Coding Blocks

This time we are missing the "ocks", but we hope you enjoy this off...ice topic chat about personalizing our workspaces. Also, Joe had to put a quarter in the jar, and Outlaw needs a cookie.

The full show notes are available on the website at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode230

News

Thank you for the review Szymon! Want to leave us a review?

Decorating your Home Office

  • Joe's Uplift Desk Review
  • Mounting monitors, is there any other way?
  • To grommet or not to grommet?
  • How many keys do you want on your keyboard?
  • Wired vs Wireless
  • About that "fn" key…
  • Reddit for inspiration?
  • Office-Appropriate Art
    • Paintings
    • Prints / Silk Screens / Photography
    • Sculptures
    • Book Cases
    • There's a story for Outlaw about this print: https://www.johndyerbaizley.com/product/four-horsemen-full-color-ap

Tip of the Week

  • If you have a car, you should consider getting a Mirror Dash Cam. It's a front and rear camera system that replaces your rearview mirror with a touchscreen. Impress all your friends with your recording, zoom, night vision, parking assistance, GPS, and 24/7 recording and monitoring. (Amazon)
  • Be careful about exercising after you give blood, else you might end up needing it back! (redcrossblood.org )

 

 

 

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-230.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 8:51pm EDT

We are mixing it up on you again, no Outlaw this week, but we can offer you some talk of exotic databases. Also, Joe pronounces everything correctly and Allen leaves you with a riddle.

The full show notes are available on the website at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode229

News

  • Thanks for the reviews!
    • ivan.kuchin (has taken the lead!), Yoondoggy, cykoduck, nehoraigold
    • Want to help us out? Leave a review! (reviews)

Multivalue DBMS

  • Popular: 86. Adabas, 87. UniData/UniVerse, 147. JBase
  • Similar to RDBMS - store data in tables
    • Store multiple values to a particular record's attribute
      • Some RDBMS's can do this as well, BUT it's typically an exception to the rule when you'd store an array on an attribute
      • In a MultiValue DBMS - that's how you SHOULD do it
      • Part of the reason it's done this way is these database systems are not optimized for JOINS
    • Looked at the Adabas and UniData sites - the primary selling points seem to be rapid application development / ease of learning and getting up to speed as well as data modeling that closely mirrors your application data structures
  • I BELIEVE it's a schema on write (docs.rocketsoftware.com)
  • Supposed to be very performant as you access the data the way your application expects it
  • Per the docs, it's easy to maintain (Wikipedia)

Spatial DBMS

  • Popular: 29. PostGIS, 59. Aerospike, 136. SpatiaLite
  • Provides the ability to efficiently store, modify, and query spatial data - data that appears in a geometrical space (maps, polygons, etc)
  • Generally have custom data types for storing the spatial data
  • Indices that allow for quick retrieval of spatial data about other spatial data
  • Also allow for performing spatial-specific operations on data, such as computing distances, merging or intersecting objects or even calculating areas
  • Geospatial data is a subset of spatial data - they represent places / spatial data on the Earth's surface
  • Spatio-temporal data is another variation - spatial data combined with timestamps
  • PostGIS - basically a plugin for PostgreSQL that allows for storing of spatial data
    • Additionally supports raster data - data for things like weather and elevation
    • If you want to learn how to use it and understand the data and what's stored (postgis.net)
      • Spatial data types are: point, line, polygon, and more…basically shapes
      • Rather than using b-tree indexes for sorting data for fast retrieval, spatial indexes that are bounding boxes - rectangles that identify what is contained within them
        • Typically accomplished with R-Tree and Quadtree implementations
        • RedFin - a real estate competitor to realtor.com and others, uses PostgreSQL / PostGIS
        • Quite a bit of software that supports OpenGIS so may be a good place to start if you're interested in storing/querying spatial data

Event Stores

  • Popular: 178. EventStoreDB, 336. IBM DB2 Event Store, 338. NEventStore
  • Used for implementing the concept of Event Sourcing
    • Event Sourcing - an application/data store where the current state of an object is obtained by "replaying" all the events that got it to its current state
      • This contrasts with RDBMS's in that relational typically store the current state of an object - historical state CAN be stored, but that's an implementation detail that has to be implemented, such as temporal tables in SQL Server or "history tables"
    • Only support adding new events and querying the order of events
      • Not allowed to update or delete an event
      •  
      • For performance reasons, many Event Store databases support snapshots for holding materialized states at points in time
  • EventStoreDB - https://www.eventstore.com/eventstoredb
    • Defined as an "immutable log"
    • Features: guaranteed writes, concurrency model, granulated stream and stream APIs
    • Many client interfaces: .NET, Java, Go, Node, Rust, and Python
    • Runs on just about all OSes - Windows, Mac, Linux
    • Highly available - can run in a cluster
    • Optimistic concurrency checks that will return an error if a check fails
    • "Projections" allow you to generate new events based off "interesting" occurrences in your existing data
    • For example. You are looking for how many Twitter users said "happy" within 5 minutes of the word "foo coffee shop" and within 2 minutes of saying "London".
    • Highly performant - 15k writes and 50k reads per second

