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<< 10 / 2015 12 / 2015 >>

In-between assignments? What an opportunity!

2015-11-23 14:38:00

It's been two weeks now since I've left my friends and colleagues at my previous assignment. I didn't have a new gig lined up, so for now I'm "in-between assignments". Am I having a dreary time and am I scrambling for something new? Maybe surprisingly, I'm not! I've been busier than ever!

I'd argue that some downtime between jobs is an excellent opportunity! 

  1. Learn something new
  2. Meet new people
  3. Deflate

 

Learn something new

Now is your chance to finally get started on all those things you've been meaning to learn and study! Make sure to plan a few hours every day to spend on research and studies. This will also help you maintain your workday rhythm. 

 

Meet new people

Of course you're going job hunting! Putting that aside though, I've found it tremendous to also go and meet people in my business just for the heck of it. Some would call this networking, I just call it fun :)

Why not visit one of your industry's convention, now that you have the time? Or use Meetup.com to find social gatherings that look interesting or beneficial. Every week there's something you could help out with or learn about.

 

Deflate

And you know what? Relish your downtime! Get some exercise, go for a walk, enjoy the scenery. Feeling ambitious and feeling the urge to start running? Give the famous "Couch to 5k" schedule a shot! Not thinking about work a few hours may help you a bit in pushing harder when you need to!

 

What have I been doing?

I've spent a few days learning a new programming language (Python in my case) by signing up for Codecademy. I've also spent a few days learning about MFA tokens and on integrating those with software I'm already familiar with. And now I'm also hitting the books on Oracle and SQL. 

I've hit the Blackhat Europe convention and learned a lot of new things. I'll also be meeting with people from a big-name college and with an IT service provider. Both talks could perhaps lead to something in the future, but for now I simply want to learn about their activities.  

 

And after all that hard work-that's-not-actually-work? I'm deflating by taking some walks around town and by playing a game or two. I really ought to thank my employer for this great "work-cation".


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A new project: a private Yubikey server infrastructure

2015-11-14 20:48:00

I was recently gifted a Yubikey Neo at the Blackhat Europe 2015 conference. I’d heard about Ubico’s nifty little USB device before but never really understood what the fuss was about. I’m no fan of Facebook or GMail, so instead I thought I’d see what Yubikey could do in a Unix environment!

I've been playing with the YK for two days now and I've managed to get the following working quite nicely:

I have written an extensive tutorial on how I built the above. In the near future you may expect expansions, including tie-in to LDAP as well as BoKS. 


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<< 10 / 2015 12 / 2015 >>