Joseph

Pens, Technology, and Running

Baltimore Pen Show Recap Part Two - Saturday

The Baltimore Pen Show was last weekend, here's my recap of the two days that I attended. Part one is here. [https://jsokoly.ghost.io/baltimore-pen-show-recap-part-one/] Saturday After spending pretty much my entire budget on Friday, I wasn't sure what I would do at the show

Baltimore Pen Show Recap Part One - Friday

The Baltimore Pen Show [http://baltimorepenshow.com/] was this past weekend, and since it was just a few minutes away from my house, I went for a few days of the show. It wasn't my first show, that was DC back in August of 2016. But DC was

Hey Joe, Where'd You Go?

I spent part of this past weekend hanging out down in DC with a bunch of people at Shmoocon, and a lot of them were surprised to see me. Perhaps the most common question I heard was "where have you been?!" Well, here's the deal: Eight

Stop. Breathe. Focus.

Lately I've been starting a lot of blog posts, but never finishing them, so I'm trying something new. For the next few weeks, I'm going to try taking a thought, writing about it for one handwritten page, then posting it. My run this morning

DC Pen Show 2016 Recap

The Washington DC Fountain Pen Super Show [http://www.pencentral.com] bills itself as "the biggest pen show in the world."[1] So when I found myself with a free weekend, I had to go check it out. Now, the show technically runs Friday through Sunday, but is

When Twitter Stops Being Fun

I used to love Twitter. The connections that it helped me form with people in the infosec community helped kickstart my career, and I definitely attribute a lot of my success to those connections. But lately, Twitter seems to have changed. I'm not the first person to write

My Hopeless Addiction

I have a confession to make: I'm hopelessly addicted to travel writing in all its shapes and forms. Whether it's poorly written articles on Medium, or travel books recommended by other famous travel authors, I love reading about someone's fish out of water experience

The Baron Fig Squire Review

There is something intensely satisfying about picking up a good pen. A good pen can make you want to write, or doodle, or just scribble around on a page because it feels good. Now, I won't go as far as to say that I'm a "

Home Screen - February

Some subtle changes to both home screens this month. iPad Air 2 I've gone back to Editorial [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/editorial/id673907758?mt=8&uo=4&at=010lb2L] for my writing. If I was working on an iPad Pro, I might switch over

Server Administration from an iPad

This past week, I signed up for my own DigitalOcean account and spun up a Centos 7 droplet in their cloud, and I did all of the configuration straight from my iPad. I've been wanting somewhere to keep up to date on my Linux administration skills, as well

Run Tracker Comparison

After my running post [http://jsokoly.ghost.io/running-in-2015/] at the end of last year, my friend Adam [Twitter.com/amcmanus] suggested that if I was going to get more serious about my running, I should look into a more robust run tracking app than Apple's built in

Rediscovering Workflow

When Workflow [https://workflow.is/] launched, I quickly downloaded it after seeing the review on MacStories [https://www.macstories.net/reviews/workflow-review-integrated-automation-for-ios-8/] . It seemed like an incredibly powerful tool that would allow me to automate my life, or so I thought. I downloaded it, made one or two workflows that

An amateur's tips for time-lapse photography with the iPhone

I love shooting time-lapses. I have mentioned before [http://jsokoly.ghost.io/iphone-photography/] that they're a fun way to shoot video because you're never quite sure what you're going to get when you're done. It forces you to slow down, plan things

Home Screens - January 2016

One of my goals for 2016 is to get to writing more, and people say to write what you like to read. So, I thought I'd borrow a page from Josh Ginter [http://thenewsprint.co] and put up my home screens at the start of the month. I

Running in 2015

2015 was an interesting year for me. If you had told me at the end of last year that one of the biggest things that I would do this year would be taking up running as a hobby, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have believed you.

Cutting Back on Twitter

A few months ago, I read Umair Haique's post on Medium titled "Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn From It)" [https://medium.com/bad-words/why-twitter-s-dying-and-what-you-can-learn-from-it-9ed233e37974] and it got me thinking a lot about my own social media usage. Now, I used to say

Getting Stuff Done

> "How do people get anything done around here?!" A few months ago now, I switched to a new job, and that was my overwhelming thought by the end of the first week. In my job, I work with multiple teams, multiple products, and tons of time zones.

My Podcast List

Recently, my wife has started listening to a lot more podcasts, and that has the two of us talking about what we listen to a lot more. She and I have pretty differing tastes when it comes to our podcasts, but occasionally our tastes will overlap. I like the more

Rethinking My Home Office

A little over a month ago, I started a new job that would have me working from home full time. As part of that, I had outlined a post all about how I had built myself a standing desk in my basement. I was expecting that when I started working,

Cast Party

Last night, my wife and I went to the Cast Party [castparty.org] showing at one of the local movie theaters. Essentially, the Cast Party was a bunch of podcasts doing a live video broadcast to movie theaters around the United States, with a few musical acts and such in

Creating Something Out of Nothing, Only to Destroy It

One of my favorite bands, Norma Jean, has a song titled "Creating Something Out of Nothing, Only to Destroy It." Recently I've been checking out Beme [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beme-share-video.-honestly./id1005178547?mt=8], a new social media app by Casey Neistat [https:

Can Apple Music Bring a Musician Back to Music?

Lately, I haven't been listening to much music. Most of the time, if I find myself in the car, or lounging around at home, I listen to podcasts. But it didn't use to be that way. In high school and college, I always had music playing

The Dilemma of Adblocking

Adblockers are a contentious topic. From a consumer perspective, they tend to make for a better browsing experience, which should, in theory, be a better thing overall. However, they do put some websites in a tough spot, especially if they rely on intrusive advertising as their revenue stream. I bring

A Week at The Airport by Alain De Botton

"A Week at the Airport [http://www.amazon.com/Week-at-Airport-Alain-Botton/dp/0307739678/]" by Alain De Botton captures that which I love about flying. That sense of bustle in the airport, the seeming magic of flight itself, and the excitement of going somewhere new. It's easy to

Key West 2015

Reading a book about Cuba while less than 100 miles from there. Key West is a fascinating place. I first went there 4 years ago for my honeymoon, and I recently had the opportunity to take another trip out there with some friends. We rented a van in Miami and