I’m a regular Cronometer user and as usual, I was interested in exploring the API driving the app – authentication, request patterns, the typical curiosity that drives my posts. When my go-to Android MiTM approach failed, my curiosity only increased and I brought in Claude Opus 4.5 to help troubleshoot. What followed was an interesting …
In my previous post, I walked through building pyodbc for Python 3.9 Lambda functions. With the release of Python 3.13 support in Lambda, it’s time for an update. Here’s the Dockerfile that builds a Lambda container image with pyodbc and SQL Server support: The key differences from the Python 3.9 version include: Example Usage Create …
With cloud infrastructure costs increasingly a focus, many organizations are scrutinizing AWS bills for potential savings. NAT Gateway usage can be a significant line item, yet its intricacies can make cost-saving opportunities less obvious. As the standard solution for routing traffic from private subnets to the internet, NAT Gateways are a critical component of many …
This will be a short, but hopefully useful post for anyone trying to keep Lambda functions warm when using them in AWS Step Functions. It was not as straightforward as I initially thought – simply adjusting the provisionedConcurrency value in the function configurations will not suffice. In short, you must specify the Provisioned Concurrency alias …
Professional photographers often add watermarks to their images to make them easy to identify, indicate copyright, promote their brand, among other reasons. Protecting images from theft online can be challenging and online photo gallery stores commonly employ various measures to deter it, e.g. disabling the context-menu in JavaScript (AKA right-click), stacking/overlaying DOM elements, or other …
AWS Application Loan Balancers support what I think is an underappreciated feature: the ability to authenticate requests (via OIDC) at Layer 7. This allows developers to keep almost all authentication outside of the application layer code. An ideal use-case could be an internal-only web application that requires authentication, but little if any RBAC authorization. This …
As I discussed in a previous post, connecting to MSSQL with Python in Lambda can be tricky. While I had solved this earlier with pyodbc, using pymssql / FreeTDS is an another option and I wanted to similarly share the build process for creating its respective Lambda layer. Here’s the multi-stage Dockerfile: FROM public.ecr.aws/lambda/python:3.9 as …
I always run with my phone on me, so accessing my home afterward has been convenient since installing MyQ W-Fi connected garage doors several years ago. No need to remember to carry a separate house key anymore and getting into my house is (usually) an app launch away. It has worked great, until one day …
Getting Python to connect to MSSQL in Lambda isn’t as simple as installing other dependencies via pip. For earlier versions of Lambda runtimes, I followed the pattern outlined in this gist which builds both unixODBC and pyodbc and prepares them for inclusion in a Lambda layer. This has worked well for me to date, but …
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, a good baby monitor was one of the top items on our shopping list. Most of the available options of course now include Wi-Fi, a mobile app, and cloud integration. When we decided on the Motorola Halo+, I knew it deserved a closer look before …
