Tech Terms I Wish I Knew Before I Started Working in IT: Beginner’s Version When I first stepped into the tech world, I thought I had a decent handle on how computers and the internet worked. I quickly learned something: tech isn’t just full of concepts—it’s full of vocabulary. Sometimes the words are simple, sometimes…
Three Python Libraries You’ll Use Almost Every Day
Whether you’re new to Python or have been around it for a while, there are a few libraries that show up again and again. These are the “everyday essentials” — the ones that quietly power web requests, data work, and number crunching behind the scenes. Think of them as the salt, pepper, and olive oil…
Building an Azure Virtual Machine with Terraform: A Step-by-Step Guide
🌐 Introduction If you’ve worked with AWS before, you might already know how powerful Terraform can be for defining infrastructure as code (IaC). But did you know the same principles apply seamlessly to Azure? In this post, we’ll walk through how to use Terraform to create a Linux virtual machine in Microsoft Azure, step by…
Understanding Terraform: Building an AWS EC2 Instance Step-by-Step
Terraform is one of the most powerful Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools available today. It allows engineers to define, provision, and manage infrastructure using configuration files — ensuring deployments are repeatable, consistent, and version-controlled. In this article, we’ll go through a simple example where we use Terraform to create an EC2 instance in AWS. We’ll…
Infrastructure Hardening 101: Building a Secure Foundation for Modern Systems
🔍 What Is Infrastructure Hardening? Infrastructure hardening is the process of securing computing systems — servers, networks, containers, and cloud resources — to reduce vulnerabilities and prevent unauthorized access. In simple terms, it’s about locking every door before attackers try the handle. Hardening focuses on limiting attack surfaces, enforcing least privilege, and maintaining system integrity…
🧭 Understanding Data in Motion: The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of Data Transmission
In IT and operations, data doesn’t just exist — it moves.Every click, request, or alert represents information traveling across layers of technology: networks, protocols, and systems. To understand modern infrastructure — whether for troubleshooting, monitoring, or security — we need to understand how data moves, who touches it, and what happens at every step. Let’s…
Understanding MTTR: Why It Matters More Than You Think
In the world of IT operations, site reliability, and production support, a single number often defines how well a team can respond when things go wrong — MTTR, or Mean Time to Repair. It’s easy to look at MTTR as “just another metric,” but in reality, it tells a powerful story about how resilient your…
From Mental Math to IT Troubleshooting: Why the Process Matters
When I was a kid, math homework often turned into a balancing act. I could look at a problem, run through the calculations in my head, and get to the right answer. But when the teacher asked me to “show my work,” that’s where I’d stumble. The steps in between felt unnecessary, but I already…
APIs: The Invisible Connectors Powering Our Digital World
Have you ever ordered food at a restaurant? You don’t walk into the kitchen and make it yourself. You look at the menu, place your order with the waiter, and a short while later your food arrives. That, in a nutshell, is how an API works. API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s how…
Tackling Hidden Technical Debt: Knowledge Silos in Organizations
When most people hear the phrase technical debt, their minds jump straight to messy code, outdated frameworks, or systems in desperate need of modernization. But there’s another form of debt that often goes unnoticed. One that quietly erodes efficiency and creates risk inside organizations. That debt is knowledge debt. What Is Knowledge Debt? Knowledge debt…
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Mitchell Lyon 