You probably know the popular Google DNS server IP addresses by heart: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Before those were around you might have even used Level3’s 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2. Of course, everyone else uses these too, which means these popular servers are under a pretty heavy load.

Fortunately, there are faster public DNS …

In preparation for my latest course in the AWS Networking Deep Dive series, I wanted to install PowerShell Core on an Amazon Linux instance to test out cross-platform compatibility for some scripts.

Specifically, I wanted to see if I could use methods in the System.Net.Dns class to perform name resolution. The …

Most of us have tossed around the idea of restricting our social media consumption, or even giving it up altogether. It’s not that we don’t like it. We love it, sometimes too much. But inherently, something about social media just seems wrong. But what is it?

Social is Not a Neutral Tool

People often say that social …

Learn to subnet in your head in just seconds! If you like what you see, check out Cisco Enterprise Networks: Basic Networking and IP Fundamentals.

This month, security researchers released a whitepaper describing the Meltdown attack, which allows anyone to read the full physical memory of a system by exploiting a vulnerability in Intel processors. If that sounds bad, that’s because it is. It means that if you’re running workloads on a public cloud provider, and …

As 2018 draws near, companies go into hiring mode, and people come and go, which often leaves a lot of open positions. If you qualify to fill one of the more in-demand positions, you can often negotiate a higher salary.

My biggest salary jumps have always come in the first quarter of the year. To increase your chances …

Security usually requires sacrificing convenience (or money). So naturally, we tend to get away with as little security as possible. But if you’re a glutton for punishment, here are 4 very inconvenient but highly effective measures you can take right now to protect yourself from the  evils lurking on the interwebs. …

Whenever a tech fad comes to an end, it becomes so obvious why it failed. Yet during the hype, it’s easy to miss the problems lurking just below the surface. I want to explore some of the problems I see with public blockchain and why I think it’s not going to live up to the hype.

Blockchain can’t track real things …

Certifications are often lambasted as “worthless pieces of paper” and “experience is more important.” But for some people, certifications are more important than experience.

A substitute for experience

Newcomers to the IT world face the classic problem: how do you get experience without a job? Sure, you can tinker …

Many a nerd has thrown punches over the question of whether containers (e.g. Docker, LXC, etc.) are actually virtual machines. The conventional wisdom is that although containers are similar to virtual machines, they’re fundamentally different. I beg to differ.

Are containers virtual machines or not?

There’s a common …