IT Tools & Resources

This is the toolbox: the scripts, notes and resources I’ve built up over the years and still use. It’s for anyone in IT, whether you’re just starting out, you’ve been doing it for decades, or you tinker with servers at home for fun.

What you’ll find here

Everything here is something I actually use, either at work or on the homelab. No affiliate lists and no “top 10 tools” round ups, just the calculators, scripts and reference notes I keep coming back to.

Calculators

• Subnet calculator. Put in an IPv4 address with a CIDR or a subnet mask and it gives you the network address, broadcast, usable host range and wildcard mask. It can also split a range into smaller subnets, which is handy when you’re planning VLANs or carving up a lab network.
• Memory calculator. Converts RAM and storage between bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB and PB, in either binary or decimal. It also answers the question everyone asks at some point: why does a brand new 1 TB drive only show 931 GB?

Both run entirely in your browser, so nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Scripts and commands

• Commands every IT admin should know. The 50 Windows and Linux commands I reach for most, what each one does and when to use it, plus PowerShell equivalents, terminal shortcuts and one liners.
• Scripting. PowerShell and Bash scripts for the jobs I got tired of doing by hand: code signing, finding real Windows uptime, checking firewall and BitLocker status, and checking Ubuntu for updates.
• Ubuntu 24.04 AutoPatch script. Keeps Ubuntu servers patched on their own, including kept back packages and reboots, and carries on where it left off after a restart.

If you do something more than twice, it’s worth scripting. Most of these started life as a quick fix for one annoying job and grew from there.

Smart home and homelab

• Home Assistant smart devices. How my smart home runs on a Home Assistant Yellow with Zigbee, Matter and ESPHome, and the 40+ automations on top, from server alerts to an AI doorbell.
• Monitor Ubuntu servers in Home Assistant. A lightweight MQTT agent that reports CPU, memory, disk, pending updates and more, with remote reboot and self updates.
• One alert for the whole homelab. A single Home Assistant notification that lists every offline server and pending update, and clears itself when everything is healthy.

Security

• Vulnerability feeds and zero days. A live feed of advisories and security news from ZDI, NCSC, F5 Labs and others, refreshed every 15 minutes and also available as JSON for your own tools.

Have a look around

I add to this section whenever I build or learn something worth sharing, so it keeps growing. Pick a section below and dig in.