Logo

Ethan Hampton


My Personal Infrastructure

Below is a list of the infrastructure (both digital and physical) I use on a regular basis.

As a result of my current infrastructure setup, a critical failure on part of Cloudflare, Backblaze, Azure or Google would cripple my online presence. This is something I am actively working to defend against by slowly moving to infrastructure that I have direct control over. Cloud services are incredibly convenient which has slowed that transition.

List Last Updated: 11-September-2023

Hardware:

  • Dell XPS 7590 (Intel i7-9750H, 16GB RAM, 4k OLED display) running Pop!_OS 21.10
  • Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra running Android 13
  • Logitech M570 Mouse
  • Yamaha P125 Piano Keyboard
  • Yubikey 5C NFC (for two-factor authentication)
  • Garmin Forerunner Smart Watch
  • Various external hard drives

Cloud Services:

  • Backblaze - Used for backup and long term archival storage
  • Azure - Hosts most infrastructure for Ethan M. Hampton Technology Consulting
  • Cloudflare - Provides DDoS protection and other helpful services
  • Google - Email, other random document storage, calendar, some domain registration, etc.

Other online tools/services:

  • Bitwarden - The best password manager. I use the premium version
  • TickTick - A fantastic task manger and todo list service. I use the premium version
  • GitHub - Git repository management for most all my projects
  • NPR - National Public Radio is a awesome neutral source for news
  • New York Times - College provides free subscription, great for general news and reading
  • HackerNews - Good for tech related news and info
  • Google News - Stay up to date on general news
  • Instagram - Never post, always view (and like)
  • Snapchat - This used to be (and maybe still is) the de facto messaging app for college students
  • WhatsApp - Primary messaging app while studying abroad, used to keep in touch with folks from that part of my life
  • Discord - Group projects, OSU CS server and a few relating to personal interests
  • Wikipedia - I monitor several low traffic pages I care about, great for general research
  • Netflix - I watch more than I should, but less than I could
  • Nebula - Support digital creators instead of using YouTube
  • YouTube - I try to keep this to educational content, I like creators who focus on quality over quantity
  • Spotify - Used to swear I’d never use it, but I started and never looked back
  • Signal - Secure and private messages
  • Phoronix - Linux news and updates

Local applications and tools:

  • Firefox - Exactly what I need, without the sketchiness of browser lock-in that is Chrome
  • Jetbrains IDE suite - Free for students and provides significant assistance when I want it
  • VS Code - For JavaScript, Golang and other related development
  • Ghostwriter - A simple markdown editor, which I use quite frequently (I’m using it to write this)
  • Obsidian - A more featured markdown editor, I manage a lot of private notes and writing in my Obsidian vault
  • Terminator - Easy to configure and use terminal emulator
  • Audacity - Simple audio projects
  • Blender - Very flexible 3D rendering, 2D rendering, video editing, special effects application
  • GIMP - Image editing
  • Inkscape - Vector image editing
  • SimpleScreenRecorder - Easy to use screen recorder software
  • Kdenlive - Video editing
  • DigiKam - Photo library management
  • Thunderbird - Local email browser
  • TexStudio - My preferred LaTeX editor
  • Wireshark - Packet capturing and other useful analysis
  • Gnome Tweaks - Better settings for the GNOME desktop environment

Browser Extensions:

  • Bitwarden
  • Facebook Container
  • Feedbro
  • HTTPS Everywhere
  • “New Tab - Moment”
  • Reddit Enhancement Suite
  • uBlock Origin
  • Firefox Translation

GNOME Shell Extensions:

  • corecoding/Vitals
  • Removable Drive Menu

CLI Programs/Tools:

  • emh - My custom command line tool that deals with what I do every day. For example, configure settings on computer startup, update apt packages, connect NFS mount to school system, SSH into various external systems, create custom aliases for commands I never remember, run backups to different locations, easily create consistent journal entries, etc.
  • Hugo - A static site generator, what this website runs on
  • bat - a better version of cat
  • vim - OSU OSL convinced me to give it a try, and although I’m pretty terrible, it does what I need it to
  • nvm - NodeJS version manager. Very helpful given how quickly the JS world seems to move
  • git-lfs - Large file support for git. Used to manage images on this website and other larger files
  • esbuild - The best JS/TS bundling tool, dare I say ever
  • Plenty of others I am forgetting

Preferred Tech Stack

I’m hesitant to list this, as it is likely to change frequently but I’ll give it a shot

  • Hosted on a virtual machine (could be containerized), served via Nginx
  • Golang back-end
  • Currently don’t have any database preference
  • Redis for caching
  • esbuild as front-end bundling tool
  • Svelte for front-end development

Thoughts and Ideas

Subscribe to my collection of internet links, thoughts and ideas, delivered straight to your inbox