Microsoft

As I recently migrated my Home Assistant instance to my good old Intel NUC, I needed a new media center. I also promised myself to buy a new Game PC after completing my bachelor’s study program while working fulltime. What if I could combine these two things together, while the screens are in different rooms? I spent lots and lots of time reading reviews about hardware. Luckily I still remember how to build a machine from back in the days, so I ordered the following parts: ...

A secure email system is important to protect yourself from the increasing phishing and spam attacks, where hackers try to steal money on a large scale. More and more organizations hosting personal data are getting hacked, where hackers misuse this personal data to launch attacks. In this blog post I will introduce you to a solution I’ve created based on Office 365 and PowerShell to prevent that my email address is spread more widely on the internet. ...

**Microsoft recently announced the Public Preview of the ability to run PowerShell code in an Azure Function. This means that the PowerShell code will run in a Platform-as-a-Service solution, completely serverless! You pay only for the time that you use the solution and you don’t have to manage the underlying infrastructure! In this blog post, I will show a practical example of how to use an Azure Function in combination with an Azure Logic App.** After publishing a blog post, I always want to share the post as quickly as possible on Twitter & LinkedIn. ...

**After passing the AZ-300 exam and being not too happy about the new exam experience, I liked this exam much better. Let me explain why.** In my blog post about the AZ-300, I talked about the fact that you can run out of time quickly and that the exam was lacking transparency about the amount and type of questions you still have to do when compared to the time you have left. ...

This morning I passed the AZ-300 exam. To be honest, I was confident that I failed the exam. Especially because I ran out of time with only 80 - 90 %. In this blog post, I will explain you the good and the bad of this exam and the exam experience. The Good Labs are a great way to test knowledge The labs that I had to take in the exam where stable and solid. You get access to a Windows VM with a browser on it which automatically opens the Azure Portal. ...

**People who follow me on Twitter might have noticed that I’m working more and more with Microsoft Flow. Microsoft Flow allows me to create simple automations (like IFTTT) and to create a bridge between services like Office 365 and my home automation with Home Assistant. Recent changes to the pricing model made me decide to move away from Microsoft Flow, back to Azure Logic Apps. In this blog post, I’ll explain how easy it is to move your flows to Azure Logic Apps.** In my flows I’ve been a heavy user of the HTTP Trigger and HTTP Request actions, because I’m relying mostly on REST API calls to perform the automation tasks. ...

In this blog post, I will show you how to create an RSS Feed/WordPress Post Reminder with Azure Logic Apps, which you can use to post to various Social Media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ve probable seen a post like this with a reminder to check out my yesterday’s blog post: https://twitter.com/DevSecNinja/status/1084815812232388613?s=20 This is all works automatically by using Azure and Azure Logic Apps. ...

This year already started great for me by passing the AZ-102: Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Transition exam! This transition exam is based on content from the AZ-100 and AZ-101 exams. In this blog post, I will share some tips that really helped me passing the exam. https://twitter.com/DevSecNinja/status/1080433831667265541?s=20 As I’m working with Azure a lot during my work as an Azure Architect/Engineer, the platform is just too big to be able to master everything. ...

**This error message is related to Device Guard Code Integrity in Windows 10 and shows up in the Event Viewer under the Code Integrity folder. As of writing this article, the error message is not described in online documentation of Microsoft.** In the current scenario, the built-in Windows 10 apps like the Calculator, Alarms & Clock or the Photos app will instantly crash after opening it. This error message tells that the sysfer.dll is not trusted by Microsoft and therefore cannot interfere with the Alarms & Clock app. ...

With Windows Servicing, Microsoft is forcing consumers and businesses to upgrade to a Windows 10 Build twice a year. Theoretically you could go for one build per year, but that forces you to upgrade to a new build within 6 months. Otherwise you will end up without support for the old build. This introduces quite some issues within both SMBs and large organizations. Recently a friend asked me about a recent printer that stopped working. ...