Grant Winney

I write when I've got something to share - a personal project, a solution to a difficult problem, or just an idea. We learn by doing and sharing. We've all got something to contribute.

Articles of Grant Winney

privacy microsoft

Jun 23, 2020

Microsoft respects our privacy, shows it by invading our privacy

If you have new software and want to let people know while simultaneously respecting their privacy, there's a long list of things you might do. Abusing your position as their operating system provider isn't on it....

reflection pandemic

Jun 16, 2020

Surviving or Thriving?

There's surviving, and then there's thriving. As things reopen, I find myself a little hesitant to crawl out from under the rock and thrive again....

the little things

Jun 05, 2020

The Little Things #2

It's tough to believe we're in June already. Maybe part of the reason it doesn't feel like it's nearly summer is because our summer rituals haven't really started. There's still a lot to celebrate this week though....

tech visual data presentation

Jun 04, 2020

What's a word cloud and how do I make one?

You've most likely seen word clouds before, like in the sidebars of blogs, even if you didn't know what they were called. Learn how they're made.. and how you can make your own!...

reflection programming

May 28, 2020

Your fast, my slow

Do you ever wonder if some end-user is sitting at their desk right now, eye twitching spasmodically while a screen you helped write takes 30 seconds to load, cursing your name and the names of your children for all eternity?...

retro historical internet

May 27, 2020

The first website is still online (again)

Did you know the very first website ever is available online, just as it was 30 years ago? Before google, yahoo, geocities, there it was - a few static pages linking to the entirety of the Internet at the time....

reflection learning

May 24, 2020

Buying, building, and something in between

It's good to push yourself to learn more, to try something new even knowing you might fail. On the other hand, there's a wisdom in accepting that someone else already honed the skills we're after, and take advantage of that. And maybe there's something in between - a best of both worlds....

the little things

May 22, 2020

The Little Things #1

The course of our lives seem to follow Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. When we sit back and think about where life is going, momentum ceases. And when we commit to a choice, we don't care where we're standing but just speed off in the next direction. And I haven't even had a beer yet....

Experience gets you far, but good tools and services keep you moving in the right direction. Here are some of my favorites:

DigitalOcean is a versatile, affordable cloud provider. You can serve up a blog (like this one!), deploy a wiki, try out ansible, or do something much bigger. They host the annual Hacktoberfest too.

Backblaze offers an affordable, unlimited, set-and-forget backup service. They saved me from the click of death a couple years ago, and I've been a grateful customer ever since.