I ran into a situation where I had SSH access to a MySQL server but needed to export a table to a spreadsheet. How many ways could there be?

I ran into a situation where I was asked if there was a way to redirect a referrer in Apache to a different relative location. At first, I thought it’d be easy because you’d only need to use regex to match “referrer,” specify the relative location, and you’re done. Right? … Right‽

I recently ran into a situation where I needed to run a test with a Québec City IP address. I checked every well-known VPN provider for their server lists, but none had servers specifically in Québec City. After additional research, I found it’s possible to create a Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway in Canada East and have the VM use the linked VNet as a NIC.

When asking questions, it helps to meet midway by first taking steps to diagnose the issue to help narrow down the cause. Asking “thoughtful” questions that follow a structured format instead of “low-effort” one-liners helps organize a dense amount of information in an easy-to-read format. Combining prediagnosis and structured reporting solves technical problems efficiently and, therefore, faster.

Do you need to create a specifically-size file down to the last byte and don’t care about the contents? It’s usually straightforward, but Windows has some extra fine print.

Need to create a file with specific size and random content? One or the other is fine, but both can be problematic. I’m lookin’ at you, Windows.

Our S3 cloud folder is more like a web host, but it’s not easy to share. A custom domain would make finding and sharing it easier.