Hiatus
Hi all, guess by now you are all wondering if I had fell off the planet or died :o. Sadly for some of you this is not the case ;). If you want to skip the personal history of Seb for the last 18 months go straight to The Series.
Sadly, after my last writing streak, which I really enjoy doing this kind of thing got side lined again by my customers and family commitments. But rest assured I am back to doing some writing now.
With this blog I am about to start to branch out into a more diverse technology and security posts, as not only are the infrastructure, infrastructure technology sectors and apple/linux technologies near and dear to my heart but so is security both in the technology sense but also in the personal sense.
This is something that I have wanted to talk about for a very long time, I believed the time was right in 2020 when things were in the news, but imposter syndrome kicked in and I felt I would have been milking the situation as many did.
The Last 18 months
The last 18 months have been a rollercoaster, haven’t they? For me it was a time of break ups, make ups, happiness, sadness and breakups again with a boring period of no work (about 9 months) feelings of imposter syndrome with a little depression thrown in for good measure, for a period of time I wasn’t working, I should have been relaxing and enjoying my time with family and friends, but what usually happens is my mind goes into overdrive and makes me feel like an imposter to both my family and friends as well as the community that I hold near and dear to my heart a community I have been in since childhood and professionally for around 2 decades.
So current customer ended the contract early, for which I had a good 50 weeks with and made a fair lot of new friends and will hopefully work with them again in the future, I was rolling out a security product as well as helping to re-write/write policies and procedures for a financial services tertiary company as well as advise and consult on best practices within the industry on security matters. I met two good other contractors one a project manager who has now retired and believe sailing his new boat around the world (Honest I wasn’t the reason for him sailing the world to get away from me ), and a really good PCI-DSS consultant who is also an author, we had some very interesting conversations, and it sparked my brain back into my love of writing not just technical things but things for fun. Yeah, I am aware I am a weird one ;).
The Series
So this is going to need to be at least a 4 part series this is the first in the series and the three main topics covered are
- Pet and child safety
- This is more of an outdoors and away from home blog
- Pet technology and child tech to keep them safe
- Tips and advice on safety if the worst happens
- Home and Belongings
- Home tech to keep you safe
- Warnings and what they look for
- CCTV and IoT safety
- Tips and tricks to keep you and your belongings safe
- Internet and social media
- What to and what not to post on social media
- Being safe online
- How to spot a fishing scam
- Situational awareness
Obviously starting with the pet and child side of things, this being near and dear to my heart, also with the rise in pet ownership and pet thefts in the world it’s better to add one more voice to the crowd than to be a silent mouth. The parts of the series I am most looking forward to discussing are the technologies that are on offer, the innovation’s made in retaliation to the news and the current world pandemic. I draw on the experiences from my professional background as well as those who I have collaborated with during my lifetime.
Sneaky look at what will be discussed
So for the tech and products that we will be discussing here are some of the things we will be looking at specifically, as well as discussing the pro’s and cons of each product. All of the products we will be discussing will be commercially available to the public and without the requirements of needing a licence to use (unless its software or a licenced product).
- Trackers
- Hardware trackers for your family and belongings, such as the new Apple AirTags, Tiles and others
- Software tracking
- Describing how software tracking works and how to make the most of it for your family and belongings
- Physical locks
- What to look for in a good lock and what to avoid for both your home and belongings whilst away
- Old School tech
- What should be part of your EDC bag (EveryDay Carry), tips and tricks and how to make the best of them
- CCTV roundup and home security
- Tips and tricks as well as reviews of common CCTV systems
- IoT tips and tricks
- How to secure them, how to best make the best out of them whilst securing them.
- Personal protection technology
- A look into the best personal security tech and the do’s and don’ts around the use of personal security, as well as adding a situational awareness aspect to them
- New personal body cams
- Do and don’ts
- Tips and tricks
- A round up of some of the worst and best and why
So as you can see we have a lot to cover, and unlike 18 months ago I will get to finish this one as I am semi-retired now (I know not even 40 yet (I just look it 😉 )) plus they have been written already and are waiting on the release schedule for which I am debating a daily over the course of next week or a weekly one, however either way PART 2 WILL BE OUT TOMORROW Thursday 9th December 2021. I do need to tidy up the back end of this website and do some updates, again this got side lined, plus I am not a web designer or web admin, and sadly the person that used to do this for me is no longer about to help even though they had promised a couple of weeks ago but life got in the way of that one.
Oh and you thought the last schedule was over and done with, think again I am back to writing them now and will catch up and finish what I started if a little late to the party.
In closing this is going to be very fun and insightful for everyone, I have some thanks to the persons who have inspired me and challenged my thinking on the topics and a massive thank you to the product designers and innovators that have really stepped up their game during these trying times.
As always its good to have you here and please keep an eye out for updates.
PART TWO is HERE