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All Posts (530)

• 

  Published on

  2025-03-04 3:42 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevops

  How to output the value of a secret variable in Azure DevOps?

  This article explains how you can output the value of a secret variable stored in Azure DevOps. This applies both to secrets stored in a Variable Group, or Pipeline Variables stored as secrets. Is it safe, secure and advisable to do this? No! But is it possible? Yes it is! Let's get to it! Background There might be situations, when you want to output the value of a secret variable.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-03-03 12:40 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  bloggingkrojamsoftlongpathtool

  Long Path Tool - an unfortunate review

  In one of my article's comments section, I've been suffering from semi-automated spam advertising "Long Path Tool". It's a tool that can be used to create symlinks for files located deep in folder structure - a simple use case with a lot of free tools available to resolve the same issue, and all of them work just fine and contain the same value proposal. I guess this is the reason why the developers have had to resort to shady practices to advertise their solution.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-02-26 3:36 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  androidcopilot

  Copilot Android app refusing to take pictures? I have the dumbest fix you'll ever hear, but it'll work, trust me.

  This article explains how to work around the issue where the Copilot app fails to take pictures. Sounds boring, right? But hey - even with all of the gripes I have about Copilot, I do use it daily, and I'd really like it to work. Because when it does work - well, about 50% of the times it does work - it's really helpful, and it does make me more productive overall. Okay. That's enough of a sales pitch.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-02-25 3:29 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  dellwindows11

  Adventures in the Windows 11 24H2-land: How to restore your webcam after February 2025 Patch breaks it?

  This article explains how to get your built-in webcam back after a Windows 11 update (in my case, February 2025 Cumulative Update package) hides/disables it. The weird thing is, the camera is visible in the Device Manager. No app can see it though. And trying to update the driver through Device Manager is no use, as it's apparently already using the latest driver version. Background I can appreciate Windows removing any extraneous web cameras I might have - or rather, might've had.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-02-18 3:29 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  devhomemicrosoftstore

  Have you heard? Dev Home is going away before it even arrived!

  Microsoft has just retired the Windows Dev Home experience before it ever came out of Preview -status. And before it ever became that useful. Or even functional, if you ask me. It was a good idea (or maybe even a really good one), that never really materialized. I mean, I gave the app a go a while ago, and it didn't really do anything. Or the little it did were things easier to do elsewhere - or changes that didn't persist.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-02-11 4:43 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  homeassistanthomeautomationsql

  Taming my Home Assistant database growth

  This article explains how to sensitively and carefully limit your Home Assistant's database growth, without losing any valuable data. And because data is the new oil, pretty much all of the data is valuable. Who knows when you need to know whether your basement door was open or closed 1 year and 11 months from now?

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• 

  Published on

  2025-02-04 3:41 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  devdrivewindows

  Dev Drive performance increase in real life scenarios?

  This article shows a few benchmarks I have run on the performance improvement that Dev Drive offers, using a real-life project I am (well, was) working on some time ago. The simple examples in this article should give you some guidance on what kind of performance you should be able to expect after adopting Dev Drive. YMMV and the usual caveats apply, but hey - it's still data you can use to decide if it's worth the (miniscule) set up cost.

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• 

  Published on

  2025-01-28 4:19 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  blazorsessionsteamstoolkit

  Join my session at CTTT25 this week: Level Up Your Teams Extensibility Game with Blazor | Session materials from Cloud Technology Townhall Tallinn 2025!

  This week I'll be attending Cloud Technology Townhall Tallinn 2025. It's my first time in this event that's practically next door in the beautiful town of Tallinn! Although I guess the name was kind of a dead giveaway already, right? I'll be speaking about Blazor and Teams development stuff. This time I'll try to avoid any demo effects - had a couple the last time I've talked on this topic! But I think it'll be a blast!

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• 

  Published on

  2025-01-21 1:32 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  deco

  How to identify which wifi band your Decos are using?

