Tony Talks Technology

Five Years

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 19:42:27 -0400

One thousand eight hundred thirty-nine days since my mother, Kathy, passed away after a battle against lung cancer. Since 2017, I began posting what she’s missed in the past year. This helps me both connect with her and recap the last twelve months.

Auto-Generating Terraform State Storage in Azure

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 09:21:26 -0400

In my latest Azure/Terraform post, I touched on how I solved the “Chicken and Egg” problem with Terraform: how you need cloud resources in order to store Terraform state, but you can’t use Terraform to generate those cloud resources. This post details the solution to that problem.

Azure and Terraform, Round Two

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 16:37:47 -0400

I recently blogged about using Terraform to manage resources in Azure. To be honest, my implementation was okay, but it could definitely improve. This post is an update on how I’ve updated the structure and usage of Terraform within projects.

Four Years

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 22:16:33 -0400

Four full trips around the sun have passed since my mother, Kathy, passed away after an extended battle with lung cancer. Since 2017, I began posting what she’s missed in the past year as a sort of retro-diary to her.

Azure and Terraform

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I have always believed that Delivery is one of the most important aspects of software development. I blogged about it previously (My Core Values). Software delivery isn’t just putting the bits into the final resting location; it must also include the infrastructure provisioning to explicitly define where the bits will actually land. Terraform helps bridge that gap, especially given a public cloud offering like Azure.

ASP.NET Static Site Generation

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As hinted at in a previous post, I have transitioned from hosting dynamic web applications in a cloud hosting service (like AWS Elastic Beanstalk or Azure App Service) to hosting static websites in my document storage location of choice (Amazon S3 in this case). This post discusses my development process for a project like this.

On Job Hopping

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Since graduating from Ohio State in March 2009, I have started at six different companies. I either stick around for a long time, or I’m out within 4-8 months.

Code Review Best Practices

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I am a firm believer in delivery high-quality code at all times. As such, anytime the committer of code isn’t the only person looking at the code before it goes live, we can be reasonably certain that the quality of the code will increase.

Three Years

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We have now completed Year 3 since my mother, Kathy, passed away after an extended battle with lung cancer. Since last year, I began posting what she’s missed in the past year.

My Core Values

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been doing professional software development for nearly 10 years now. Throughout that time, I’ve worked at a number of organizations, I’ve been managed by a number of different people, and I’ve attempted to absorb as much knowledge (both technical and non-technical) as possible. After that long of a time, I’ve come to realize a bit about what makes me who I am, and what drives me as a person and developer.

The Birth of my Second Daughter

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t written a retroactive diary in awhile (ever since Mattie was born), so I figured I’d resurrect the process for the birth of my second daughter, Macie.

Working Harder Isn't a Strategy

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As a technology professional on the development side of the house, I regularly have to provide estimates for when my work will be done. This work includes writing code, packaging up a deliverable, writing documentation, or anything in between. Following the estimate delivery, there is a level of trust that exists between the technology delivery team and the project/account management team in that the estimate 1) will not be inflated by the technology team, and 2) will not be altered by the project/account management team.

Building a Track & Field Database

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the day (high school and early college), I ran one of the state’s largest track and field databases. All of the entries were entirely crowd-sourced (before crowd-sourcing was a thing), and it was used pretty heavily.

Two Years

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been around two years since my mother, Kathy, passed away after an extended battle with lung cancer. Last year, I posted what I missed about her. To start a new tradition, I’m going to tell her what she’s missed in the past year.

Getting My AWS Cost to Nearly Nothing

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Some background: I run a couple of websites in Amazon Web Services (AWS). These include my photography website project, MorrisPhotos.com. This post is a quick overview of how I managed to save ~$55/month in AWS charges.

Stop Celebrating Superheroes

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Death March

In most development walks of life, any given software developer will run into a project known as a Death March. These projects have any number of problems, but the most typical ones are:

Too much scope for the timeline
Not enough resources for the scope
Resources have the wrong skillset for the project

What Makes a Senior Developer

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 16 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In my current job, I’m frequently asked to interview new candidates to join our development organization. One of the first questions that always gets asked, either by me or one of my colleagues, is “What level is this person interviewing for?” There really are only two answers for this question where I work: Developer or Senior Developer.

Working With Legacy Code

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 16 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Precursor: I’ve been working with a significantly large legacy codebase for over three years now. Here are some tips, tricks, and general pointers to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made with legacy code.

Building a Track and Field Meet Manager

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Some backstory before I go into the details here: I am a track and field coach. I run a website that displays track and field statistics throughout the state of Ohio. I am a lead software engineer for a large ticketing company. All of these add up to my current project: building a competitive product to Hy-Tek’s Meet Manager.

Logging with Serilog, LibLog, and Seq

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve written and rewritten logging providers about 300 times in my career. It’s something I know how to do, I know how to extend, and I know how to hate it. Every time I write it, I hope for some great abstraction layer that will allow me to reuse this library across every future application. I inevitably fail at this.

Along comes The Solution To All My Problems.

ServiceStack in a Console Application

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I absolutely love ServiceStack. Let’s get that out into the open. With every new project I begin, my first question is “How can I use ServiceStack here?”

One Year

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I miss my mother.

365ish long days ago, my mother, Kathy, lost her battle with lung cancer.

The Birth of my Daughter

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Back, by popular demand, is a running diary of major events in my life. Previously, I wrote about my wonderful experience with PRK (and its admittedly not-so-wonderful after-effects).

This time, I’ve decided to write about something that brings me great joy: the birth of my daughter, Mattie.

My NFL Fealty

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As far as the NFL goes, I am a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan. Yes, I realize this means I love self-loathing and hate feeling happy on Sunday evenings.

My PRK Experience: The Healing

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

My wife decided that it would be slightly irresponsible if I only posted about the wonders of modern medicine without discussing the (potential) drawbacks. While my eye surgery was (so far) a resounding success, there naturally were some post-operative issues that I’ll go into detail here.

My PRK Experience

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I was born with absolutely atrocious eyesight. I always say that if I were born in the wild, there’s absolutely no way I would have survived.

Why Spotify Beats Google Music

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted Google Music to be my destination for music. I really did.

Due to lack of a solid desktop app, a crappy Android app, and general “meh”-ness, I am leaving Google Music and returning to Spotify.

About Me

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, I’m Tony Morris. I live in Seville, OH with my wife, five kids, and two dogs. I am currently an Enterprise Architect at Hyland focusing mainly on improving the delivery pipeline across the organization, especially with respect to public cloud providers. I consider myself a reasonably experienced web developer, specifically in the .NET stack of technologies. The reason that I’m “reasonably experienced” is because I know the best place to find most of the answers I come across: the Internet.

Development Tools

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I am a developer by trade. I am a power user on a PC, and I try to ensure that I use the best tool or utility for the job at all times. This is my attempt at documenting the tools that I use on a semi-regular basis, and ones that I would consider as “must have” on any machine that I am working on. Desktop Applications LINQPad - My C# scratchpad and scripting tool.

Tell Me What To Write About

hi@tonymorris.io (Tony Morris) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I write about things as they come into my brain. I call this the “editorial spark,” and it doesn’t always happen regularly. If, by chance, you have an idea on something that you want my take on, please do the following: Go to the public Trello board where I keep the upcoming posts: https://trello.com/b/7h62bb69 Add a card to the Upcoming list of cards. Tag the card with the bright pink User Submitted label.