Hello!

I'm Toby Cook, a Cloud Computing graduate. I do networking, virtualisation, and also work with Linux systems for personal projects.

I dabble in photography and various computing topics, often focusing on Linux projects. As such, I have at least some experience with all the current major operating systems: Windows, macOS , Linux (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, Arch, plus GNOME, KDE and i3 graphical environments), iOS and Android.

My university course focused on networking and virtualisation, working with Cisco hardware and VMware virtualisation technologies.

Personally, I’m a big fan of WireGuard, and it’s actually part of how this site works in the backend. You might have noticed this is a Grav site, but try to visit any Grav internal page and you’ll get a 404. This is actually a static HTML copy of the site, with the real Grav instance accessible only via a WireGuard VPN using internal DNS names. That way I get the performance and security of static HTML, with the ease-of-use and flexibility of a CMS.

I use a very "cloud-first" approach to most things, but I've recently moved a lot of that into my own "personal cloud". I use cross-platform apps where possible (e.g. LibreOffice) with file storage on my NAS accessible remotely via a WireGuard VPN.

Needing to push quite some bandwidth this way, I've ended up looking quite in-depth into mobile networks and their deployments. It's interesting to see each network's priorities, each with their own flaws.

I’m a gamer, too (of course). I’m most skilled in rhythm games, but I’m still fond of the arena FPS I grew up with.

I’m a particular fan of the Touhou Project and Konami’s BEMANI franchise. I’m currently around Skill Level 11 in Sound Voltex, and will pick up beatmania IIDX more seriously if and when I get a controller for it.

There might be more added to this site eventually. This server mainly has private services accessed via a VPN, plus a few publicly accessible bits and pieces.