  This article explains how you can identify which wifi bands your TP-Link Decos are using, without using a WiFi Analyzer or other such tools. I'll also explain why you might need this information - in my case it was about interference (because of course it was!) And as usual, this article wouldn't have even been needed, if Copilot didn't try to misdirect me when I asked it the very same question, that is in the title of this post: How to identify which wifi band your Decos are using?

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• 

  Published on

  2025-01-14 5:33 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  dnsgithub

  Don't assign root domain to GitHub Pages if you use it for email!

  Just a quick tip I learned the hard way: if you want to host a website on GitHub Pages, make sure to only point the www-subdomain, and not the "naked", apex domain, in case you're using it for email mailboxes. I learned the hard way that the A records pointing to GitHub's IPs will cause all email, and I really mean ALL email, to be blocked. Not outgoing email - but incoming! But as usual, we need to take a step back. What was I trying to do? Background

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• 

  Published on

  2025-01-07 5:06 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  bitwardengooglechromepasswords

  Experiences from migrating to Bitwarden

  I recently (finally) moved to a commercial Password Manager after I got tired of having to copy-paste everything from KeePass in my apps on Windows and letting the only company on Earth that has to remind themselves in their slogan NOT to be Evil handle all of my web/Android passwords. KeePass was feeling pretty clumsy and outdated, and Google just more and more evil. And actual, REAL Password Managers have more features than these free options, too.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-12-31 4:24 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  russiaukrainewaryearreview

  2024 Year Review - and 20 years in business!

  Wow, that's quite a headline for a 30-something to write, right? But the very real side effect of being a weird kid and starting freelancing when I was on 8th grade is that it's now just over 20 years since I finished my first paid website projects. This year everything lined up nicely and I could publish an article on Christmas Eve, and this one on New Year's Eve (in Finland, we do love celebrating everything in advance, and then being hungover on the actual occasion). Anyway.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-12-24 3:38 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  githubgithubactions

  Merging on GitHub Actions fails with "could not read Username for 'https://github.com': No such device or address"?

  This article is going live 24th of December in 2024. That's when we in Finland celebrate Christmas (yes - we celebrate on Christmas Eve, so that we can just chillax on Christmas day, either hungover, playing with our new toys, or both). I'll have you know I wrote this article a few days in advance.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-12-17 8:43 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  copilotmicrosoftedge

  How to close the Sidebar in Microsoft Edge

  This article documents, how to close the Sidebar in Microsoft Edge. Because for whatever reason, Edge really does not make it obvious what the keyboard shortcut is, or if there even is one! I know what you're saying. And believe me, that's exactly what I'm thinking: Back to the "Project Manager" -level blog posts, are we? But when something is grinding my gears, I feel like I need to get rid of it. And this is one of those posts.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-12-10 3:55 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  surface

  How to stop Surface Headphones from autoplaying audio when you place them on the desk?

  This article explains how to fix Surface Headphones autoplaying semi-random things when you remove them from your ears and place on the desk. And by that, I mean autoplaying even when you've explicitly stopped anything from playing. Or even when it first stops playing something else. It's delightfully consistent in the most random way ever! It's simply funtastic that someone actually designed this user experience - I'm sure it works perfectly on a mac, and probably is great even on iPhone...

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• 

  Published on

  2024-12-03 4:51 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  windowswindows11

  "Phone Link" permanently disabled and Windows claiming "Some of these settings are managed by your organization"? (Probably) an easy fix!

  This article explains one possible fix to a problem you might have with Microsoft's "Phone Link" app. Namely, the app might disappear and refuse to come back. Windows might even stop you from trying to re-enable it with an error along the lines of "Some of these settings are managed by your organization". But as usual - let's take a step back and take a 10 000 ft view first, shall we? Problem This problem surfaces in an annoying way.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-11-26 3:09 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Refreshing DefaultAzureCredential in Visual Studio

  This article explains how to refresh the Visual Studio credentials on your development machine to keep your application using some sort of an authentication implementation relying on DefaultAzureCredential working.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-11-19 7:55 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  copilotmicrosoft-teams

  M365 Copilot claiming "You have turned off web search in the work mode"? Easy fix!

