Gradle, Square Peg Round Hole

Intro On the current engagement we are using gradle to automate the build process. Gradle can lend itself to scripting through groovy. Anything groovy can do gradle can do. I’m interested in more than just building the application automatically. When it comes to Continuous Integration (CI) we often need to do more than just build […]

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Some DNS automation (bind)

Dear Loyal Readers, I’ve been using bind in AWS for a while now.  Initially route53 created publicly available DNS entries, but recently, AWS added the private/vpc-aware Route 53.  This makes our security team happy! Sadly, the record propagation delay was causing us problems (long delays) in our ability to quickly spin up new instances. We might have been able to live […]

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How to build SonarQube into PhpStorm for source code analysis

The software development IDE, JetBrains PhpStorm, is a versatile tool to incorporate into a DevOps pipeline. One useful method of expanding upon its native features is to add the SonarQube plugin to provide source code analysis. Step-by-step documentation is scattered or insufficient, so I have compiled an explanation of the process, with accompanying screenshots. This does […]

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Compatibility Testing Webinar

Introduction A few months, I wrote a blog post about performing compatibility testing for mobile web apps. Since that time, I have been talking with Sauce Labs about putting together a webinar focusing on locally debugging and executing compatibility testing that will eventually be run in the cloud. And that time is finally almost upon us! You […]

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Cleaner Java Code with Unchecked Exceptions

Checked vs Unchecked Exceptions in Java is an already debated and documented topic. I don’t plan to discuss the details here. If you are looking for discussion on this subject I will point you to other sources: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6115896/java-checked-vs-unchecked-exception-explanation http://www.quora.com/What-is-difference-between-a-checked-and-unchecked-exception https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/exceptions/runtime.html This is however an example of wanting to control the exception flow of your application […]

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My hardening workflow

Here are some tips for keeping your OS environment secure, the DevOps way. Scanning Get your environment scanned early and often. And your first scan should happen even earlier. Nothing is worse than getting your first set of scan result back and realizing you have just been given 2 weeks worth of “surprise” work. Our […]

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New SecureCI Release

As I’m certain everyone is aware, a new version of SecureCI™ has been released! Many more tools have been included, and while the basic setup is the same, there is a bit more configuration that you’ll need to setup. My previous post of how to startup a new instance of SecureCI™ is still accurate, however […]

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Surviving Stagefright on a Rooted Handset

I am the black sheep of the company. Everything I run is Linux in some form or another except when required by a client. This includes my phone. When I first heard about Stagefright my heart sank, mostly for all the ribbing I would get for my co-workers, but also because my phone is rooted, more […]

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Behave

Introduction It’s been a while since I’ve posted about some BDD work, but I’ve recently gotten back into it using Behave. Over the next few months, I’ll be posting more and more, as I get deeper into the tool, but I figure I’ll start with a comparison based on my initial work. This post will […]

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