Rick Gouin

Author: Rick Gouin

Build A Device To Send Emails At the Push of a Button

· Rick Gouin

I had a need for a device that would send an email at the push of a button.  I also needed it to send a different email when I push a different button.  My use case here is related to a Homeowners Association (HOA) that requires me to “check-in” on arrival and “check-out” on departure.  In this case, that is done via email.  So, I wanted a device with a “check-in” button and a separate “check-out” button, so I could just push those buttons to satisfy the requirements.  The the finished product is shown at left. What Does This Project […]

Website Overhaul

· Rick Gouin

I had to update my website today.  I’m definitely a function over form person, and I don’t care much for frontend development.  I thought the old design was fine, but I was running an abandoned theme that was no longer being updated.  While I was looking around to see if anyone still supported my old theme, I came across this site which showed what must be some of the few remaining sites using it.  2 of their 12 sample sites were me – not a good sign! Why did I have to upgrade? I run my own webserver in AWS […]

Perform Data Conversions in Windows Calculator

· Rick Gouin
calculator

I don’t know about you, but in my line of work, we frequently have to convert between various data measurements.  Whether this is storage capacity or network throughput, we convert between TB, TiB, GB, GiB, and others every day.  If you visit my calculators page, you’ll even find a converter I wrote available there.  Believe it or not, I actually used that converter sometimes… until today, when I was shown this tip: Windows Calculator can do these conversions right out of the box! First, what are we talking about? Ever notice how if you buy a 1 TB hard drive, […]

PowerStore 3.0 Updated!

· Rick Gouin

At Dell Tech World 2022 this week Dell announced the upcoming release of PowerStore 3.0 which includes new controller and expansion shelf hardware as well as some serious software updates.  We were part of the PowerStore OS 3.0 Beta Program and installed the beta software in our lab.     Hardware It seems like yesterday, but PowerStore was released over 2 years ago in May of 2020.  You can read all about the hardware specs for that release here.  The exception to this is the PowerStore 500T, which was only released about a year ago.  That leaves us with a […]

Dell SC End of Life

· Rick Gouin

Dell SC, perhaps better known as Compellent, has finally had its end of life formally announced.  I feel like many people have been watching for this since the acquisition of EMC was announced in 2015.  At that time, Dell suddenly found itself with numerous overlapping storage platforms and product teams.  Jeff Clarke, COO at Dell, explained it well here: “It was to the point where you had fierce supporters of a brand or a product inside the organization and we were not necessarily stepping back and looking at market needs, customer needs and technology trends. My view 15 months ago, […]

Hardening Dell Storage Center (SC) – Compellent

· Rick Gouin

Over the last year or so, I’ve helped multiple companies recover from ransomware events utilizing snapshots on their storage arrays.  In several of these instances, the customer’s backups were compromised along with their production environment.  A storage array can be a nice part of a recovery strategy, as they seem to be targeted less frequently than other parts of your data-center. If you want to help make sure that your storage array is there for you when you need it, however, you need to make sure it is as secure as possible.  Most of these steps are applicable to any […]

New Dell PowerStore OS 2.0 Really is Future Ready

· Rick Gouin
PowerStore OS Version 2 Updates List

Dell just announced PowerStore OS version 2.0.  It will be available for download on 6/10/2021. If you are new to PowerStore, check out this intro post here.  As you can see, the platform launched a year ago was a little  lean from a feature set perspective.  Dell is rapidly filling out those capabilities, and is doing so in a very forward looking way.  PowerStore, particularly with version 2, is thinking ahead, and has several capabilities that many customers aren’t sure they need… yet.  Lets walk through some of the major new features in PowerStore OS version 2. Whats in PowerStore […]

Dell’s PowerStore reaches down market with new entry level PS500T

· Rick Gouin

Dell is expanding the reach of the PowerStore mid-range storage platform further down-market with the introduction of the entry level PowerStore 500T.  This smaller system is aimed at competing with the lower-end storage requirements found in SMB or ROBO deployments.  The system is supposed to come in around $30k for a base config with minimal storage.   This is one post from a 2 part series.  The other post details the software updates that go along with this hardware, and is available here. With the addition of the 500, there are now 6 different PowerStore models: 500, 1000, 3000, 5000, […]

Self host Bitwarden in AWS

· Rick Gouin

I’ve used a number of different password managers over the years.  I was a LastPass user for a long time, but recently felt compelled to take a look at other options in this space.  After a number of evaluations, I’ve settled on a new option: Bitwarden. My two favorite parts about BitWarden: There is a self-host option, and the project is open source.  There are a number of different open source implementations of various aspects of the project, which is awesome. I decided to deploy my self-hosted Bitwarden deployment in AWS.  My first decision to make was “how should I […]

Run a Windows 10 Instance in AWS EC2

· Rick Gouin

You want a Microsoft Windows 10 instance in your EC2 environment.  Maybe its for a jump box, maybe its for direct access to some RDS instances or other services.  Whatever the case, you went to AWS figuring you’d launch a new Windows 10 instance, and then you realized: Windows 10 isn’t one of the choices. Its true, Windows 10 is not one of the pre-built AMIs offered by AWS.  So how do you get yourself a Windows 10 instance running up there?  Fear not!  Thats what this guide is for.  I’ll show you all the steps to get a Windows […]