Last week, Microsoft in Finland announced the rumor circulating in recent years – Microsoft Cloud would establish a local datacenter presence in Finland. More specifically, in the cities of Espoo and Kirkkonummi. These are close to the capital area (and… Read More »Reflections on Microsoft Cloud entering Finland
This past week, I delivered a keynote for a local event here in the heart of Helsinki, Finland. Siili organized the event – and it was surreal. You wake up in the morning and start thinking about what to wear.… Read More »Presenting in front of a live audience in 2022
As some might recall, I set out to build a new company focusing on Microsoft Azure and Power Platform consulting & projects in early 2021. That company is called North Advisors, and I’m thrilled how the company is thriving after… Read More »Another new adventure begins now – meet Not Bad Security!
At home, I have a fiber Internet connection from a local operator. Nominally, it’s rated 1000 Mbps/500 Mbps, and I usually get closer to those speeds. I rarely utilize the capacity as I don’t need to run any production services… Read More »Building a backup Internet connection with the Unifi LTE Pro device
About a year ago, I got the Corsair K100 opto-mechanical keyboard. You can check my previous review here. I still have it! But as my daily driver, I’ve now switched to using the Logitech MX Keys keyboard. It’s an absolute… Read More »Review: Logitech MX Keys for a typist
I’ve written about cost management in the cloud a couple of times. Sometimes it’s figuring out the exact cost of something; other times, it’s recapping the total cost after months of running a service. I’m reasonably well versed with Azure… Read More »Detect anomalies in cloud spending using the new Cost Insight capability in Azure
A little over a year ago, Microsoft updated their certifications programs’ renewal guidance and approach. I’ve written about my general experience with these renewals (see here). Generally, I like this approach: first, you complete a proper certification through an exhausting… Read More »My experience in renewing the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification
I was exposed to PostgreSQL about two years ago through a few deployment projects. I blogged about my experience configuring and running Azure Database for PostgreSQL instances. At the time, I didn’t need to worry much about backups or recovery,… Read More »Backing up PostgreSQL databases in Azure
In mid-2021, I upgraded my home office with some acoustic panels from Elgato. Since then, I’ve done plenty of upgrading with my recording and podcast audio setup. Previously, I had a decent microphone from RØDE – the Procaster (see here… Read More »Building the perfect recording and podcast audio setup with the dbx 286s mic preamp/processor and Shure SM7B dynamic microphone
One of my goals for 2022 is to read more books. It’s not like I haven’t been reading in recent years, but I’ve been missing a more consistent effort to complete the books I start and the approach I have… Read More »My plan to read more books in 2022
I infrequently write about the different best practices that might sometimes be overlooked within Microsoft cloud deployments. This week, I want to highlight the urgency and criticality of having and maintaining a break-glass admin account. What is it? A break-glass… Read More »Best Practice: Create a break-glass admin account
About a year ago, I wrote about this fantastic new app called Lobe. It’s an app that you install locally and then use to create a Machine Learning model elsewhere. It’s pretty great, as it takes away all the hassle… Read More »Building and using a Machine Learning model for Power Platform using Lobe
In early 2019, I deactivated my Facebook account. At the time, I felt I wasn’t getting much in return from Facebook. Yet, it was effortless to spend minutes (or an hour) mindlessly scrolling through the newsfeed to ensure I wasn’t… Read More »After deactivating my Facebook account 3 years ago, I’ve now deleted it
Each year seems to go just slightly faster than the previous. Yet, each year has been challenging and rewarding at the same time, including 2021. I wanted to take a quick look at 2021 before shifting my focus to planning… Read More »Hello, 2022! And thanks 2021 – you were awesome!
About two months ago, I deployed Tailscale to provide a secure remote access solution to my internal (home) network. If you’re not familiar with Tailscale, please check out my previous article on the basic setup. As a quick primer on… Read More »Building a more secure remote access setup with Tailscale to access Vaultwarden and Synology remotely
In 2016, I was driving a nice European car. It was a regular car, nothing fancy. Then we got the idea with my brother that perhaps we could afford to buy a Tesla Model S together. This way, we’d each… Read More »Driving a Tesla: Thoughts after 5 years
At home, I have a few essential services I need to keep running at all times. When I write crucial, I mean that they are services I rely on and would like very much for those services to be running… Read More »Running a single Docker Container in Azure cost-effectively
I was about 11 years old when I first tried transferring a file using FTP. This was sometime in the late 1980s or very early 1990s. Since then, I’ve used FTP a lot, but in the past decade, much less… Read More »Building a modern data integration to Azure using SFTP with a Storage Account
I’ve been delighted in recent months when more and more projects I work with are starting to consider retiring the on-premises Active Directory infrastructure. This is a massive change in terms of thinking – as, for the past ten years,… Read More »Transforming your organization to cloud-only: Retiring the On-Premises Active Directory
Some of my readers might recall spending the past few years studying for the Executive MBA degree. Since graduating in the spring of 2021, I already had additional studies in my mind. One of those was the Certified Board Member… Read More »Thoughts on completing the Certified Board Member accreditation