Dave's part of the internet

Not all of this will be relevant. Or even useful.

Don't Use Hyphens in Environmental Variables

2023-04-26 Dave
tl;dr: As the title says, don’t use hyphens in environment variables, use underscores instead. A large part of my job is working on CI pipelines and the automation of the build and deployment of software. This means that I spend a lot of time working with environment variables and the configuration of the tools that I use. Over the last 24 hours, I’ve spent about 6 of them trying to find out why a bash script I was working on was failing to reconcile the value of a variable. Continue reading

Soundcloud Streaming

2021-05-22 Dave
I started working on an Alexa skill recently to stream a podcast series from soundcloud. While there is a wealth of developer documentation on the site, this is one of the few services I’ve ever encountered that seems to be intent on crippling developer interactions. Currently developer registrations are closed and most of the existing documentation is filled with information that is no longer valid. As a result, there are a number of difficulties in trying to find a way to stream from soundcloud. Continue reading
2021-05-09 Dave

I’ve been slow to update this, but that’s because I’ve spent the last few months finishing up in one job and starting a new one! New posts incoming!

LaTeX is amazing

2021-03-05 Dave
I hate formatting documents. Actually, I hate REFORMATTING documents. When I had to tackle my CV after my first job, I got the feedback that my CV needed to be updated to make it easier to read and more succinct. Ever since then, whenever the CV needed to be updated, I would end up having to copy the text out and find a new format or template to copy the data in. Continue reading

Configuration Management Tool Comparison

2021-02-25 Dave
As part of my masters, I did my thesis on comparing a collection of the most common configuration management tools on the market for speed of execution, cost and ease of implementation. What I’ve detailed below is a summary of the findings I made, and if you’re interested in the learning more about the test framework, conditions and low level detail, please feel free to download the full thesis here. Continue reading

Ps4 Camera as Webcam

2021-02-18 Dave
I was recently asked to go to an online video chat and I wanted to do it on my main desktop for a few reasons but I don’t have a webcam for this machine. After a bit of brainstorming however, I remembered that I do have a camera for my PS4 and when Sony announced the support for PS5, they allowed people to claim an adaptor for the camera to make it USB 3. Continue reading
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