Resources we like

Tip of the Week

  • If your internet connection is good, but your cell phone service is bad then you might want to consider Ooma. Ooma sells devices that plug into your network or connect wireless and provide a phone number, and a phone jack so you can hook up an an old school home telephone. We've using it for about a week now with no problems and it's been a breeze to set up. The devices range from $99 to $129 and there's a monthly "premier" plan you can buy with nifty features like a secondary phone line, advanced call blocking, and call forwarding. (ooma.com)
  • Why use "git reset --hard" when you can "git stash -u" instead? Reset is destructive, but stashing keeps your changes just in case you need them. Because sometimes, your "sometimes" is now!
    • 🚫 "git reset --hard".
    • ✅ "git stash -u"

 

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-229.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 8:48pm EDT

Show notes at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode228


For the full show notes, head to:
https://www.codingblocks.net/episode227


This episode we are talking about keeping the internet interesting and making cool things by looking at PagedOut and Itch.io. Also, Allen won't ever mark you down, Outlaw won't ever give you up, and Joe took a note to say something about Barbie here but he can't remember what it was.

The full show notes are available on the website at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode226

Reviews

News

  • Orlando Code Camp Conference is February 24th (orlandocodecamp.com)
  • Wireless mic kit mentioned by Outlaw regarding the Shure system (shure.com)
  • New video from Allen: JZ's tip from last episode - Obsidian Tips for Staying Organized (youtube)

Is Cat 8 Overkill?

  • No way!
  • Check out AliExpress to save some money (aliexpress.com)
  • Note for NAS building / Plex - 11 gen and newer Intels are your friend for transcoding (intel.com)

Merge commits

  • Thanks for the tip mikerg!
  • Some orgs are banning merge commits on larger repositories
  • Should you? (graphite.dev)
  • Git Rebase Visualized (atlassian.com)
  • Merge Commit Visualized (atlassian.com)

Paged Out - E-Zine

  • Paged Out is a free e-zine of interesting and important articles (pagedout.institute)
  • Thanks for the tip mikerg!
  • Some samples
    • AIleister Cryptley, a GPT-fueled sock puppeteer
      • A fake online persona that will generate content for you using ChatGPT
  • Beyond The Illusion - Breaking RSA Encryption
    • Encryption is basically just math - it's not some magical black box
    • "Never roll your own crypto – it’s a recipe for problems!"
  • Keyboard hacking with QMK
  • Hardware Serial Cheat Sheet
  • BSOD colour change trick
  • Cold boot attack on Raspberry Pi
  • Can we get some love for the demoscene?
  • Best part…each issue comes with a wallpaper!

Fun Project Ideas

  • Want to get into gamedev or 3d modeling, or just like making cool stuff with your skills?
  • Why not use itch.io as inspiration?
  • See other cool games and tools that people make: https://itch.io/tools
  • A couple noteworthy tools
    • Kenney shape (itch.io)
      • Turn 2d images into 3d by adding depth
      • Export to several different formats
      • $3.99
    • Asset Forge (itch.io)
      • Assemble simple shapes into more complex ones
      • Stretch and rotate
      • $19.95 US ($39.95 deluxe)
    • Tiled Sprite Map Editor (itch.io)
      • Rich feature set, nice integration with Game Dev Tools
    • Bfxr is a popular tool (which was an elaboration of another tool Sfxr) for generating sound effects (itch.io)
      • Somebody made a js version too, if you can believe that! (jsfxr.me)
      • Beeps, boops, blorps, flames
    • Rexpaint (itch.io)
      • An ASCII Art Editor…you just have to see it
      • Layers, Copy/Paste, Undo/Redo, Palette swaps, Zoom
      • Who needs pixels!?

