The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey May 8, 2017

8 May 2017

A good week, past. Got lots done at work, including some annual testing that went as well as can be expected from a technical perspective, and finished an hour ahead of schedule, which is wonderful, for weekend work. The balance of the weekend went to chores: from roasting coffee to cutting the hay in the front and back 40's. Seriously, about halfway through the back yard I stopped and sent a text to Marcia asking her where she was with the baler, because stuff was piling up... Oh, I also managed a couple of hours back on the coast road…

Brian Bilbrey April 30, 2017

30 April 2017

I spent two awesome days attending BSidesCharm this weekend (not an HTTPS link, odd for a security conference, eh?). I was there from morning keynote through final talk both days, and I learned something from every speaker. So, big win. If you're in (or interested in) InfoSec, and you're local to the Baltimore/DC area, you really should be going to this conference. The tickets sell out fast, so keep your eye on things for next year. That said, I got absolutely nothing else done this weekend. As it should be. Catching up should be fun... NOT! * * * Our…

Brian Bilbrey April 28, 2017

28 Apr 2017

Ubuntu upgrade news: I upgraded a Kubuntu 16.10 workstation to 17.04 this week. I ran into just one big issue. I'd previously been running the open source nouveau driver for the nVidia card in that system. After the upgrade, I could not keep the desktop running for more than about 5 minutes before the screen would freeze. After a bit of search-engine foo, I found that the recommended solution was to use the nVidia binary driver instead. As sad as that makes RMS, I went back down that rabbit hole. A brief visit via remote connection (unaffected by the frozen…

Brian Bilbrey April 23, 2017

23 April 2017

Hullo. For my birthday this year, we went to Annapolis Shakespeare Company's Cabaret 2.0. A fund raiser for the theatre that's still a-building, we had a lovely evening of song, mostly Broadway musicals in origin. Wonderful. Upcoming: Richard III, Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Miser, and Alice and the Book of Wonderland (an original work). That wraps the current season, and we're *also* really looking forward to the next year's shows, too. But we can't get our tickets for that, just yet. Are you in the DC area? Visiting? You *really* should treat yourself to a show. You'll…

Brian Bilbrey April 16, 2017

16 April 2017

Oh, first: Release your tax info, President Trump. Note: No one paid me to say that. Just do the right thing, please. Just this once... * * * Here's a happy dog: This dog had to deal with Marcia's trip, immediately followed by mine. About 16 hours after Marcia got home, Saturday last, I hopped onto a plane headed for Denver. There, I spent a week in a Red Hat Automation with Ansible class, wrapping up with a brutal four hour practical exam. I learned a bunch of stuff, and I passed the exam. That also extended my RHCE/RHCSA certs…