Grant Winney

Is there anything more satisfying than sharing knowledge? Of teaching someone and witnessing their "ah ha" moment? I usually write about tech, but no promises. I hope you find something interesting!

Articles of Grant Winney

Jan 05, 2020

How to deploy your own private RequestBin instance in under 5 minutes

If you need to consume a webhook from another service, or verify the payload being sent from your own REST API endpoint, RequestBin can help. It intercepts and displays the contents of any call made to it. Here's how to deploy your own private instance in just a few minutes....

api web browser tech carousel

Dec 30, 2019

Why are websites requesting access to motion sensors... on my desktop?

I was checking the status of a FedEx order when Brave warned me that "this site has been blocked from accessing your motion sensors". I'm struggling to understand why a website would need that access. Do I get a different experience if I drop my device? Tip my monitor over? Spin the mouse around?...

so vault machine learning

Dec 29, 2019

SO Vault: Overwhelmed by Machine Learning - is there an ML101 book?

From the SO vault: "It seems like there are so many subfields linked to Machine Learning. Is there a book or a blog that gives an overview of those different fields and what each of them do, maybe how to get started, and what background knowledge is required?"...

ansible automation tech digitalocean

Dec 27, 2019

3 Ansible playbooks, 2 DO droplets, and a website... in a pear tree 🎄

Running through another of Erika's Ansible posts with example playbooks, creating a few pointless ones of my own, and discovering just how easy it is to deploy a website running on Apache!...

tech ethics ux design

Dec 23, 2019

Being aware of how sites reel you in... and hook you 🎣

I think most of us have a general sense of uneasiness with the firm grasp the most popular sites on the Internet have on us, but it's no mistake in design that they're popular... or that the cause of uneasiness is also the salve....

so vault programming

Dec 22, 2019

SO Vault: Break statements in the real world

From the SO vault: "At my university, you will instantly fail an assignment if you use break anywhere but in a switch statement as it breaks the coding guideline of the university. As I'm still completing my software engineering degree I would like to know from people in the real world."...

ansible automation tech digitalocean

Dec 18, 2019

Hands-on Ansible, using two DigitalOcean Ubuntu droplets

Today I'm wrapping my head around a build tool called Ansible, used for deploying machines in a scriptable, repeatable manner. Follow along as I step through an excellent tutorial from DigitalOcean, applying what I learn to a couple DO Ubuntu VMs... the $5/mo ones - nothing fancy needed!...

security iot ethics tech

Dec 17, 2019

Do we really need cameras inside our homes? (Spoiler: NO!)

Some Ring cameras got hacked. Just another day in tech. My question is, WHY would you willingly put IOT cameras in your home? In your kids bedrooms??...

It takes time to write a decent tutorial and answer questions from readers (but I enjoy it!), so if you found something helpful today and want to say "thanks", here's how. 😁

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