS has equipment that transmits on Voice and Pictures on Amateur Radio Bands and it is possible to hear the Astronauts speaking! How can you hear them?
Design Patterns: Competing Consumer Pattern
The Competing Consumer Pattern enables a system to process multiple messages concurrently to optimize throughput, to improve scalability and availability.
Design Patterns: Queue-Based Load Leveling Pattern
By introducing an Asynchronous Queue between a task and a service, you will be allowing the service to handle the messages at its own pace
Why Network Engineers should be Radio Amateurs
Being Network Engineers, most of you are able to talk for hours about Layers 2 to 7, but very little of us know what actually happens at Layer 1
Using Subresource Integrity (SRI) with Public CDNs
Public CDNs are awesome; they are fast and free, but it means that third parties have control of stuff that run on your site. What if the CDN is compromised?
Why can't you have a CNAME at the root of a domain?
Have you ever wondered why your nameserver does not allow you to put a CNAME Record at the zone apex?
(Ab)Using the HTML5 Battery Status API for Advertising
The Battery Status API provides information about the system's battery to the browser. How can this be used for advertising?
On HSTS
What is HSTS? How does it protect your web host from SSL Stripping Man In The Middle attacks? How can you implement it?
Enabling Windows' DNS Server to Validate DNSSEC
DNSSEC is a suite of specifications for securing DNS. How do you enable your Windows DNS Server to Validate DNSSEC?
Origins of the Domain Name System
DNS is a critical infrastructure component of the Internet. How did it originate? How does it work? Who controls it? Is it secure?
How Software Engineers can make their apps IPv6 Ready
It is becoming increasingly important, especially on mobile devices, to have your apps support IPv6. What does it take to get your app ready?
Beginner's Guide to IPv6
There are no longer any IPv4 addresses available for allocation from IANA. This means that adoption of IPv6 is now of paramount importance.
Introduction to the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
How can Alice and Bob agree on a secret, without having any prior knowledge of each other, over the Internet and with Eve listening in on the conversation?
Beginner's Guide to Understanding BGP
BGP is one of the core protocols that drive the Internet, yet few people know what it is, yet alone how it works. In this post we scratch the surface on what BGP is and how it works.
Monitoring Redis in PRTG
It is increasingly common to see Redis being used in modern applications. Learn how to monitor a Redis cluster or standalone instance in PRTG.
Design Patterns: Cache-Aside Pattern
Applications that rely heavily on a data-store usually can benefit greatly from using the Cache-Aside Pattern. How does it work?
Design Patterns: Series Introduction
A series on some common and modern Design Patterns that are useful in today's horizontally scalable (such as cloud-hosted) applications.
Caching and Storage Tiering in Storage Spaces Direct
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Edition introduces Storage Spaces Direct (S2D). How does Caching and Storage Tiering differ from Storage Spaces?
Monitoring RabbitMQ in PRTG
Learn how to use PRTG to monitor and alert on RabbitMQ status using the RabbitMQ Management Plugin REST API
Deep Dive: UEFI
Do you realize that BIOS has been around for more than 30 years? This 3 decade old technology is finally being replaced by UEFI. But what is UEFI and how does it work?
Petya Ransomware Defeated
Petya is a new variant of ransomware, first seen in March 2016 that encrypts your entire hard drive. Learn how to reverse it and get your data back.
Protecting against Encrypting Ransomware
Encrypting Ransomware is one of the biggest threats in 2016, both for personal computers, your corporate IT and enterprise infrastructure. How can you mitigate and minimize your attack vectors?
Exploring Visual Studio "15" Preview and Playing with C# 7
Visual Studio "15" Preview is now released and with it comes a new set of features for C# 7
Does your Web App really need 64-bits?
It's been a decade since 64-bit processors have started popping up in the consumer Windows environments, but do you know how 64-bit affects your application?
Today is World Backup Day; don't be an April Fool!
March 31st is World Backup Day. Even though, everyday should be World Backup day, today we discuss some important backing up techniques and tips to hopefully raise some awareness
Time Zones (and Daylight Savings) in your Infrastructure and Applications
Most systems designed are heavily dependent on accurate time. In this blog I discuss some best practices on how to handle time zones and daylight savings in your infrastructure and applications
Async Waiting inside C# Locks
Have you ever tried to await a task inside a lock() block? In this post we discover how to replace a lock with a Mutex.
360° Inside Look into Google's Oregon Data Center Infrastructure
It's not the first time that Google has exhibited the insides of their data centers, but this new video offers a virtually immersive look into how their Oregon Data Center works.
Setting up PRTG to post to Slack
Do you use PRTG and Slack in your corporate environment? You have a match made in heaven. Learn how to make PRTG post to Slack using HTTP Webhooks
On Hyper-Convergence
What is Hyper-Convergence and what does it mean for our data-center and infrastructure?
The Software Engineer’s Tool Belt
Hardware and Software tools you need for a better developer lifestyle as well as Blogs and Books to read and follow to enhance your knowledge of this continuously changing environment