One year later...

It’s been a year since my last post, and while most days feel like groundhog day, I’m worrying less about the covid numbers these days and finding more time to read, write and pick up the guitar.

Speaking of reading, I spent a lot of time this year creating TLS certificates and debugging connectivity issues, which led to my purchase of the book TLS Mastery: Beastie Edition.

At just over 200 pages and targeted at Unix system administrators, the author takes a practical approach to teaching you all you need to know about TLS and OpenSSL. I fixed the connectivity issues I was working on and improved what little knowledge of SSL/TLS I had accumulated over the years.

In the golden age of Google, it’s rare for me to pick up a book once shelved but I’ve reached for this one a few times recently. Money well spent!

I recently finished Terraform: Up & Running: Writing Infrastructure as Code (another excellent book) and after reading the Terraform 1.0 announcement I spent last month preparing for the HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate exam.

I wasn’t planning to take any exams this year, what with so much going on in the world but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that there’s no better way to focus the mind than a scheduled exam, paid for out of your own pocket.

The documentation for Terraform is rock solid and all you really need to pass the exam, however I found a discount for the HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate 2021 course on Udemy.

I highly recommend the course. The exam preparation section (including practice tests) was more than worth the price, and I passed on the first attempt.

Having spent the first half of the year in the world of tech, I’m going to switch tack and focus on the creative side of my brain for the rest of the year. I think I’ll pick up some poetry or maybe finish a track one of these days.