Let’s Encrypt is a free way to get a SSL certificate onto your website and until recently I had never tried it. It is very easy and I think it is awesome. IIS is the web server software the Microsoft include with Windows 10 and Windows Server. I have it installed on my laptop and it displays the default IIS page. It is...
DNS is the backbone of the internet and as such I believe every developer should know something about the basics and not just leave it for the sysadmin to sort. What is DNS? DNS or Domain Name System is what translates Domain names to IP addresses and vice versa. Wait what is an IP address and what are domain names?...
Reviewing code is a great habit to get into. Code reviews help share knowledge between your team members and help catch bugs before they get into production. But how do you get into the habit of reviewing and avoid the we don’t have time to do this mentality? Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has some great options...
A friend asked me how to get started in Android Development and I thought I might have a go at answering that question here. I am by no means an expert in Android development, I do have an app in the play store so I know something. Manifest File This is probably the easiest option and also doesn’t actually create an...
For a while I have been mentoring a friend and I thought I might share some top tips I have implemented in my career so far. Hard Work At school I was told: “Only in the dictionary does Success come before Work“. Yes it is a bit of a corny saying however it has stuck in my head and it’s true. If you want to get...
Who was your hero growing up? Mine was Stephen Hawking. What is a hero? A lot is said in the media about “Heroes”. Often the sportsperson of the hour is described as a hero. I don’t like this definition and I think there is far more to being a hero than that. One definition I saw describes a hero as A person who is...
A new version of Pwned Pass is available from Google Play . A couple of weeks ago Troy Hunt released V2 of Pwned Pass onto his haveibeenpwned website. There are now over half a billion passwords that have appeared in data breaches for you to search. This time Troy has included information about how many times a...
The code base I am working on contains a huge if block. By huge I mean 77 if statements one after the other, each if checks to see what page id you are on and loads different content. This is not easy to maintain and I want to refactor it. One option would be to replace the if statements with a switch block. However...
One of the websites I have been working on has been displaying an error in the console. The error reads as follows. The SSL certificate used to load resources from https://example.com will be distrusted in M70. Once distrusted, users will be prevented from loading these resources. See...
A content Security Policy or CSP is a HTTP response header that defines what sources of content can be loaded on a web page. It is a way to combat Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. What is a XSS attack then? When you load a webpage it also loads various other resources like images, some css style sheets, various...