Unleashing the power of Text to Voice using Amazon Polly and Python

I recently had to come up with a solution to quickly turn text to voice and make it available as an MP3 file. Of course, being an AWS person, I knew exactly what to do! Amazon Polly to the rescue. Amazon Polly, is a simple to use service and, in this blog post, I'll show you how to get started with using it in Python. What is Amazon Polly?Amazon Polly is a text-to-speech service that uses advanced deep learning technologies to convert written text into lifelike speech. It comes with dozens of high-quality, natural-sounding voices in various languages. You …[read more]

Secretless Python Apps with AWS Secrets Manager

The AWS Secrets Manager is a service that allows users to securely store and manage secrets, such as database credentials and API keys. This is necessary when building any type of application that needs to interact with other services, regardless if you're using Python or any other language. By keeping sensitive information out of your codebase and in Secret Manager, you reduce the risk of it being exposed and allows for central management of all secrets, including auditing, auto-rotation and fine-tuned access controls... To use the Secrets Manager with Python, you will first need to create a secret that contains …[read more]

Deploying a Ghost blog to AWS Lightsail

It was about time to try a new hosting option for my blog. For the past few years I was running my blog on Azure WebApps Container service. It was OK but the setup was pretty complex and once it was deployed I totally forgot how to replicate the setup - maybe I should have blogged about it. Since I moved to AWS I've been looking into the various services and Lightsail seemed very promising for my needs. Lightsail is a lightweight, low cost (pun intended) but truly capable service for hosting web apps. It comes with a number of …[read more]

Random notes of a new Triathlete

What craziness could have possibly possessed me to start training for a triathlon at the age of 43? If you know me then you know that I’ve been a fitness fanatic for many years. While younger I preferred to play team sports (football (soccer), basketball etc) as I grew older I started focusing more on weight training and doing things on my own. I like the freedom and control of what, when and where. I’m a master of my own fate, with all the flaws and issues that come with it. Over the past few years, I built …[read more]

Windows Terminal - from a developer for developers

If you're like me, then I'm sure that you want to ensure that your tools are tweaked and customized to look exactly like you want. Because nice tools make us more productive, right, RIGHT? In this blog post, we'll see how to take our Windows Terminal with PowerShell Core to the next level :) What we need to installWindows Terminal IconsCustom FontsPosh-GitOh My PoshMost of these are straight downloads and installs with PoSh - using PoSH to make PoSH nice! Install the Windows Terminal IconsOpen Terminal and run the following command: Install-Module -Name Terminal-Icons -Repository PSGalleryThen edit your $Profile using your …[read more]

Install Go on WSL Ubuntu from the command line

With Go 1.18 just out and in GA, I was curious to give Go "a go" (pun intended) and play around a bit with Generics - a highly anticipated feature in Go! but first I had to install it. I chose to go with WSL 2 and use Ubuntu for my new playground but I also wanted to install everything from the command line. Let's go! Is there a video?Funny you ask? I've also recorded a 4min video that takes you through the process if you are a visual person. Check it out: InstallationFirst we want to remove …[read more]

Setting up Managed Identities for ASP.NET Core web app running on Azure App Service

A few weeks ago I wrote about Secure application development with Key Vault and Azure Managed Identities which are managed, behind the scenes, by Azure Active Directory. At the end of that blog post, I promised to show you how to take your app from local development to production seamlessly, leveraging Managed Identities on the Azure App Service. What does the app currently doBefore setting things up on Azure, let's remind ourselves quickly what the application does and where Azure Managed Identities and Key Vault fit. The Razor Web App retrieves two secrets from Key Vault without having to configure …[read more]

Working with Azure EasyAuth (Azure App Service Authentication) and .NET Core 3.1

Working with authentication in your apps can sometimes be tricky and every app has its own constraints. But the Azure platform provides developers and organizations with many options when it comes to implementing authentication and authorization, from fully customized, coded solutions to turn-key authentication with little to no code changes. Imagine the scenario where you already have an app that was coded without authentication. This could be an app that was developer to run internally but now it needs to be moved to Azure. To secure access to the app, you have 2 options: Add authentication in code so that …[read more]