I’ve been working through a Linux networking course lately, and wanted to document some of the initial concepts that I found valuable. This post covers NAT, SSH, network interface inspection via the command line, and port forwarding, with a practical focus on getting SSH working inside a virtual machine (VM) environment.

In all my jobs- previous and current- I’ve been using Linux in one form or another, and I’ve grown to both enjoy and depend on it. For personal projects, I wanted to stick with that environment. My home machine runs macOS, however. To bridge the gap, I turned to UTM — a free, open-source virtualization and emulation tool for macOS. While UTM is a great option and alternative to Parallels, setting up a Linux VM with it does involve a bit of extra effort.

I will argue here that standardizing the formatting and styling of code on a team is not immaterial to building and deploying high quality software. Though I give examples using Python and GitHub Actions, the logic is applicable for any other language and CI/CD toolset.

I had a project recently where I created a private software package and hosted it on Azure Artifacts, a similar platform to Pypi or Github for distributing packages. There was a scenario where I needed to pass values from Azure Library into Docker.

During and shortly after my undergraduate education, I tried a few different career paths that didn’t work out. Eventually, I felt like GIS could be a way to continue using my environmental degree while pursuing a renewed interest in tech. This was very much true- with some caveats. To be successful in GIS, you should be able to code and have some knowledge in statistics. During my graduate education, I took as many computer science and programming-centric courses I could- and I still felt like there was much, much more to learn. But, it was enough to get me through the door.

Earlier today, I used for the first time the Power BI REST API to access some reports in my company’s workspace. This API can be used with Windows PowerShell. After spending a couple hours familiarizing myself with both PowerShell and the API, I think I’ve finally got the hang of it.