A collection of 5 things from the week that I found interesting, am enjoying, or am working on.

This week:

  • I’ve been learning about: Single Sign-On and Sign-Out in .NET Core with OpenID Connect and IdentityServer4
  • I’ve been watching: Andrew Tokeley’s talk on High Performance Product Leadership
  • I’ve been happy to see that: Webstock is back on this year
  • I’ve been thinking about: Lambda School sounds great
  • I’ve been playing: The Witness

I’ve been learning about: Single Sign-On and Sign-Out in .NET Core with OpenID Connect and IdentityServer4

I’ve been working through the IdentityServer4 tutorials over the last couple of weeks, to learn more about how it works, and the various scenarios that it supports.

The IdentityServer4 quickstarts are surprisingly good and easy to follow, and take you through a bunch of common use cases:

  • Protecting an API using Client Credentials
  • Adding user authentication with OpenID Connect
  • Single sign-on / sign-out
  • External authentication via Google
  • Adding support for Hybrid Flow (OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0)
  • How to authenticate a browser-based JavaScript client application (which is commonly referred to as an “SPA”) with OpenID Connect

I’ve been watching: Andrew Tokeley’s talk on High Performance Product Leadership

It's really hard for a company to sit down and say: for the next three months, what's the most important thing to us? ... and you can't say "everything" ... what are you going to defer to the next quarter?

— @ 36 minutes

Andrew Tokeley’s StartupGrind Wellington talk on Youtube. Andrew was one of the early employees at Xero, and is now available for coaching on product leadership.

The video of the talk is up on Youtube here

At about 38:20 the talk he mentions a post the he wrote recently on the different types of product leadership. You can read it here: the spectrum of leadership

I’ve been happy to see that: Webstock is back on this year

Webstock has historically been on in February every year. This year it will be in Winter, with workshops on June 26th and 27th, and the main talks on the 28th.

Early bird ticket sales are on now until the 26th of April. I’ve signed up. You should too!

All past Webstock talks are published online, so if you miss out on the event, you won’t miss out on the talks.(https://www.webstock.org.nz/talks/)

I’ve been thinking about: Lambda School sounds great

Lambda School is a 9 month intensive online software engineer training course.

What’s unique about the Lambda School is that instead of paying tuition, once you have been placed into a job, and are earning over 50k, you pay 17% of your income for the first two years, capped at $30k total. This means that the most you can possibly pay back to Lambda School for your entire tuition is $30k.

If you can’t find a job, or you are under the $50k threshold, then you don’t pay anything.

Lambda school has been getting fantastic feedback from students, with this student receiving a $45k/yr increase in income (from 25k to 70k) after completing the course, meaning that Lambda School effectively paid for itself.

I’ve been playing: The Witness

Once or twice a year, I pick up a video game, and play for a few weeks or so.

Last year, it was Prey which is a game set in 2032, on a space station which orbits the earth. Your character is the subject of experiments that have gone terribly wrong. The game has a great storyline, great atmosphere, and great visuals. One of my favorites in years.

Over the last week, I’ve been playing The Witness by Jonathan Blow, and released in 2016.

I’ve been a bit reluctant to play The Witness since it has a reputation as being incredibly frustrating, is filled entirely with puzzles, and causes conflicting feelings such as in this Youtube video: The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn’t Play

The Epic Games store has been offering a free game every fortnight over the last month or so, and until April 19th, they’re offering The Witness for free.. an offer that I couldn’t resist.

If you’ve been uncertain about The Witness, and are hesitant to pay ~$35 USD for something that you might not like, now’s a good opportunity to check it out.

Thanks for reading!

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