software engineering

Security integration

I’m working on a security story that has drug on for close to 6 weeks now.  It is the result of an early decision to turn off TLS because the mechanism for setting up the certificates wasn’t ready and just turn it back on later.  Yeah, that never goes well. (This decision happened before I came into the team, so I won’t point fingers.)

I’ve finally come to a small epiphany about security.  We talk a lot about security algorithms and strength and attack vectors and vulnerability surfaces.  But the math and analysis parts of security seem like much more straight forward problems.  There are lots of great tools for those things that should be used.  The _real_ challenge to security is integration.  Getting the certificates in the right places.  Turning on those little configuration switches in all the right files.  Specifying the right ports and routing traffic through firewalls and load balancers and TLS terminators.  That seems to be where the practical complexity lies.

Maybe some day I’ll have an epiphany about how to make that happen more smoothly. 😉

remote work, software engineering

Teleworking can be a good thing

I have had a couple conversations where the topic of my work arrangement has come up. I still keep in mind this article. http://martinfowler.com/articles/remote-or-co-located.html
Effectively, I think having a good manager who knows the team and how well they are working is key. Having team members who have integrity and want to get the job right helps, and pair that up with good remote-worker skills and tools and you can be successful anywhere.
Of course there are some jobs where you need to be with the equipment, but if you are writing software that often isn’t the case.

software engineering

Article link – 9 predictions

First, the link.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3022874/application-development/9-predictions-for-the-future-of-programming.html?imm_mid=0df53e&cmp=em-prog-na-na-newsltr_20160123

This was an interesting enough link, and since most of the predictions are easy enough to see, may have a good chance of happening.

I think I especially agree with the ‘teach the world to code’ assessment.  I like that more people are exposed to code because it makes us full time programmers look good. 😉

Yeah, this is just a quick post to get the blog back on my radar after the holidays.

pi

Pi and RCX – step 1

My boss and I were talking about Raspberry Pi (he is buying one) and LEGO Mindstorms this week. We were both wondering if there was an easy way to connect the Mindstorms peripherals to the Pi.  A quick Google search tells me that the LEGO motors are 9 volt, so no.  But I did find a blog post that got me going using the RCX brick and programming it from the Pi.
https://minordiscoveries.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/using-nqc-on-a-raspberry-pi-to-program-a-lego-mindstorms-rcx-brick
I got pretty far, but it didn’t respond to the raw command.  I did skip loading the firmware on my RCX 2.0 because I’m paranoid it might be an irreversible step.  But that is probably why it didn’t work, so I’m going to do some more research

hardware problem

Slate 7 – quick usage update

Since I’ve been working at home, I’ve been using my Slate 7 more.  Most of the time I use it as a convenient Pandora terminal, hooked in to the two Rokit 6 studio monitors I was given from a previous project.  That works pretty well, and the battery life is good.  But I still occasionally have issues with the wireless.  It will randomly loose touch with wireless, and the only solution is to shut down and reboot.  It has been happening about once a day this week, and it seems to be related to having Pandora paused from the lock screen when it goes into a deep sleep.  But I have no easy way to debug it.

Oh, and the Amazon Music app on it just screws up all the time.  Which is too bad, because I’d like to add that variety to my listening.

I also still use WordPress on it to write blog posts. 🙂

interviewing

Interview skills – a new category for the blog

Years ago, during yet another round of corporate uncertainty, I took some advice that you should be keeping up your interviewing skills and do some interviews to keep in practice, even if you don’t want to change jobs. And you never know when you might find an awesome offer. So I made a goal to do at least one interview a year sometime during the summer.  It has been good for me to push my boundaries, talk to some cool companies, and get a feel for what I’m lacking in an interview.
Continue reading →

pi

Microsoft IoT on Raspberry Pi – first impressions

(Yeah, long posting gap. Switching to full time teleworking has consumed my professional attention since summer)

I attended OSCON again this year.  “Attended” means I was able to sneak away for a day to wander the exhibit hall.  Its always worth the price of gas and parking to see what is up in open source and collect lots of swag.  The best swag this year was from Microsoft in the form of an Internet of Things kit containing a Raspberry Pi. Continue reading →

pi

Raspberry Pi – first impressions

I finally ordered myself a Raspberry Pi 2 model B.  I have friends who already have them and the simple platform for programming and experimenting with electronics.  I know nearly nothing about electrical engineering, so I have a bunch to learn.  My kids took to it right away, and the 9 year old, who I’d shown Scratch before, started programming right off.   We ran Minecraft and set up the wireless dongle that came with the bundle I bought off  Amazon.  We found Wolfram and Mathematica already installed, but I don’t know much about either.
I’m waiting for the LEDs and buttons I ordered to try playing with the GPIO.