  This article explains how to enable Web Search for Microsoft 365 Copilot, when Copilot for Microsoft 365 thinks it's disabled for whatever reason. But fear not! Most of the time there's just a simple switch you need to flip to enable M365 CoPilot to access Web results for you. But let's take a step back, open our Co-Pilot apps and do the unthinkable - ask it to access some forbidden knowledge. On the public interwebs.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-11-12 4:40 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  microsoftexcelonedrive

  "Performing cleanup" - Excel is stuck with an old, conflicted file and will never recover.

  This article explains how to untangle Excel when a worksheet file is conflicted and upload-blocked beyond salvation, thanks to a little demon inhabiting your computer. Don't believe me? Oh, do read on - there's plenty to be said about this particular gremlin. And if you're a regular reader, you probably already know which little fiend I'm talking about here... Background This is a rare case where I use a period in the title of the post.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-11-05 6:55 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  entraidteamstoolkit

  How to add multiple app URIs for your Entra app registration?

  This article explains an issue that you probably shouldn't run into - unless you're doing something a bit dumb. Just like I was. Or still am. Namely, I really needed an app I registered in Entra ID to have multiple "app identifier URIs" for reasons that are not great, but that I'll go into momentarily. Background Well, this was a bit random 😁

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• 

  Published on

  2024-10-29 4:44 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  devopsgithubactionsyaml

  How to access Environment Secrets with GitHub Actions?

  This article aims to clear the confusion around the GitHub Repository Secrets and explain how to successfully use them in your pipelines for fun and profit! Well, mostly for additional security and pipeline parameterization, really... But still - it's a good piece of functionality to wrap your head around and implement in your daily work. Problem When wanting to use Environment-specific secrets with GitHub Actions, the right sequence of steps is - in theory - quite clear.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-10-22 3:08 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  copilotwindows

  Copilot app on Windows refusing to use your Personal account? Easy fix!

  This article explains a quick fix to a very topical issue: Copilot app suddenly becoming hostile to you due to your work credentials, and incredibly, carrying that grudge on and on, even after you've signed out of your work account (as per the bots demands) and signed in with your personal account. What a bitter and unforgiving person this bot is. Won't forget about your past mistakes. But no fear! We'll find a way to calm them down and keep on keeping on.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-10-19 10:27 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  scottishsummitsessions

  Level Up Your Teams Extensibility Game with Blazor - Session materials from Scottish Summit 2024

  This article will contain links, materials, slides (should I get the permission to post them) and other stuff related to my session at Scottish Summit 2024. In case you stopped by my session - thanks! If you're just visiting for any reason - make sure to check the slides out first, and the rest should probably make more sense to you! Right now, it'll have a few missing pieces (everything that has a [TBA] tag will be added later).

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• 

  Published on

  2024-10-15 7:40 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  microsoft-teamsteamsfx

  What do you get from a Microsoft Teams App template in Visual Studio?

  This article explains briefly what the different Microsoft Teams App templates in Visual Studio are for and what capabilities do they come with. It's a lot to wade through, but I hope this article is able to explain the basics. Background Lately, I've been playing around with Blazor and Teams again.

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• 

  Published on

  2024-10-08 4:23 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  blazorintellisensevisual-studio

  Intellisense not working for Fluent components in Blazor project? Easy fix!

  This article explains a couple of easy fixes for an issue, where Visual Studio refuses to properly recognize the FluentUI components you might have used in your Blazor projects. Because apparently that can (kind of randomly) happen! Problem The screenshot below shows a sample from Microsoft's basic Teams tab extension template. For me, Intellisense for FluentUI components didn't work out-of-the-box. Visual Studio would instead simply complain about unexpected markup.

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