Resources We Like

Tip of the Week

  • If you subscribe to Audible, don't forget that they have a lot of "free" content available, such as dramatic space operas and the "Great Courses"
    For example. "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" is similar to a "Music Appreciation Course" you might take at uni. The author works through history, talking about the evolution of music and culture. It's 36 hours, and that's just ONE of the music courses available to you for "free" (once you subscribe) (audible.com)
  • Visualize Git is an excellent tool for seeing what really happens when you run git commands (git-school.github.io)
  • It's easy to work with checkboxes in Markdown and Obsidian, it's just - [ ] Don't forget the dash or spaces!
  • Did you know there is a Visual Studio Code plugin for converting Markdown to Jira markup syntax? (Code)
  • Apple, Google, and the major password manager vendors have ways to set up emergency contacts. It's very important that you have this setup for yourself, and your loved ones. When you need it, you really need it. (google.com)

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-226.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 12:26pm EDT

For the full show notes head over to https://www.codingblocks.net/episode225

 

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-225.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 6:27pm EDT

This episode we are talking about the future of tech with the Gartner Top Strategic Technology Trends 2024. Also, Allen is looking into the crystal ball, Joe is getting lo, and Outlaw is getting into curling.

The full show notes for this episode are available at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode224.

News

  • Thank you for the reviews! justsomedudewritingareview, Stephan
    • You can find links to leave us reviews on the website (/reviews)
  • Orlando Code Camp is coming up February 24th, woo! (orlandocodecamp.com)
  • Make sure you read up on your next MacBook pro, if you want to maximize the performance then you are going to need to pay for it!
  • Reminder: Don't install packages from the internet in your CICD pipeline!
  • You can find links to leave us reviews on the website (/reviews)

Gartner Top Strategic Technology Trends 2024

No surprise, AI is a big topic - it looks like Gartner is suggesting the technologies and processes companies must follow to be successful using and incorporating AI
In this overview, Gartner has grouped these technologies into three different sections

  1. Protect Your Investment
  2. Rise of the Builders
  3. Deliver the Value

Protect Your Investment

  • Be deliberate
  • Ensure that you've secured appropriate rights for deploying AI driven solutions

AI Trism - AI Trust, Risk and Security Management

  • AI model governance
    • Trustworthiness
    • Fairness
    • Reliability
    • Robustness
    • Transparency
    • Data protection
  • Gartner Prediction - By 2026, companies that incorporate AI Trism controls will improve decision-making by reducing faulty and invalid information by 80%

Why is AI Trism Trending?

  • Largely, those who have AI Trism controls in place move more to production, achieve more value, and have higher precision in their modeling
  • Enhance bias control decisions
  • Model explainability

How to get started with AI Trism?

  • Set up a task force to manage the efforts
  • Work across the organization to share tools and best practices
  • Define acceptable use policies and set up a system to review and approve access to AI models

Continuous Threat Exposure Management - CTEM

  • Systemic approach to continuously adjust cybersecurity priorities
  • Gartner prediction - By 2026, companies invested in CTEM will reduce security breaches by 2/3 (statista.com)
  • Aligns exposure assessment with specific projects or critical threat vectors (fortinet.com)
  • Both patchable and unpatchable exposures will be addressed
  • Business can test the effectiveness of their security controls against the attacker's view
    • "Expected outcomes from tactical and technical response
      are shifted to evidence-based security optimizations supported
      by improved cross-team mobilization."

How to get started?

  • Integrate CTEM with risk awareness and management programs
  • Improve the prioritization of finding vulnerabilities through validation techniques
  • Embrace cybersecurity validation technologies (cybersecurityvalidation.com)
    • "security validation is a process or a technology that validates assumptions made about the actual security posture of a given environment, structure, or infrastructure"
    • Sustainable Technology Framework
    • Solutions for enabling social, environmental and governance outcomes for long term ecological balance and human rights
    • Gartner prediction - by 2027, 25% of CIO's will have compensation that's linked to their sustainable technology impact
    • Why trending?
    • Environmental technologies help deal with risks in the natural world
    • Social technologies help with human rights
    • Governance technologies strengthen business conduct
    • Sustainable technologies provide insights for improving overall performance
    • How to get started?
    • Select technologies that help drive sustainability
    • Have an ethics board involved when developing the roadmap (gartner.com)
    • Use the Gartner "Hype Cycle for Sustainability 2023" - helps identify well-established vs leading-edge technologies for enterprise sustainability (gartner.com)

Resources We Like

  • "Where Online Returns Really End Up And What Amazon Is Doing About It" (YouTube)

