Lover of Platform Engineering, SRE, K8s, Golang, Observability and working with nice people. Aussie living in the Netherlands.https://hodgkins.io/Fri, 11 Sep 2026 22:17:27 GMThttps://hodgkins.io/icon-512.pnghttps://hodgkins.iohttps://hodgkins.io/blog/stress-free-school-mornings-with-home-assistant/https://hodgkins.io/blog/stress-free-school-mornings-with-home-assistant/A guide for parents on using Home Assistant to build a dynamic dashboard that gamifies the school morning routine, turning chores into a fun race to unlock a daily fact.Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/quiet-influence-a-guide-to-nemawashi-in-engineering/https://hodgkins.io/blog/quiet-influence-a-guide-to-nemawashi-in-engineering/Why "big-reveal" architecture pitches stall—and how Staff+ engineers can apply the Japanese practice of Nemawashi to quietly build consensus and ship transformational change.Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/argo-workflow-proven-patterns-from-production/https://hodgkins.io/blog/argo-workflow-proven-patterns-from-production/Discover hard-earned insights on leveraging Argo Workflows for infrastructure automation. This guide outlines essential lessons, from managing workflow TTL and pod garbage collection to running synthetic tests with CronWorkflow. Plus, explore advanced patterns to optimize your workflows, including Parameter Output Facade, Semaphore, and Workflow Injection techniques. Arm yourself with these best practices to avoid common pitfalls and save yourself some pain.Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/download-file-with-powershell-without-renaming/https://hodgkins.io/blog/download-file-with-powershell-without-renaming/How to download a file using PowerShell using the name of the download instead of specifying it yourself.Sun, 11 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/vscode-second-brain/https://hodgkins.io/blog/vscode-second-brain/How to setup VSCode to act as a "second brain", or personal knowledge base.Mon, 19 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/securing-home-assitant-with-cloudflare/https://hodgkins.io/blog/securing-home-assitant-with-cloudflare/A guide to securing your Home Assistant installation with the Cloudflare CDN.Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-semantic-versioning/https://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-semantic-versioning/A guide to automating semantic versioning of any git project (not just NPM!) with the semantic-release tool.Wed, 14 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/building-a-golden-image-pipeline/https://hodgkins.io/blog/building-a-golden-image-pipeline/A guide to creating a golden image pipeline (base images) for your infrastructure using Packer and Ansible with Windows.Wed, 14 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/up-your-cloudformation-game-with-vscode/https://hodgkins.io/blog/up-your-cloudformation-game-with-vscode/How to improve efficiency when working with AWS CloudFormation in Visual Studio Code.Sat, 21 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/tackling-a-fear-of-public-speaking/https://hodgkins.io/blog/tackling-a-fear-of-public-speaking/8 Tips from trying to tackle my fear of public speaking over the last 18 months.Sun, 28 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/splunk-spotlight-alerts/https://hodgkins.io/blog/splunk-spotlight-alerts/We take a close look at alerting in Splunk, including sending nice Slack notifications.Fri, 04 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/splunk-spotlight-the-lookup-command/https://hodgkins.io/blog/splunk-spotlight-the-lookup-command/We take a close look at the Splunk lookup command, including examples of where you might use it for enriching your logs and using CIDR matching.Sun, 02 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-datadog-with-terraform/https://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-datadog-with-terraform/Using Terraform to automate creation of and standardize Datadog monitorsWed, 19 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/testing-ansible-roles-windows-test-kitchen/https://hodgkins.io/blog/testing-ansible-roles-windows-test-kitchen/Using Test-Kitchen with Ansible to apply playbooks to Windows machines and test them with Pester.Sun, 13 Nov 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/best-practices-with-packer-and-windows/https://hodgkins.io/blog/best-practices-with-packer-and-windows/Some best practices around building Windows based Packer images.Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/ultimate-powershell-prompt-and-git-setup/https://hodgkins.io/blog/ultimate-powershell-prompt-and-git-setup/A guide for making your PowerShell prompt pop with ConEmu, Quake mode, a customized and colored prompt and a nice Git setup.Sat, 20 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/five-tips-for-writing-dsc-resources-in-powershell-version-5/https://hodgkins.io/blog/five-tips-for-writing-dsc-resources-in-powershell-version-5/Five useful tips when writing DSC Resources in PowerShell 5. Covers folder structure, IntelliSense, verifying resources, testing using Pester and more.Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/windows-metric-dashboards-with-influxdb-and-grafana/https://hodgkins.io/blog/windows-metric-dashboards-with-influxdb-and-grafana/Using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana to display Windows performance counters on beautiful dashboards.Tue, 29 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/chatops-on-windows-with-hubot-and-powershell/https://hodgkins.io/blog/chatops-on-windows-with-hubot-and-powershell/Using Slack, Hubot and PowerShell to enable ChatOps in the Microsoft Ecosystem.Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/setup-windows-10-for-chef-and-powershell-dsc-development/https://hodgkins.io/blog/setup-windows-10-for-chef-and-powershell-dsc-development/Sun, 08 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-powershell-string-formatting/https://hodgkins.io/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-powershell-string-formatting/When scripting with PowerShell, you will come to a point where you need to work with strings that contain variables. Depending on your situation, there are several methods you can use when formatting strings in PowerShell.Thu, 06 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-with-jenkins-and-powershell-on-windows-part-2/https://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-with-jenkins-and-powershell-on-windows-part-2/Learn how to configure Jenkins for PowerShell remoting and automate tasks on remote Windows machines.Sat, 30 May 2015 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-with-jenkins-and-powershell-on-windows-part-1/https://hodgkins.io/blog/automating-with-jenkins-and-powershell-on-windows-part-1/Learn how to use Jenkins to provide a web interface for your PowerShell scripts, making automation accessible to your entire team.Tue, 03 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/using-powershell-to-send-metrics-graphite/https://hodgkins.io/blog/using-powershell-to-send-metrics-graphite/Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/replace-failed-disk-in-storage-spaces-pool-with-powershell/https://hodgkins.io/blog/replace-failed-disk-in-storage-spaces-pool-with-powershell/Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-fix-timeout-while-mounting-lun-in-netapp-snapdrive/https://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-fix-timeout-while-mounting-lun-in-netapp-snapdrive/Learn how to resolve timeout errors when mounting LUNs in NetApp SnapDrive by properly formatting the disk during the connection process.Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-run-virtualbox-on-whs-2011-part-2/https://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-run-virtualbox-on-whs-2011-part-2/Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-run-virtualbox-on-whs-2011-part-1/https://hodgkins.io/blog/how-to-run-virtualbox-on-whs-2011-part-1/The old hodgkins.net.au blog has been re-directed here. The VirtualBox article is out of date, but you can find a screenshot from the old article below.Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/2010-08-12-how-to-resend-reporting-services-email-subscriptions-when-troubleshooting/https://hodgkins.io/blog/2010-08-12-how-to-resend-reporting-services-email-subscriptions-when-troubleshooting/Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/2010-03-03-how-to-fix-hyper-v-migration-attempt-failed/https://hodgkins.io/blog/2010-03-03-how-to-fix-hyper-v-migration-attempt-failed/Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkinshttps://hodgkins.io/blog/2009-05-03-setting-critical-battery-action-to-do-nothing-in-windows-7/https://hodgkins.io/blog/2009-05-03-setting-critical-battery-action-to-do-nothing-in-windows-7/Sun, 03 May 2009 00:00:00 GMTMatthew Hodgkins