Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

Get a PAT in Azure DevOps

I have a presentation recently on Continuous Integration Using Local Agents in Azure DevOps and one of the things I do in there is get a PAT for Azure DevOps to use in configuring an agent. This post shows how to do this, as I found this wasn’t obvious when I was searching out information.

Azure DevOps Organizations

In Azure DevOps, at the top level you have an organization. Here’s my way0utwest org.

In the lower left corner, there is this, which is somewhat hidden. As you can see, it’s next to the bottom projects in my org, just above my Windows bar.

If I click this, I have lots of settings. I have lots of different things. One would think this would be a place where I could create a PAT for my agent to connect with.

It’s not.

If I am setting up an Agent and need a PAT, I need to do to the upper right, under my user settings. This is the second from the right (as of Jan 2025) icon. If I click this, I see PATs.

Once I click Personal access tokens, I get to this screen. You can see my PATs and a “New” buton in the upper right. Click this to create a new token.

You get this screen. Apparently this token is only used to register the agent. I’ve usually granted this full access, but I haven’t dived too deep into what happens if I only limit rights. I’ll try that soon. As with any security issue, make sure you know the implications of settings.

Once you create this, you get a notice that you need to copy this now or lose it. There’s a handy copy button, so use it.

Summary

This is a quick post on creating tokens in Azure DevOps. As with any security change, make sure you know what the implications are for creating and using these.

January 27, 2025
The Local OLLAMA Gui
I ran a small ollama model in a container and have been doing some experiments. One of the things I wanted to do was get a GUI so I wasn’t always running docker to connect (with –it) or writing code to interact.

I saw a post somewhere that there is a webgui, so I decided to try it. This post shows the quick setup process.

This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems.

Run the Container

The command I used was this one:
```
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v ollama-webui:/app/backend/data --name ollama-webui --restart always ghcr.io/ollama-webui/ollama-webui:main
```
This downloaded and ran the container, which I forgot about until I saw it running in my Docker list.

Connecting and Getting Going

The command above runs on port 3000, so I went to port 3000 on my local host and saw this:

I clicked signup and added info, which isn’t really checked.

The first account is set at the admin and I see this screen:

I need to select a model to query, and when I click the drop down, I see the two I downloaded as part of my ollama container setup.

I picked mistral and started asking questions. I started with clicking the prompt on the screen, and I saw:

If you play with different models, give this a try as an easy way to run an AI on your local machine and see how well it can help you with anything you do.

Note, be wary, and make sure you read the disclaimer at the bottom (circled by me)
January 27, 2025
The Era of Cloned Humans

AI-technologies are evolving at an alarming rate. The ability of LLMs to produce drafts, review work, even write some code continues to improve to the point where junior level workers are in danger of having less opportunity than in the past.

Perhaps even more alarming is the ability of AI technologies to mimic what they find in the real world, which can include voices. As with any technology created to make the world better, criminals will find a way to use it for nefarious purposes. This article notes that the FBI has warned families to have a secret word or phrase, as criminals are using AI to clone the voice of a family member asking for financial help.

Can you imagine getting a call from your spouse, parents, or children, saying that they’re in trouble and need some money right away? With AI tech, the voice could even respond to your questions, mimic anxiety or distress, cry, or who knows what.

Last year Microsoft announced a text to speech technology that can closely simulate a person’s voice with just 3 seconds of audio. I’m sure that capability has improved in a year and soon we may not be able to trust the voices we hear. We certainly can’t trust the photographs we see, something that we enjoy when we see artists photoshop images for fun, but when we look at an image in the news, we want it to be real, but we can’t trust that an organization hasn’t manipulated a photo. When anyone could simulate another’s voice, things can go wrong quickly.

I assume the ability to fake video in real time is coming soon. With enough hardware and some imagery, I would guess AI models will be able to hold a Facetime-type call as a human, fooling most people that might not know the person extremely well. At some point, since all our images and video are digital anyway, I assume that without some security measure, the tech could likely fool almost everyone.

Even as I write this I doubt how well the quality is, but I’m sure that it will continue to improve to the point where we might be loathe to trust remote interactions. This has the potential to be a security nightmare for some people, and I worry about the scams and losses criminals will inflict upon the unsuspecting.

This is one type of technology whose negatives will far outweigh the positives.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

January 27, 2025
Can You Become a More Productive Engineer?

The short answer is of course, most of us can learn and improve our skills to become better developers, engineers, DBAs, etc. While we might not be able to become the 10x engineer that many aspire to be, we can certainly become a better employee inside of an organization.

There’s a piece on becoming a more effective engineer, which is actually titled know how your org works. It a piece from an engineer that started with a tweet: The text was:You can either complain and pontificate on Twitter on how the tech industry *should* ideally work, or you can learn how your org *really* works and what’s rewarded, and optimize for that. Or quit and find another job. This might sound cynical – but it’s what it is.

That sounds a little harsh, but the reality of how your org works or is structured or interacts is a reality. We all have hindsight to look back and wish someone (including us) had written code better. We might be sure if we could change one thing, or add/remove someone else, or make some other change, then things would be better. We might feel that there is a simple solution. Those things might be true, but they aren’t the reality of the situation.

Learning to be more effective an engineer in your situation does involve learning to work within the reality of your position in your organization. You need to learn to work well with others, to understand what needs to be completed from the perspective of you and your group, and what the organization places importance on getting done. That last one might not be what the organization expresses, as there can be a big disconnect between words and actions.

You also need to learn how to deal with uncertainty. Often when we build applications, we don’t have all the information, and we can’t get it. We can’t necessarily count on everyone we work with to have the same shared understanding or work at the same pace. We have to learn what levels of trust we can extend, work within ambiguity and be prepared to change our plans in response to how things work.

In other words, most organizations have a lot of chaos and to become a better engineer you must learn to navigate the chaos and still get the things done that others notice.

The piece has a section that soft skills are hard skills, which is true. When I see people who are very effective engineers, they can be the brilliant, 10x engineer, but that’s rare. Usually it’s the engineers that have strong soft skills in both working with others and understanding the power hierarchy in the organization that succeed.

Of course, some organizations are full of bureaucracy, favoritism, and disfunction that it’s hard for anyone to become effective. It’s amazing these places continue to exist, but they do. I’ve been in a few and I’ve left as soon as possible, which is my advice to you. Don’t work in a dysfunctional environment. If you can avoid it. If you can’t, then work to leave.

Effectiveness is part being better at coding (or tuning or admin or whatever), but it’s also part learning to work well with the rest of the organization.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

January 24, 2025