My son turned 7 earlier this month. I've been getting him into coding [https://www.troyhunt.com/kids-and-code-simple-programming-on/] and teaching him the fundamentals of using a PC which I reckon is a pretty essential life skill these days. Part of that is helping him to understand the principle of secrets, namely that he should protect the PIN he's using to sign in to his Windows 10 machine. He's good at it too, being sure to shield the little laptop from view whenever he uses it with others a...

I'm home! Ideally, I'd be home recovering from travel but it hasn't quite worked out that way, particularly with the Red Cross Blood Service having a massive data leak. I blogged abut that in some detail yesterday, but I wanted to talk about it in this week's update video and give some more context as to what went on and why I made some of the decisions I did. Plus, there's the mega-trip wrap up, a quick preview of some upcoming stuff on my Ubiquiti network setup and my thoughts on how the web i...

I don't give blood as much as I should. My wife has a much better track record than me, regularly donating not just blood but plasma and platelets as well. I know this not just because it's the sort of thing we talk about, but because her data - along with mine - has been leaked publicly in what I believe is the largest ever leak of Aussie data from a local service. Because of the coverage this incident will inevitably receive, I'm writing this piece in advance of them publicly disclosing it in...

International travel can look pretty glamorous from the outside and certainly it has its moments. But what many people don't tend to see (and indeed what's less interesting to share in 140 char tweets), is just how arduous it can be. So instead of just showing the good bits, I thought I'd jot down a bit more about just how much stuff I fit into one of these trips, my fifth (and last) big international one for 2016. If you think it's all fun and games or if you're just curious about what on earth...

I'm on a plane! More importantly though, I'm on a plane home. I've had a massive few weeks and I'm now just hours away from getting home and seeing my family which makes me enormously happy. I thought I'd record this in-flight from London to Dubai for something different (although unsurprisingly, sound quality suffers) and I've just published it from the lounge here in the UAE (where my VPN is blocked...) I've still done a heap since the last update though, packing out the time with travel, an...

I originally wrote this post earlier on in the year. I honestly can’t remember what the abuse was that led to it and frankly, that’s probably for the best as it allowed me to re-read this and ensure it comes across as general advice rather than a knee-jerk reaction to a specific unpleasant experience. Whilst the simple process of writing it helped me get the episode off my chest at the time, I’ve decided to post it now because I think it’s important, both for others who encounter nasty behaviour...

Another week in another faraway place. Since the last update in Edinburgh I've spent a couple of days in Glasgow, a couple of days in the middle of that in Speyside, a couple of days in Copenhagen then a few nights in London. That's put me a day behind when I would have liked to have published this post but hey, not bad all things considering I reckon, especially given the spot I found to records it: References 1. You might end up on a SAN cert with "unexpected" neighbours [https://www.tro...

We've all had bad neighbours before. Perhaps they were noisy, maybe the kids ran riot or they could have been just continually snaring all the visitor parking spots in your apartment building (bastards). But last week, someone popped up with another bad neighbour story which was quite different to usual... Fellow MVP Paul Cunningham runs a blog over at paulcunningham.me [https://paulcunningham.me/] and for the most part, it looks like any other ordinary blog: Now being a forward-thinking blo...

China is an immensely fascinating place for many reasons. It's geographically bigger than the US, it has almost double the population of Europe and it's had the world's largest economy for the majority of the last two thousand years. On the technology front, there are more internet users than the US, Brazil, Japan, Russia and Indonesia combined (which make up 5 of the top 7 most connected countries), yet there's still only about half the population online. When that half does connect, it's usua...

Given this thing seems to have some traction and people are enjoying them, I'm going to keep these weekly update videos going. As I mentioned last week though, I'm now travelling so that makes this one a little bit different. I was in Edinburgh yesterday when I recorded this (I'm now in Glasgow), and I actually reckon it turned out kinda neat. Bit shorter (it's not as easy doing this standing around in the wind and the crowds), but hopefully still enjoyable: References 1. Why I particularly l...