Category Archives: Technology

Reviewing Azure Function App Logs

12/04/2022 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

I’ve been playing around recently with Azure, finally got some things working, and think I’m starting to understand things a little better (though still terrified somehow I’m going to create something that costs a boatload of money).

One of the things any app developer will always want to do is be able to review logs so that’s what I was in search of today. While it looks like you can monitor logs in real time… I hardly ever need to do that (that’s what local debugging is for). I was trying to figure out where/how to view my logs after they had generated… you know, like you have to do to support anything.

Anyway, it appears the secret is that you need to configure things to send your logs to a log analytics workspace 1st (and if I’m wrong here I would love to know a better way). To do that I followed the instructions here.

Keep in mind though that it take a bit for logs to start getting pulled over so it’s not like a real time stream. For a real time stream (like when debugging, but from the server) look at “Log stream” for your Function App…

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Disclaimer: Thoughts and opinions are my own, and do not reflect the views of any employer, family member, friend, or anyone else. Some links may be affiliate links, but I don't link to anything I don't use myself. You would think this should be self evident these days, but apparently not...

Technology

WFH Setup

11/15/2022 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

Now that I’m officially working remotely, and have had some questions about my setup, I figured I’d do a write up so everything was in 1 place. So, let’s start with a picture…

… and I’ll tell you that my setup consists of a Desktop (not shown) and the Laptop you see in the photo. Also included in the photo are the microphone and camera. The Stream Deck shown in the lower right (as well as shells, rings, and baseball) is optional 😊.

Now, how it all works together… The main monitor (with the rings at the base), keyboard, and mouse are controlled by the computer KVM which determines if I’m working off the Laptop or the Desktop. Essentially, the computer KVM takes “in” the keyboard, mouse, and HDMI from both the Laptop and Desktop, and sends “out” to the shared keyboard, mouse, and main monitor. A simple double tap on “Scroll Lock” + either “1” or “2” switches between them.

I also use a USB Switch to toggle peripherals between the Laptop and Desktop. This allows me to switch between the computers but make the camera and microphone potentially “stick” to the backgrounded computer (i.e. be on a call/meeting on one computer, but switch to the other briefly as needed). Setup is as simple as the USB Switch taking a USB “input” from each computer, and having the peripherals tied into it. Switching between does take a press of the button on the USB Switch.

So, what about the other monitor and laptop monitor you may ask? The full monitor (upper left) is tied into the Desktop using a DVI output on my graphics card (but could be tied into whatever additional output you may have) so that when the Desktop is active I’ll have the 2 monitors. When I switch to the Laptop, the laptop and main monitor act as my 2 monitors.

And finally, you may be asking, how do you tie all that stuff to the laptop if it only has a USB C and maybe a standard USB? For that, I use a USB Dock. The dock allows me to connect to my wired network (better reliability and throughput of signal), the computer KVM, USB Switch, and a few other USB peripherals (mostly for charging things). All that junk stays connect to the dock, and I simply need to unplug or connect the 1 USB C connector!

Of course, if you don’t need to switch between multiple computers and just want to connect multiple monitors and an external keyboard and mouse the USB Dock is sufficient (and is how my wife’s work setup is configured).

As to the Stream Deck, that’s probably a post for a different day, but suffice it to say when the Laptop is active the aux monitor (upper left) is rotating through a number of browser tabs running on the Desktop and I can use the Stream Deck to control that (refresh, volume, mute, etc).

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Technology

Did you know? CAPTCHA

04/03/2022 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

Do you know where the first commercial use of a CAPTCHA was? PayPal

Do you know CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart? I didn’t, but now you do!

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Azure

Azure Data Fundamentals Certification

03/28/2022 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

As I’ve said before, I’m certifiable 😂. Passed the DP-900 exam on Saturday. Look about 30 minutes (plus 15-20 for the remote proctor to release the exam). As with the Azure Fundamentals certification it was a lot of just knowing the names or classifications of things. I guess that’s why it’s a “fundamentals” exam.

Anyway, if work is going to pay for me to pad my resume I’ll take it.

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Technology

Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Lost Notebook

02/21/2020 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

Love him or hate him it’s an interesting little history lesson…

“Even as hundreds of thousands of users expressed their disapproval of News Feed, their behavior indicated the opposite.”

“I just think I take more chances, and that means I get more things wrong,”

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-lost-notebook/Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Disclaimer: Thoughts and opinions are my own, and do not reflect the views of any employer, family member, friend, or anyone else. Some links may be affiliate links, but I don't link to anything I don't use myself. You would think this should be self evident these days, but apparently not...

Technology

NeverSSL

12/13/2019 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

Ever connect to a wi-fi hotspot only to have nothing happen? Enter NeverSSL. After connecting to the hotspot, enter the URL (web address) http://neverssl.com into your browser of choice and watch magic happen.

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Linux

Use SCP to copy files between remote and local hosts

02/04/2019 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

So you need to copy a file you have on a remote server locally, or send a local file to a remote server? Fortunatally, it’s pretty easy with scp. Here’s an example to copy a remote server to the local machine.

scp -P 65124 remoteuser@remotehost:/var/lib/path/to/file.txt /var/lib/path/to/

…which will connect to “remotehost” on port 65124 as “remoteuser” and copy the /var/lib/path/to/file.txt on “remotehost” to the local /var/lib/path/to/ directory.

