James Flower

pivpn

Install a Self-Hosted VPN with PiVPN on a Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a very useful and versatile computer you can use to host and run a variety of services from your own home. An example of this is Pi-hole which allows you to implement network-wide ad-blocking for all your devices. However, when you’re away from your network

oh my posh

Add Git Information (and more) to Windows Terminal (or PowerShell)

I’m a fan of Windows Terminal – it makes it easier for me to manage my terminal windows in a tabbed interface and makes it easy to access a terminal for either my Windows machine or the WSL guest in one interface. But sometimes, it is useful to add a

cloudflare

Using Cloudflare Access and tunnels to create an RDP jump host

Cloudflare Tunnels are a useful way of allowing private services to be accessed remotely, without exposing the devices to inbound connections. This can be combined with Cloudflare Access to provide a secure way of accessing services such as remote desktop. These services can be used to setup a bastion inside

pi-hole

Network-wide Ad Blocking with Pi-hole

Ads can sometimes be a bit frustrating, or turn up in places we don’t expect. For example, ads on subscription-based services. Serving ads can also consume a substantial amount of bandwidth on some sites. There are a variety of ad blocking browser extensions you can install (such as Adblock

vue.js

Configuring a Vue.js SPA with Environment Variables

In a previous blog post I showed how to set up ASP.NET Core Web API to support a Vue.js client SPA. In this post I will show how to extend on that example so that the Vue.js SPA supports a development and production configuration. Since I am

git

Removing Sensitive Information from Git with git-filter-repo

Git has become the de facto standard in source control. Over 90% of respondents to the 2021 Stack Overflow Developer Survey indicated that they use Git. However, sometimes mistakes can be made and sensitive or secret information accidentally end up in the commit history. Thankfully, tools such as git-filter-repo exist

.net core

Supporting Multiple WS-Federation Authentication Schemes in ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core allows you to add support for multiple authentication schemes, such as social auth providers or WS-Federation. This support can be added with or without ASP.NET Identity Core. Users can then use these schemes to authenticate with your web application. While adding support for social authentication providers

docker

Install Docker Engine without Docker Desktop on Windows

Docker have recently announced changes to their pricing and subscriptions which require a paid subscription for users outside of personal, education and small business use. It seems that this license change only applies to Docker Desktop which is the GUI client for Windows and Mac. The good news is that

AI Assistance for Software Developer Productivity – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Software Development can have moments of writing repetitive code. Following the DRY principle can help avoid this, but sometimes one block of code isn’t doing the same thing as another, although it is doing something similar (such as mapping objects in a collection). In these cases AI can be

asp.net

Using ngrok with IIS Express and ASP.NET Core

Sometimes it can be helpful to quickly make the version of a project which is running on your development machine available to others. This could be for webhook integrations, demos, or some other reason. One of the tools you can use to achieve this is ngrok. ngrok creates a secure

rdp

Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) Stuck on "Please Wait"

I often use Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) to connect to computers remotely when I am out and about. However, recently when I tried to remotely connect using RDP, I became stuck at a blue screen with a “Please Wait” message after connecting. After a few minutes of waiting, I became

.net core

Logging in .NET Core using ILogger

Logging is an important part of software development. It helps us know that tasks have been completed, monitor applications and provides a trail to follow when things don’t work. Microsoft has included a logging framework in .NET Core and ASP.NET Core to allow developers to easily implement logging

asp.net core

Using a Vue.js SPA with ASP.NET Core Web API

I recently started working on a new side project and decided to implement it as a single page application (SPA). For this, I chose to build an API powered by an ASP.NET Core Web API and a Vue.js powered front-end to consume the API. I could find templates

c#

Handling null values in C#

Handling null values in C# and .NET comes with the territory. Null values were introduced by Tony Hoare in mid-1960s to represent missing or unknown data. This is a useful capability but it has resulted in null reference exceptions becoming one of the most common causes of bugs which developers

logging

What makes a good log message?

Logging can provide important information about the behaviour of software applications. It allows operations staff to monitor application performance and gives developers a trail to follow when trying to diagnose the cause of errors. With this in mind, it is worth considering what is good information to record in a

.net core

How to send emails in .NET Core with MimeKit and Mailkit

The ability for an application to send emails is a very common requirement. This can be for emails such as providing account information, sending marketing emails or even a password reset email. This post will cover how to send an email using MimeKit and MailKit from an ASP.NET Core

asp.net

Changing Query String Values in ASP.NET MVC

Recently I was trying to update a query string by adding or updating a parameter for URLs generated in a partial view. I found an excellent example for achieving this by setting route data here however this didn’t preserve current query string values in the URL. I’ve extended

asp.net

Disabling an ASP.NET MVC input control

I love ASP.NET MVC. It is a great framework to get web apps quickly built. However using the built in HtmlHelper methods on your views isn’t without its issues. An example of this is when trying to disable a HTML input control which has been built using HtmlHelper.

asp.net

Fixed/Sticky Headers on ASP.NET GridView using jQuery

The GridView control in ASP.NET Web Forms is an extremely useful and quick way of getting data out to the user in a nice tabular format. It does have one weak spot though and that is some of the tags it uses when doing this. Specifically, not putting the

e-mail

Sending e-mails through Office 365

I recently signed up for an Office 365 Business Essentials subscription to get the benefit of Exchange and other nice features without the hassle of managing it myself, as part of this I wanted to setup a no-reply e-mail address I could use to send automated e-mails without having to

asp.net

Strongly Typed Data in ASP .NET Web Forms

In ASP .NET Web Forms you’ve previously had to use strings to specify which properties you’d like to output when databinding, which would probably end up looking something like the following. <asp:templatefield headertext="Last Name"> <itemtemplate> <asp:literal runat="

ubuntu

Install WPScan on Ubuntu 13.10

Prerequisites Since Ubuntu 13.10 doesn’t come set up for development work out of the box there are a few things you need to download and install first. Thankfully this is made easy by apt-get by just running the following command to get everything ready. sudo apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev

asp.net

Send E-mail through Microsoft Exchange using .NET

Recently I needed to send an e-mail using Microsoft Exchange Server from an ASP .NET Web App. My first attempt involved using the classes in the System.Net.Mail namespace however I quickly realised this wasn’t the way to be going about it as I had very little luck

asp.net

Using a RequiredFieldValidator on a DropDownList in ASP .NET

In most applications today drop-down lists default to a “Please select..” option with some form of validation to ensure the user makes their own selection. In ASP .NET web forms this frequently results in a drop-down list being created using code similar to that displayed below. <asp:DropDownList ID=

airdisplay

Boot Camp Support Software

After upgrading a Boot Camp Windows 7 installation to Windows 8 I found that the Boot Camp drivers needed to be updating to regain control of the function keys and built-in camera. The Boot Camp software is available at Apple Boot Camp Support Website. After the download I found the