Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

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MSc Assignment 3 - Business and Technology

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A graph showing how technology matures over time.

I'm doing an apprenticeship MSc in Digital Technology. In the spirit of openness, I'm blogging my research and my assignments. This is my paper from the Business and Technology module. You can read my Digital Leadership paper and my Data Analytics Paper. I really didn't enjoy this module. Although well taught, it was a business studies course mostly focussed on how American companies managed…

What is my Career Development Plan?

· 16 comments · 800 words · Viewed ~693 times


Me singing into a head level microphone.

The one thing I know about myself is that I hate introspection. So, fair warning, this will be a mopey and self-indulgent post. As part of my MSc, I have to create and discuss my Personal Development Plan in relation to my Career and I'm… stumped! I've never known what I wanted to be when I grow up. Sure, vague dreams of being a starship pilot (unlikely) or an actor (failed) - but other than t…

Review: Neu Modo Standing Desk Mat

· 1 comment · 300 words


Thick foam mat.

After a few weeks of using my new standing desk, it was clear that I needed something to protect my feet and joints from the hard (and cold) wooden floor. I asked for recommendations for standing mats and got lots of good (and expensive!) suggestions. My colleague Jamie suggested the Ergodriven Topo. It looked pretty swish - but cost about £200 to import it to the UK. Luckily, global IP laws …

Certified in The Art of Hacking - Day 5

· 1 comment · 650 words


Logo for QA's certified in the art of hacking course.

This is a diary of what I've learned. Hopefully it will let other learners know what the course is like, and if it is worthwhile. Oh, and it might just help me remember what I'm learning! Verdicts Some of the lab tasks were impossible without looking at the cheat sheet. I got stuck on one because the question told me to go to one URl, but I had to guess the one which was vulnerable. Felt like a …

Certified in The Art of Hacking - Day 4

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Logo for QA's certified in the art of hacking course.

This is a diary of what I've learned. Hopefully it will let other learners know what the course is like, and if it is worthwhile. Oh, and it might just help me remember what I'm learning! The penultimate day. Try not to worry about the upcoming exam! Today was lots of HTTP, TLS, and other low-ish level stuff like that. But mostly focussed on common website attacks. Verdict Bit of a repeat of…

Certified in The Art of Hacking - Day 3

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Logo for QA's certified in the art of hacking course.

This is a diary of what I've learned. Hopefully it will let other learners know what the course is like, and if it is worthwhile. Oh, and it might just help me remember what I'm learning! Day 3 - the day I was dreading most of all… Windows! I've been avoiding M$ WinDoze (LOL!!!) since long before it was fashionable. Even at my earliest jobs, I'd find a way to convince the IT department to let m…

Certified in The Art of Hacking - Day 2

· 1 comment · 1,650 words


Logo for QA's certified in the art of hacking course.

This is a diary of what I've learned. Hopefully it will let other learners know what the course is like, and if it is worthwhile. Oh, and it might just help me remember what I'm learning! Day 1 was all about password cracking and metasploit. Today? Linux Hacking! Sadly, we aren't learning anything to do with distributing 1337 cracks for warez (so 1998!). One point to note is that the questions…

Certified in The Art of Hacking - Day 1

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Logo for QA's certified in the art of hacking course.

As part of my MSc, I have to take three "Professional Practice" courses. The course provider, QA.com, let me choose anything from their online catalogue. The first I'm doing is Certified in The Art of Hacking. As regular readers will know, I'm pretty reasonable at hacking. I have received bug bounties from Google, Twitter, Samsung, and a bunch of others. I don't claim to be an expert - and I…

What is "Social Media"?

· 3 comments · 750 words


Rows of icons - each one has the size printed next to it.

All humans can be divided in two groups - those that love categorising things, and those that like criticising other people's categorisations. It seems that humans have an in-built desire to put things in firm categories. This causes a great deal of arguments. Let's have an argument today! Here's an excerpt from a recent IOPC press release: Misconduct proceedings to follow social media…

Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo

· 1 comment · 250 words


Book cover featuring a Black woman wearing a colourful headscarf.

This is Britain as you've never read it. This is Britain as it has never been told. From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a…

No, you can't save £30 per year by switching off your "standby" devices

· 21 comments · 950 words · Viewed ~22,046 times


Chart from the report showing various bits of IT equipment and their power use.

Every few years, a dodgy stat does the rounds claiming you can save £££ if you switch off all your gadgets at the wall. The standby mode of your TV is bleeding you dry!!! Energy Saving Trust@EnergySvgTrustA quick way to #saveenergy at home is to turn off tablets, laptops and consoles as soon as you stop using them, and ideally unplug them.This is a big potential #energy saver and could save you u…

Book Review: After Meat - The Case for an Amazing, Meat-Free World by Karthik Sekar

· 600 words


Book cover of a bioreactor painted to look like a cow.

This self-published book is a bit of a mixed bag. There has been a lot of thought put into it but, in the process of explaining the author's theories, they've forgotten that brevity makes a book like this readable and enjoyable. It could really have done with a strong editor to tighten things up. The first two chapters are filler. There's a mini introduction to evolution and the basics of the…