My Year in Review - 2022 Edition

2022 in General

Is 2022 over already? I don’t have a lot to talk about, but this was the first year that has felt like normal since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I never actually announced it on the site, but in April I published a PDF version of my Building a Certificate Authority in Windows Server 2019 guide that is based on the final chapter of the Practical Guide to PKI with Windows Server - First Edition book. I ended up creating it due to feedback from a few people that said it might increase sales, which it sort of ended up doing. I also wanted to release a PDF version of that guide which included additional details that were in the book, but not in the original guide.

It has also been a full year since I released my Practical Guide to PKI with Windows Server - First Edition book and I wrote a post about it, Practical Guide to PKI with Windows Server - One Year Later. I decided due to feedback that I have received that I would create a Second Edition for the book to add content that I felt was missing, and to correct several small errors. I will also update the free guide at the same time, and publish both simultaneously.

I have decided that once I finish this Second Edition of the book, I will move on to another subject entirely if I write another book.

Professional and Personal Life

Just like in 2021, I did some travelling for work, but far less than I planned to. I started a new role in August for a multinational company that specializes in mobile security, and I will probably visit some of their European offices at some point in 2023.

I took a trip to Portugal for three weeks in September with my family. I started writing a post about my experience with using a Chromebook that I purchased for the trip that I will probably publish sometime in January. Overall it worked well, but I ran into a few issues that were hard to work around with the limitations of the platform.

At least the view was amazing:

I have been to Portugal several times in the last 8 years, and this was the first time that I was able to get reliable and fast Internet access for a reasonable price. The next time that I travel there it will be for an extended period as I will be able to work remotely the entire time.

Website Changes

I launched a companion website for this site, docs.mjcb.io. The purpose of this website is to store guides and other documentation that I have written over the last decade. I won’t make any announcements on the blog if I release anything, but some posts may link to content on that website. Complex topics will always appear on that site, and it uses a public repository.

Several months ago I moved the website from Bitbucket to GitHub, which I talked about briefly in the Website GitHub Migration. I just got tired of Bitbucket in general, I felt like the way that they implemented MFA to be overly complicated and making commits was always a pain. I was somewhat hesitant to make the mjcb.io website Git repository public until I realized that it made no difference if it was public or private. There is nothing proprietary or secret in the repository, it is just a basic Hugo website with static content.

I finally got around to creating a logo/icon for the website, which has been on my todo list for a while. It is basic, but it works.

2023 Goals

A project that I started back in 2022 was to cleanup a lot of the accounts that I used, as well as consolidate a lot of data that I have stored in various locations. I also wanted to redo my entire backup strategy, which I will talk about in the next few months. Overall, this has been completed, and I am happy with the outcome, but it is an ongoing process.

I also managed to consolidate a lot of my daily workflow, and I now only use a single MacBook Air and my iPhone for everything. This has made things a lot easier for me, as I no longer need to switch devices constantly or remotely connect to devices that are sitting in the same room. This has also had the benefit of getting rid of a lot of clutter.

During 2022 I migrated my website for Ten Fifteen Solutions to Hugo and Netlify. It was not the best conversion to that platform, and the site that is currently there is just a placeholder. I am going to spend some time in the next few weeks updating the site, and adding more up-to-date and relevant content.

I also plan on finishing a book that I am working on and hopefully starting a new one before the end of 2023. As long as nothing major comes up, I should be able to accomplish this.

And like always, I am going to try my best to stay safe and healthy, which is the most important thing that I can do.