Aaron Warwick

Stacking Microsoft Certifications Fast: Why It’s a Power Move for Your Tech Career

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From MS-900 to AZ-305 in Weeks — Not Years

Most people treat certifications like a slow grind.

I am doing the opposite.

I have already completed MS-900, I am about to pass AZ-900, and I am lining up AI-102, AZ-204, and AZ-305 within a matter of weeks.

That is not just momentum. That is strategy.

And if you are wondering whether stacking certifications this quickly is actually worth it, the answer is yes, but not for the reasons most people think.

How I Am Learning Azure and Earning the AZ-900 Certification Without Wasting Money

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Certifications matter in IT. They validate knowledge, open doors, and give clients and employers a standardized reference point for your skill set. But certification preparation can be expensive, unfocused, and easy to abandon when life gets busy. This post covers the exact approach I am taking to earn the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 certification, structured, budget-conscious, and grounded in real hands-on work.

If you are an IT professional looking to break into cloud or add Azure to your resume, this approach will save you time and money while making the knowledge actually stick.

RDP on an Entra-Joined Machine: The Two Problems Nobody Warns You About

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have been remoting into Windows machines for over a decade. Domain-joined, workgroup, across VPNs, across the internet. RDP is one of those things that just works once you flip the toggle and open port 3389. Until it does not.

This week I spent hours chasing an RDP failure on an Entra-joined machine. The machine was on the same subnet, on the same switch, plugged into the same network as the source machine. Everything about it should have been a two-minute connection. Instead, I ended up knee-deep in packet captures, NIC driver investigations, certificate stores, and registry edits before I found the actual problem.

Transforming Wazuh into an AI-Powered XDR Platform with Ollama

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have been running Wazuh for a while, but it was mostly doing vulnerability scanning and basic log collection. This week I went through the process of turning it into a proper XDR platform with file integrity monitoring, rootkit detection, active response, and – the part I am most interested in – AI-powered alert analysis using my local Ollama server.

Everything runs on Proxmox LXC containers. No cloud services involved. All security telemetry stays on my infrastructure.

Why Home Assistant Is the Ultimate Smart Home Platform (And How to Build It the Right Way)

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why Home Assistant Is the Ultimate Smart Home Platform (And How to Build It the Right Way)

Most “smart homes” today aren’t actually smart.

They’re cloud-dependent, subscription-driven, and locked into a single vendor ecosystem. If the internet goes down, half your house stops working. If the company changes its pricing or kills a product line, you’re stuck replacing devices.

That’s not automation. That’s renting control of your own house.

This is where Home Assistant changes everything.

Why Many Home Lab Builders Are Moving from UniFi Cameras to Reolink + Blue Iris

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why Many Home Lab Builders Are Moving from UniFi Cameras to Reolink + Blue Iris

For years, UniFi Protect has been one of the most popular surveillance systems for home lab enthusiasts and small businesses.

It looks great.
The interface is polished.
And the integration with UniFi networking gear is seamless.

But over the past few years, a noticeable shift has started happening in the home lab and self-hosted communities.

Building the Foundation: Where a Real Home Lab Actually Begins

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Building the Foundation: Where a Real Home Lab Actually Begins

Key principle:

Terminate TLS at a single reverse proxy.
Expose one entry point.
Keep everything else internal.

That’s discipline.

The Real Reason to Do It This Way

This isn’t about running Plex on better hardware.

This is about understanding:

How packets move
How identity works
How segmentation reduces risk
How public DNS interacts with private services
How virtualization abstracts hardware

You can buy ecosystems.

Hugo Odyssey

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0600

This is How It All Starts: Documenting My Hugo Odyssey

Hey there, fellow tinkerer. If you’re anything like me, a developer who’s spent too many late nights wrestling with bloated CMSes, you know the thrill of stripping things back to basics. Static sites? They’re the minimalist’s dream: fast, secure, and zero server-side drama. Today, I finally carved out time to dip my toes into Hugo, the Go-powered static site generator that’s been on my radar for years. No more excuses. This post is my raw, unfiltered log of the setup process. Think of it as a breadcrumb trail for anyone following in my footsteps. Let’s break it down, step by step, because if I’m doing this once, I might as well make it repeatable.