Cheat Sheet
Subnet Mask Cheat Sheet serves as a simple alternative to calculators for determining which addresses you can use on a network. Says, “Love it [for] when I need to figure out how many static IPS are available for a clients ip block.”
Documentation Resource
Microsoft Writing Style Guide is designed to help you understand the industry-standard style rules and terminology to be used for technical content. This detailed resource is perfect for anyone who wants to learn what the Windows world considers good, consistent documentation that will be useful for the long term.
Free Tool
Woodpecker CI is an extensible, open-source CI engine that allows you to run any pipelines inside Docker containers, for smooth execution of builds within stable environments. Create multiple pipelines with dependencies as well as plugins to extend pipeline features. Explains, “concepts of Woodpecker CI and GitHub actions are the same: permissions are fully based on user access to repository (in woodpecker it is done via forge’s OAuth2.0), both have pipelines defined in yaml and stored in the repository, both support Docker in pipeline steps, both have external protected secrets vaults. Difference is that Woodpecker is Open-Source CI, which means you just self-host it on VPS (which is pretty simple BTW), and pay only for VPS fixed monthly price.”
CrystalDiskMark is a graphical, open-source disk benchmark tool for Windows that can test the performance of solid-state drives. Reads and writes through the file system in a volume-dependent way, generating read/write speeds in sequential and random positions—with varying queue and thread volume.
SnmpCollector is a full-featured, open-source generic SNMP data collector with a web administration interface. Simplifies the configuration needed to get data from devices with snmp support to an influxdb backend. Adds, “It aims to simplify the alignment for collecting data from various sources [to] send the data to the InfluxDB backend.”
DiffMerge is a multi-platform tool for visually comparing and merging files. Its graphical merge screenshot highlights the differences between files, and allows automatic merging and full edit control over the resulting file. The folder comparison shows which files are missing in one of the folders as well as which files among matched pairs is different.
SaRA is a Microsoft troubleshooting tool for Office, O365 Outlook and Windows. Runs tests to diagnose the issue and suggest the best solution. Tells us, “SARA is a great little tool, stupid UI, but I’ve had it fix all kinds of problems for me as far as activation, installation, etc. issues with 365. Even very bizarre problems, I’ll give it a shot – I once had a client that couldn’t print specified page ranges in Word. Tried everything with print drivers, firmware, uninstall and reinstall Office, rolling it back to prior versions, etc. Out of desperation, I ran the SARA tool on it, and poof, problem solved, heh.”
O&O ShutUp10++ gives you precise control over the comfort functions in Windows 10 and 11, so you can reduce the occasions where your data is passed along unnecessarily. The simple GUI lets you tell the system when to protect your privacy by deactivating unwanted functions. Appreciates it, “so I don’t have to deal with my local GP.”
Typemill is an open-source, flat-file CMS for documentation, ebooks and websites. Features a visual markdown editor and lots of options for themes, plugins and templates. All content is stored in markdown files for easy downloading.
uCareSystem Core is a simple, Ubuntu system update and maintenance tool that can automatically refresh your packagelist, download and install updates (if there are any) and remove any old kernels, obsolete packages and configuration files to free up disk space.
Eternal Terminal is a remote shell that inserts a layer between your application and the unix TCP sockets in order to automatically reconnect after TCP disconnects, without interrupting the session. Adds, “With Eternal Terminal, you won’t need to manually reconnect, even if an IP address changes.”
Python Frameworks is a resource of Python classes and scripts that can be helpful when dealing with some of the common networking applications. Kindly shared by the author, cheesemilkbread, who explains, “These were tested and deployed on networks with multiple/8s. They may be rusty, but they definitely work.” Includes ‘frameworks’ for: BIG-IQ, BIG-IP (iControl REST API), NetMRI, ThousandEyes, ServiceNow (federated and non), Interactions with databases (MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, etc.), Cisco CSM, Cisco CDO, Checkpoint CMA, Infoblox DDI, a full BGP Peer script and a few others.”
Collectd pulls metrics from the OS, applications, logfiles and external devices for use in monitoring systems, finding performance bottlenecks and capacity planning. Explains, “Collectd is a tiny daemon that gathers information from a system. It enables mechanisms to collect and observe the values in different techniques. It is an open-source monitoring tool to retrieve and manage SNMP master agents.”
Termux is a terminal emulator and Linux environment app for Android. It requires no rooting or setup, automatically installs a minimal base system and enables you to add other packages with the APT package manager. Explains, it “allows you to get a quasi “normal” Linux CLI, with all the tools.”
Tutorial
GitFixUm is a rather comprehensive guide on how to recover from your blunders in git. Explains how to determine which of various techniques can help you salvage things, depending on exactly what you did, and what you need to do to fix it. Finds it a “really good step-by-step process for narrowing down what needs to be done to fix a git problem.
MS-900 – Microsoft 365 Fundamentals is a terrific 4-hour video course intended for those who are new to working with MS365 or the Cloud as well as those who will be taking the MS-900 exam.
PSTeams – Adaptive Cards with Tables and Linebreaks in Microsoft Teams explains how Microsoft Teams users can leverage incoming webhooks to send messages to the Microsoft Teams channel. Explains, “PSTeams, a module that I wrote, simplifies this process… Till today to create a table with data sent to teams, you would have to play a lot with Adaptive Column, ColumnSet, and Textboxes. These new features automate it.”
Getting Started with PowerShell and the PSWindowsUpdate Module is a fantastic blog post that walks you through exactly how to use the PSWindowsUpdate module.
Logging Made Easy (LME) is a self-install tutorial and some free/open-source tools that will introduce basic logging capabilities that can be used to improve cyber security. Includes configuration files and scripts. Information gathered includes: software patch levels on those devices, where administrative commands are being run on enrolled devices and who is using which machine.
