The argument between which platform is more secure is an ambiguous interpretation, and always someone’s selective measurement. No platform is more or less safe than its competitors, and it simply comes down to individual security hygiene and their level of security knowledge. If you’re one of those people who sees an 80% coupon in your email box and then click on the link(s), chances are you’re getting malware installed on your machine, in essence, an infected machine. This has nothing to do with Mac or Windows; it was simply someone being naive not to review the source URL and know...
Continue reading...What a New IT Executive Should know about SOX
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a federal act passed in 2002 with bipartisan congressional support to improve auditing and public disclosure in response to several accounting scandals in the early-2000s. Within section 404 of SOX, there are key features that require the CEO and CFO to prove their internal controls’ effectiveness and have external accounting/auditing firms audit and attest. What do you have to know?External auditors and the organization have to develop a set of critical requirements. These requirements will allow the auditor to “work with others” by parallel auditioning financial statements and IT controls over financial reporting. The requirements...
Continue reading...My Developer Notes
Sometimes, when working on applications, you’re going back and forth, reading through documentation and writing code. Here I capture how I like to document/video capture my development work. I think it’s a good idea to capture it in a video format because you can see all the little parts that don’t get captured if it was written out. This is my Process and Developer notes: Google APIs with Laravel (Gmail Service) Part 1 This is my Process and Developer notes: Google APIs with Laravel (Gmail Service) Part 2
Continue reading...Google’s Gmail API Mapping HTTP Request to PHP Class/Methods
I wanted to document how I could map the HTTP request reference to the actual class/methods. The Gmail Developers API gives you the HTTP request; however, the documentation in Google’s API PHP docs doesn’t do enough to tell you which request maps to what file class/methods. It takes a bit of reading and fumbling through the docs to get a good understanding. Helpful resources: Gmail API Summary: https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest PHP Reference: PHP Classes: https://developers.google.com/resources/api-libraries/documentation/gmail/v1/php/latest/index.html Google APIs Client Library for PHP – https://github.com/googleapis/google-api-php-client Other Languages – https://developers.google.com/api-client-library
Continue reading...Kid’s Treehouse
Phase One Completed! I found the plans on the Home Depot website. It appears they’ve updated the page; I used the HomeDepot design plans from 2020 or later. The treehouse/playhouse, whichever you call it, uses treated lumber from Home Depot, which I used for the base. I had opted out of wrapping it around an oak tree we have in our yard because I honestly want it removed. I had followed the plans for the base but changed the top half of the treehouse. The structure base is the key, once that is completed and solid, you can build anything you want...
Continue reading...LeadShield Application
Overview: LeadShield was founded in 2019, because there were no automated solutions on the market that made it simple and painless to clean your email list in near real-time, without having to be a programmer or hiring a very expensive one. The Story Behind This App The idea behind LeadShield actually came from Brandon Shelton, which he pitched to me, and I was blown away that there wasn’t already a tool(s) on the market that solved this issue. At the time, Brandon was in Marketing/Sales working with other SaaS companies. He needed a way to clean his email campaign list...
Continue reading...Capital Budget
The Capital Budget application was initially an internal work application designed for internal use. However, the request was to upgrade the current app and add some features. The original app was written in Classic ASP, and the UI was outdated. Upon receiving the requirements, I created my own version in Laravel (PHP) for a POC to get an idea of how the new features would function. Although the project was later put on hold, one of the new features I scoped for the client was the ability to conduct funds transfers from Capital funds.
Continue reading...Ansible script that will provision a set of AWS instances with Podman (Container), then run a Postgres container.
This playbook is scripted to provision a set of AWS instances with Podman. What you can expect in this script? The task will spin up an EC2 instance in “US-east-1” (change) region. Take a close look at the variable “ami_id”, which grabs the image, this can also be changed. The instance is added to a host group, then we need to wait for the SSH services to start. The next task will log in and download the Podman service. Then we start the services. The next task will install Postgres and start it. If no container matches the name, a...
Continue reading...Ansible – Creating EC2 Instances, System Group, and System User
This playbook is scripted to build two ec2 instances, then: create a user group labeled teacher, create a system user named tim, and add tim to the teacher’s group. You will obviously need to change the playbook values below in the script to match up with AWS information. The values that need to be changed are highlighted in purple. Enjoy!
Continue reading...