I’ve been wanting to build a little command-line tool to manage my tasks and to-do items for some time now. I initially set out to build something fun a few months ago, but couldn’t get it working properly. So, this… Read More »Building a custom command-line tool for Microsoft To Do
This past weekend Finland (and Sweden, that I know of) celebrated the midsummer’s eve. For us, it includes the longest day of the year: The sun rises at 3:45 and sets around midnight. Lots of natural light means lots of… Read More »Building a custom Android app using Xamarin.Forms and C# to retrieve temperature data from Azure
I’ve recently worked with Azure Logic Apps a fair bit. Last night, I wanted to stretch my understanding of the Logic Apps service a bit further and started thinking about what would be a fun solution to build. I came… Read More »Building a double-blind email distribution list using Azure Logic Apps and Exchange Online
I’ve built several presence light solutions in my life, mostly to entertain myself and to learn something new. Back when OCS 2007 was still a hot commodity I remember receiving a USB-powered plastic cube, that would turn red when I… Read More »Building a custom presence light solution using Philips Hue lights and C#
This time it’s something a little bit different. Back in 2015 I ordered a bunch of ultrasonic sensors, with hopes that I’d be able to automate the detection of when people arrived at the office. We had limited seats, so… Read More »Building an automated monitoring tool to track how many people are at the office by using Unifi network gear and Azure Logic Apps
It’s summer in Finland now – a pleasant +15 C! Hopefully, it will be warmer in July. We put up a trekking tent on the balcony, and the kids are now sleeping there. So last night, they went to bed… Read More »Creating a custom Microsoft Edge (Chromium) extension using Azure Logic Apps and the Bing Image Search API for content
And here we are again – back to temperature monitoring! I wrote extensively about this three months ago in Building a Raspberry Pi-based temperature monitoring solution. I have a small cabinet in my home office, under my table that houses… Read More »Building a custom app using Universal Windows Platform and Microsoft Azure to monitor hardware temperature
During the past year or so, I’ve built several things. Some are quick hacks, others I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on before writing them up. Most solutions I’ve built and shared, I still use myself. When I built… Read More »Building a notification tool using .NET Core, Twilio and WhatsApp messages
I use Google Analytics on this blog, and I guess it’s the industry standard. It’s free and very easy to configure – you inject a bit of JavaScript on the page, and that’s it. You get a lot of analytics… Read More »Building a simple analytics and tracking solution for the web using Azure Storage
I use the fantastic Ubiquiti Networks Unifi product at home. It’s the same network that I used to build my Site-to-Site VPN connectivity to Azure and to later try and enable 802.11b for my old scale. The idea with the… Read More »Home upgrade: Extending the wireless network coverage to the balcony using Unifi Mesh
A few years ago, all customers and partners I met with stated more or less the same introductory sentence, “We build hybrid solutions.” The implication was then, that all solutions would use whatever the customer would have as on-premises, and… Read More »Building a hybrid governance solution using Azure Arc
I’ve worked remotely from 1997, or so. Back then, remote work was considered “working overtime in the evening” and I would do my regular 40 hours at the office, plus whatever on top by working remotely. Later, I worked on-and-off… Read More »Building the perfect remote workstation in the cloud
I wrote about building a Raspberry Pi-based weather monitoring systems back in July, 2019. The solution utilizes Ruuvitag bluetooth beacons to measure temperatures and other data, and then submits those readings to Azure using Azure IoT Hub and Azure Functions.… Read More »Building a Raspberry Pi-based temperature monitoring solution with Sense HAT LED matrix display and Azure Logic Apps (and some LEGO!)
At home, I run Ubiquity Networks’ Unifi hardware. I wrote briefly about this just recently here, and I also found out the Unifi hardware provides a neat way to generate a network topology map, such as this: In essence, I… Read More »Building a site-to-site VPN between Unifi network hardware and Azure
Recent weeks have been busy, and many things have demanded my attention. As a result I haven’t had too much time to build things, and I love to build things. So today, during a coffee break at work, I decided… Read More »Building a command-line utility to search for WordPress content using .NET Core and System.Text.Json
For as long as I can remember, the default datastore I’ve chosen has always been SQL Server, or Azure SQL depending where I need to deploy my solution. In recent years, I’ve started to expand my understanding of other platforms… Read More »Getting started with Azure Database for PostgreSQL
We got the first IKEA store in Finland in 1996. Today, we have five. I’m proud to say I’ve only visited three of them. I really like IKEA for multiple reasons, one being that I can easily buy parts and… Read More »Planning my IKEA desktop project
Many times when I’ve worked with Microsoft partners and customers in projects the need arises when we need a custom API to be implemented. Perhaps the reason is that we need the versatility and freedom this provides, or simply because… Read More »Building a custom container-based API using Docker Desktop and Azure App Service
I’ve grown to use and love Azure Application Insights quite a bit in recent years. It’s a relatively simple, yet powerful monitoring, debugging, troubleshooting and analysis tool that lends itself to many use cases. As I’ve recently migrated my personal… Read More »Building a simple yet robust monitoring solution for a website using Azure Application Insights
I wrote last July about how I run my blog as a static site. In essence, I ran a local virtual machine with Windows Server 2019 and XAMPP. I would author my posts, and generate a static HTML site periodically,… Read More »Introducing ‘Just Enough Migration’