Tip of the Week

  • Lofi Girl is a youtube channel that plays lo-fi hip hop beats, with a relaxing minimalistic animations. The people behind Lo-Fi Girl also released a new channel featuring a Synthwave (80's influenced mid-tempo electro music) Boy. Same type thing, but Synthwave music. (youtube.com)
  • If you are interested in streaming technologies and/or Apache Pinot then you should check out the Real-Time Analytics podcast by Tim Berglund (rta.buzzsprout.com)
  • Are you having runtime issues with your Docker container? Why not run it, and poke around? (curl.se)

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-224.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 6:44pm EDT

To see all the items on 2023's holiday shopping list, head over to 
https://www.codingblocks.net/episode223

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-223.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 5:03pm EDT

News

  • Thanks for the reviews!
    • Debug Dugg
    • myotherproglangisjava
    • Daniel Kastinen
  • The call for speakers is open till December 15th for Orlando Code Camp
  • Sony announces a9 III: World's first full-frame global shutter camera (dpreview.com)

Technology Adoption Roadmap for Midsize Enterprises 2022-2024

  • Gartner Report Technology Adoption Roadmap for Midsize Enterprises 2022-2024More than 400 MSE's interviewed (gartner.com)
  • 53 technologies were mapped to adoption stage (pilot, deployed 2022, deploy in 2023), value and risk
  • Value was determined by looking at the following factors
    • Increasing cost efficiency
    • Improving speed and agility
    • Enabling resilience
    • Enhancing employee productivity
  • Deployment risk
    • Cybersecurity risks
    • Implementation cost
    • Talent availability
    • Vendor supply chain disruption
    • Geopolitical risks

Key Takeaways

  • Cybersecurity
    • Investments prioritized in (M)anaged (D)etection and (R)response - this to deal with the growing threat of digital risks including things like ransomware
    • (S)ecure (A)ccess (S)ervice (E)dge is gaining traction for moving away from hardware based security solutions to cloud based security services
    • (Z)ero (T)rust (N)etwork (A)ccess is being evaluated to replace VPNs
  • Future work environments
    • Investments are being made in hybrid and remote work environments over collaboration and productivity tools
      • Deployment of cloud security tools being prioritized to enable more security hybrid and remote work environments
      • DIstributed cloud systems and cloud storage are also being prioritized
    • (C)itizen (A)utomation and (D)evelopment (P)latforms are also being investigated to allow business users to leverage low-code services to help speed business decisions
    • NLP - Natural Language Processing appears to be something that businesses want to adopt but are falling behind on plans to deploy due to some challenges
      • Accuracy in language translation
      • Even though NLP has come a LONG way in the past couple years, the human language is still a very challenging problem to solve
  • Productivity and Operation Efficiency
    • Investing in AI and Data Science and Machine Learning to help observe infrastructure across on-prem, cloud and edge computing
      • Comes with high deployment risks but still very highly adopted
    • Investments in 5g for larger demand of networking
    • Investments in API management PaaS

Some of the high-value low-risk items being piloted

  • Cloud Data Warehousing

High-value low-risk items deployed or being deployed

  • Security Orchestration Automation and Response
  • Digital Experience Monitoring
  • Robotic Process Automation
  • Virtual Machine Backup and Recovery
  • Integration Platform as a Service
  • SD-WAN (software-defined WAN)
  • Network Detection and Response

High-value high risk

  • Zero Trust Network Access
  • Artificial Intelligence IT Operations - AIOps
  • Cloud Application Discovery
  • Hybrid Cloud Computing
  • AI Cloud Services
  • Cloud Managed Networks - CMNs

Who have you partnered with?

  • Email Addresses
  • Registrar
  • Cloud Storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etc)
  • Backups (Do you still need them!?)
    • Contacts
    • Passwords
    • Photos

Tip of the Week

  • Have a presentation to do? Slidev is a VueJs and markdown-based way to create slides. Because it's web based you can do cool interactive type stuff, and it's portable. Bonus: recording and camera view support built in. Thanks Dave! (sli.dev)
  • There are a lot of great resources for Kubernetes on the official Kubernetes Certifications and Training page (kubernetes.io)
  • Notes in iOS are pretty good now! Did you know you can use it for inline images, videos, along with note taking…. (youtube.com)
  • Use Docker? Check out dive, it's a tool for exploring a docker image, layer contents, and discovering ways to shrink the size of your Docker/OCI image. (github.com)

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-222.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 7:55pm EDT

https://www.codingblocks.net/episode221

Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-221.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 7:58pm EDT