CJ on Tech

If it's worth doing more than twice, it's probably worth scripting

  • Is it backedup?……explained!

    I had for a long time, been too lax about protecting my data. Not from hackers, but from corruption and loss. Following some significant changes in my personal life, it was high time to make sure my data was protected no matter what. First, some background. I have always been a proponent of the 3-2-1 Continue reading

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  • Stop buying smart devices that require the cloud

    You have, by now, heard the news that the MyQ garage door openers by Chamberlain have disabled/prevented the use of Smarthome platforms like Home Assistant. The lesson from this, is to stop purchasing devices that require a companies cloud service to function. Yes, I am looking at you Google Nest, and Chamberlain, and so on. Continue reading

  • A “smarter” home: automatically detecting guest presence

    In the smarthome journey, an important factor to automate is presence. WiFi connectivity, GPS location, motion sensors, and mmWave sensors are often used to acheive this for the usual people in our homes. How often are their guests in your home? Nanny, housesitter, mother-in-law, or the younger family member who needs an escape for a Continue reading

  • No more open ports or port forwarding rules

    I discuss my journey with remote access to apps and services, outlining the limitations of traditional VPNs, specifically Wireguard, and OpenVPN. He opts for a combination of Cloudflare and Twingate for enhanced security, eliminating the need for any port forwarding rules. He also discusses the additional protections offered by Cloudflare and Twingate like support for… Continue reading

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  • Why is MFA so hard to adopt?

    Why is MFA so hard to adopt? Face it, digital passwords have been used since they were invented in 1961 at MIT ( https://www.dashlane.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-passwords). Passwords have also been really bad for just as long. Why? Because it’s easy. It’s easy to re-use that same password for every site, then it’s easy to remember. Setting long passwords Continue reading

  • Installing Service-based certificates

    Although Microsoft has written volumes of tools and scripts in PowerShell to aide in the day-to-day administration, some gaps remain in the available tools. When using the AD LDS feature in Windows, of course it is always recemmended to use secure communications (LDAPS). This is one feature that requires the use of a service-based certificate. Continue reading

  • Active Directory is dead! Or is it?

    Microsoft released Active Directory with Windows 2000 Server. It has been around for almost 24 years. In those 24 years 90% of companies globally use it today. “But AD is dead”, “It’s going away!”, both things I have heard frequently this past year. It isn’t dead yet, and from where I sit, it isn’t going Continue reading

  • Run tasks concurrently in a script

    Recently, working with a customer, it came time to test a script, and process to ensure success during a recovery in the event of a catastrophic failure.  The basic requirement of this script is to automate the download of multiple files from a cloud storage provider since this cannot be done from the existing UI Continue reading

  • Protect script data (secrets) and keep it “portable”

    I use “config” files all the time in my powershell scripts.  This is a way for end-users to have options for the script when run as a task or repeatable programmatic method for completing tasks. A recent set of scripts copies data from a given source system, that is not domain joined, or azure joined, Continue reading

  • How to win at SBUX

    You have probably heard or read something stating that Starbucks is effectively a bank?  With the Starbucks card, and loading it up, etc., until the money on that card, or a gift card is spent, Starbucks gets to hold and earn interest on those funds.  But there is also a way to “earn” your share Continue reading