About

Hi, I’m Conor MacDonald.

I’m an engineer with a passion for automation and security. I enjoy finding ways to make my professional and personal enviroment more automated and more secure.

If you’d like to get in touch, you can email me at conortmacdonald@protonmail.com

My Links #

• My GitHub - My GitHub account with my website and other software projects shown.
• Linkedin - Here you can view my professional achievements and experiences.

This Website #

• Hugo - a popular open-source static site generator for building very fast and very flexible websites.
• Blowfish - A free, powerful, lightweight theme for Hugo built with Tailwind CSS. I found this theme to have robust documentation compared with than other Hugo themes. This theme is also super flexible and super pretty.
• Cloudflare - I use Cloudflare pages to automatically build and deploy my website through Cloudflare Pages which is linked to the GitHub repo of my website code. I also control my domain through Cloudflare (hosting, security, analytics) which I found to be very easy and intuitive to use. I am using Cloudflare’s free tier.
• VentraIP - I registered my domain name through VentraIP. However, everything else associated with a website (hosting, deployment, security, analytics) is done through Cloudflare.

Software #

• VS Code - my preferred code editor for my website and other hobby projects like my homelab.
• 1password - my preferred password manager and one I recommend to everyone. I can’t tell you how good this password manager is and how simple it is to use. Great product - 10/10.
• Microsoft Authenticator - my authenticator app that I use for simple, fast and highly secure two-factor authentication.

Blogs and Forums I Like to Read #

• Daniel Miessler - Blog of an information security professional that writes about infosec, technology, and philosophy.
• LazyAdmin - Blog of a SysAdmin from the Netherlands who writes about IT, security, and Smart Home stuff.
• Aussie Firebug - Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) blog from an Australian perspective.
• r/SelfHosted - Reddit community to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.
• r/homelab - Reddit community where IT professionals, amateurs, and people who just really like computers, use homelabs to experiment with and learn new IT technologies.

GitHub Lists #

• Awesome-SelfHosted - A list of free software network services and web applications that can be hosted on your own servers.
• Dockerholics - List of free applications that can be hosted locally in Docker containers. The images are verified by the experts from Dockerholics.
• Filterlist for DNS - Guide on the usages of a curated blocklists and whitelists for self-hosted DNS. Note this list is now archived, but still a good start for DNS instances.

Learning Resources #

• Ops School Curriculum - Comprehensive website that will help you learn how to be an operations engineer.
• picoCTF - Website that gamifies learning hacking with free Capture The Flag (CTF) puzzles created by Carnegie Mellon University.
• CTF Field Guide - Website that teaches you how to win at Capture The Flag (CTF).