Need to copy a local file to a remote host? Just switch the parameters up!

scp -P 65124 /var/lib/path/to/file.txt remoteuser@remotehost:/var/lib/path/to/

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Linux

Set a proxy and carry over the values to sudo

01/25/2019 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

If you’ve ever been behind an enterprise proxy server and needed to reach things on the outside, you probably know how frustrating it is to try and just use your normal commands for something as simple as a wget. So, to get started you will need to know the URL and port for your proxy server, but once you have that, start by editing your .bashrc and add the following (setting proxyhost, the port, and adjusting “no_proxy” as appropriate)…

function proxyon(){
     echo -n "password (for proxy): "
     read -es password
     export http_proxy="http://$USER:[email protected]:8181/"
     export HTTP_PROXY=$http_proxy
     export https_proxy=$http_proxy
     export HTTPS_PROXY=$http_proxy
     export ftp_proxy=$http_proxy
     export rsync_proxy=$http_proxy
     export no_proxy="localhost,127.0.0.1,localaddress,.localdomain.com,.domain.com"
     echo -e "\nProxy environment variable set."
}
function proxyoff(){
     unset HTTP_PROXY
     unset http_proxy
     unset HTTPS_PROXY
     unset https_proxy
     unset FTP_PROXY
     unset ftp_proxy
     unset RSYNC_PROXY
     unset rsync_proxy
     echo -e "\nProxy environment variable removed."
}

# remove next line if you don't want to set proxy automatically on login
proxyon

Now you can turn your proxy on and off with the “proxyon” and “proxyoff” commands, but that doesn’t help you when you try to install something with yum or apt that requires sudo. To carry over the proxy values, you’ll need to “sudo visudo” and add the “Defaults” line like shown below…

###############################################
# DO NOT ADD ANYTHING FROM HERE TO END OF FILE #
#
#includedir   /etc/sudoers.d
#
# DO NOT ADD ANYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE###########
Defaults env_keep = "http_proxy https_proxy HTTP_PROXY HTTPS_PROXY ftp_proxy"

… and now, hopefully you are all set.

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Linux

Configure a Static IP in Ubuntu 18.04

01/21/2019 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

As with all things Linux there’s a million ways to do things, and every brilliant release comes up with a new way to do the same old things in a “better” way. Can you tell I’m be sarcastic yet? Good.

Anyway, after spending over an hour trying to get a freakin static IP on my desktop box I thought I’d share in case it saved anyone hours of their life.

My simple goal was to provide a static IP. Nothing more. Nothing less. Well, the “better” way of doing it now appears to be with “netplan”, and unless you enjoy banging your head against the wall, just create/edit this file and replace with the network interface (enp3s1), IP (192.168.20.55) and gateway (192.168.20.1) of your choice (this config appears to use the DNS servers from the router w/ DHCP turned on). Oh yeah, and don’t bother with the GUI based configuration tool, because apparently they’re not connected at all, and using this will force the config from this file (you’ve been warned and saved hours)

sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-networkd.yaml

# this is the actual file content
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp3s1:
      dhcp: no
      addresses: [192.168.20.55/24]
      gateway4: 192.168.20.1

Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!

You or someone you know looking to buy or sell?

Security, Technology

Is it time to quit social media?

10/21/2018 Mark Jacobsen Leave a comment

As I read this article what was running through the back of my mind was, “is it time to quit social media?”, and to be honest… but for being involved in real estate and a large bulk of that requiring being “engaged” I’m not sure I have much use for it. Never before has it been easier for marketers to target and connect with their “target audience”. You do realize that’s what social media has become right? The proverbial barrel where the fish are to shoot.

So, is it possible to take back the social networks? I’m not sure it is – at least with the current companies. Built from the ground up, or under a completely different model – maybe. But as the article linked to above points out it would be to the detriment of the “bottom line”.

Would I like a feed where I only see posts from my family, and maybe some other groups at my leisure? Of course, but unless I’m paying for that the only recourse I have is to a platform that has the resources to provide it based on the party that is willing to pay for it – the marketers.

So what would this “social media” service of the future look like? Number one, it should be built on a privacy, no-advertising first model. Second, I believe it should be decentralized, but speak a standard protocol – just like how email service is provided. Then, organizations like companies, teams, or even families could manage their own little groups and individuals could determine what they want to see or who they want to connect with…

And yet, as I sit here writing this, I wonder if it’s even possible or needed. After all, I’m able to run my own little blog right here. You can share it on social media if you so choose. In fact, I’ll probably post it to my account – and try not to look at the “likes” or “comments” that fuel the FB “engagement” engine.

So, while I may have just rambled for a number of paragraphs, let me finish by encouraging you to consider your use of social media, and at a minimum strongly consider turning off your notifications and moving the app to a sub-folder on your phone (just those two things alone have made a huge difference in my life). I would also encourage you to look into downloading and using Signal Messenger in place of text messaging and especially in favor of the social media messaging platforms.

Until we figure something out, you can always find me right here.Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date!