Kartech Blog

I had lightspeed internet installed at my office today which is a synchronous fiber internet connection meaning it is the same speed for upload and download.  I have had a lot of internet connections installed over the years, ISDN, DSL, T1, Cable, and this has been the smoothest and highest quality experience I have ever had.  One of the main reasons I chose the location of my office where I did was because Lightspeed had just run fiber across the street. When I called to order service, they said that they would have to do some construction outside to get the fiber to this side of the street, but they could get a crew working on it. I was a little worried it would take a few months to get installed, but it ended up taking exactly a month.  I got the call last week that they were ready to do the install and scheduled it for 8 am yesterday. I walked to work in the morning, and the technician was at the door 5 minutes before 8. I met him as I was...

One of my goals this year is to get up to speed on authentication and authorization in my applications. A lot of things have changed since the days when you would use forms authentication and have a database with users and groups defined. Today an application can be separated across a number of technologies. You could have a website that works for some pieces, a single page app for others, and then a mobile app for your phone users. Each app could have different requirements for access to resources and use different methods. Building a security system from scratch can work for smaller apps with simple requirements, but for complicated requirements, using a framework can resolve a lot of problems.  In the next series of posts, I will be doing a deep dive into the Identity 4 framework as well as ASP.NET Core Identity. As of this writing, I am barely a novice using these technologies, but I have been learning a lot about them, and I am experimenting with how to...

Work / Life balance is always a tough thing for me to figure out. I truly enjoy working, and I love learning new things, so there is a pretty gray area for me between working and not. There are times where I am happy the weather is miserable because I can work on a piece of code that has given me trouble or a project without feeling guilty for not being outside on a sunny day. I do enjoy outdoor activities as well, so finding time to fit everything together can be really tough.  In general, I put work as my highest priority. At the end of the day, if I don't have a job, I am not going to have much of a life. When a company pays me for my services, I feel a sense of loyalty to them.  Years ago when I owned a restaurant, I would often hear an employee complaining about some task, and they would say something like "I don't get paid enough to do ...". I told my son at the time that when you agree to take a job, you agree on the amount of money you are going to be p...

For the past few years, I have thought about getting an office in town. I typically work at my customers' site, but there are days I work remotely, and I'm usually not on site on Fridays. When I work remote, I have an office in my home, and it isn't bad, but I do run into a couple of issues. Sometimes there are distractions with being at home, and it is hard to get into the working mode. On the other side, there are times where I spend all day in the office plugging away at some pieces of code, and I don't see another living soul. If I do this for more than a day or two, I can get the feeling of being really isolated. There is no doubt that I am an introvert and I don't really struggle with being alone, but I do feel that I need to at least have some cursory interactions with people on a daily basis.  I had a few criteria for getting an office. I wanted it to be within walking distance of my house, close to one of the downtown areas,...

One of my goals, since I got into the IT business over thirty years ago, has been to create my own software product. I have often thought if I could create an application or mobile app that gained some popularity, I might be able to fund a retirement of some type someday. Owning a restaurant for a number of years wiped out any savings I had, so I am on the work till I die plan. As a consultant, I get paid for the hours worked, so if I don't work, I don't get paid. If I could create a successful software package, I could generate some passive income that would be helpful in my declining years.  I have come up with a number of ideas over the years, and I have almost completed a number of applications. I once worked on a dating site, long before match every existed, I also started a site that would allow family and friends to share pictures before digital cameras were a consumer item, I worked on a site that would allow sports teams to manage their players and schedules and ...

I mentioned in my post about the Ypsilanti Software Development Meetup Group that my friend Fritz had suggested that we have a rubber ducky for a logo. My first thought was that it was a Ypsi tie in with the Heritage Festival that has a rubber duck race every year, but when I talked to Fritz over beers this weekend, he asked if I knew what the reference was. I mentioned the Ypsi thing, but he said that it was from a story about a programmer who would carry around a rubber duck and explain his code to the duck which helped in the debugging process.  The previous week we had been discussing asynchronous programming in JavaScript and C#, and I had mentioned how I was struggling with figuring out how to use async and await with an MVC controller that calls a service class and then a database repository. The following day he asked me for clarification on what my issue was, and as I was documenting it to respond to him, I was able to figure out how to use the await i...

I think in most cases, I am pretty detail oriented, and when I plan to do something, I usually put a lot of thought into it. Not this time. Last week I was looking through technical meetup groups to see if there were any new ones that were doing anything interesting. As I was browsing the groups, a box appeared in the list that said: "Ypsilanti Software Development" with a 50+ in the bottom right-hand corner. When I clicked on the box I found it wasn't a group, but a suggestion for a group that 50+ people had shown interest in. The suggestion was that I could start this group if I wanted. Of course, there is a $14.99 a month fee, so this is all marketing on Meetups end, but I was intrigued.  I sent off an email to my friend Fritz and mentioned the group and asked if he would be interested in running the group with me. He said he would, and I proceeded on registering the group. My thought was that I would register the group, and we might get a couple of people int...