Reflections on 2024
December 30, 2024
Passed CCAK Exam: Certificate of Cloud Auditing Knowledge Guide
December 30, 2024
Wow! The end of 2023 is upon us! Let’s take a look back at what I’ve been up to this year!
Career
In January I was onboarded as a HashiCorp Ambassador for all the community work I had done around Terraform. It’s a yearly award, so hopefully I’ll be renewed in 2024.
In April I changed role at Microsoft, I am now a Senior Technical Specialist, which translates into being a Pre-Sales Technical Architect. I’m closer to the sales side of conversations now and while I’m still on a learning curve adapting to the Microsoft sales side of things, it’s exciting to be helping customers solve their challenges with technology.
Blogging
It’s interesting looking back at the amount of blog posts I’ve written each year. I haven’t written the same amount of blogs as I used to, but much like last year, I’ve become much more strategic about what I write.
I write about the things like I enjoy and want to share. I do syndicate what I write across a couple of platforms, Medium, Dev.To and The Ops Community, which has helped to grow my readership. Which is the important thing, I want to ensure what I write helps people.
Most viewed blog posts in 2024
It’s always good to look back at what blog posts are popular and what have dropped down in popularity. This year’s top 10 looks very different from last year, and it’s good to see some newer blogs I’ve written appear in the top ten list.
This year my top 10 most visited blog posts have been:
- Install Exchange Online PowerShell modules
- Connect to a SQL database with Visual Studio Code
- Convert a folder to a Git repository
- Enable external email warning tag in Exchange Online
- How to push code from VS Code to GitHub
- What is Azure Arc?
- Troubleshooting Azure Arc for Servers
- Trigger GitHub Actions workflow when a folder changes
- Using Terraform with Azure Key Vault to retrieve secret values
- ConfigMgr Query for Name, Serial Number, BIOS Version, IP Address and MAC Address
Video
I’ve not had a lot of time to create video content this year, unfortunately, but it’s still nice to look at what content is popular and still popular on YouTube.
Most viewed videos in 2024
- How to delete a repository in GitHub
- Clone a repository with GitHub Desktop
- How to log out of GitHub Desktop
- How to create a repository in GitHub
- How to delete a repository in GitHub 2024
- Connect to a SQL database with Visual Studio Code
- Create a new repository with GitHub Desktop
- How to install GitHub Desktop on Windows
- How to push code to GitHub
- GitLens Tutorial: How to use GitLens in VS Code
Speaking
I haven’t really focussed on public speaking this year. I’ve delivered 10 talks to just under 500 people.
I’ve spoken about Azure resilience, Terraform, Kusto Query Language, Azure Bicep and career development.
Speaking at events is something I do enjoy, but it’s all self funded so I’ve had to reduce
Certifications
This year I have been focussing on the Microsoft Applied Skills certifications. These are certifications that focus on being given tasks to carry out and then you are marked on them. Such as configuring Azure Log Analytics to have a certain data retention.
They are open book tests, but they are quite challenging none the less as you need to be able to interrupt the tasks and then carry them out.
This year I have earned the following Applied Skills:
- Administer Active Directory Domain Services
- Deploy and manage Microsoft Azure Arc–enabled servers
- Secure storage for Azure Files and Azure Blob Storage
- Deploy and configure Azure Monitor
- Implement information protection and data loss prevention by using Microsoft Purview
- Configure SIEM security operations using Microsoft Sentinel
Applied Skills are free to try out, so if you haven’t already done so I would encourage you to give them a go.
Glasgow Azure User Group
This year, the Glasgow Azure User Group has had 6 meetups, enjoyed over 50 pizzas, consumed a ton of drinks and learned everything from Entra Security to Azure AI.
I’m looking forward to seeing where the community goes in 2025.
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Social Media
Social media used to be something I would check constantly and put a lot of effort into. Over the last few years I’ve definitely pulled back from it.
I no longer have the apps installed on my phone and I only check on the platforms if I am on a laptop/computer. But it’s very sporadic. I feel the benefits, more time and less anxiety.
I do still have a presence on a lot of the social media platforms if you do want to follow me:
