index.json

[{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"My Coin Collection # Getting Started # My coin collecting began when my dad gave me my first coin book. I don\u0026rsquo;t remember my exact age, but I must have been 7 or 8. He gave me one of the unfinished Lincoln penny books he had from his collection. I was also given a big book of the U.S. to use for collecting the state quarters (1999 - 2008). From there I have continued to grow my collection and a love for coin collecting. As a side note, while in the Boy Scouts, I did earn the coin collecting merit badge.\nMy Collections # I began my collection by collecting pennies and state quarters. Eventually I wanted to add to my collection and began to collect nickels, dimes, and Washington quarters. I have even begun to amass a small collection of foreign coins as well. Most all of my U.S. coin collecting has come from finding coins in circulation. I always ask people to see their change, which they may think is a little weird.\nPennies # Pennies have always been the main thing I have collected. I have only focused on Lincoln pennies (1909 - Present) and mainly find them through circulation. When my grandfather would come over he would always bring any quarters he found that were on my needs list. I began to get into the older Lincoln pennies (1909 - WWII) when my grandmother gave me a penny book she had with a number of pennies from the 10s - 40s. I have been able to even find some pennies from the 20s in circulation.\nNickels # I have begun to collect nickels as well, but as this is not one of my main focuses I have not been as headstrong as I have with pennies and quarters. I look through change to see what I can find, but do not go out of my way to find nickels as I do for pennies and quarters. I hope to find a way to pique my interest in nickels, just like I have in pennies and quarters.\nDimes # As with nickels this is not one of my primary areas of collecting. I have gotten a good amount from change, but do not always remember or make a conscious effort like I do for pennies, and quarters. Just as I mentioned with nickels I would like to find a way to pique my interest.\nQuarters # The second focus of my collection would be quarters. Since 1999 I have collected at least one of every quarter that has been manufactured (50 State Quarters, D.C. and U.S. Territories, and America the Beautiful). It has been fun to collect and see all the different amazing designs the artists come up with to depict the area being represented. Only more recently have I begun to collect quarters prior to 1999. I have been working on the Washington quarters (1932 - 1998). I still look for these in circulation, but the older ones which are hard to find lead me to visit coin shops in the area. Currently my oldest quarter is a 1932, the first year of the Washington quarters.\nFuture # In the future I hope to continue to add to my current collections as well as branch out into older coins. My dad has a coin collection as well, which I hope to continue adding to. He has both buffalo nickels and mercury dimes, of which I hope to continue adding to the collection. As I said earlier, I have a small amount of foreign coins that belonged to my parents. I have always liked the design on foreign coins and paper money and keep them mainly for that reason instead of the value. I would also want to attend a coin show, which I have never done. I may branch out into paper money, but will stick to adding coins first. Coin collecting is fun and something I can continue for the rest of my life.\n","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/coin-collecting/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Coin Collecting","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/coins/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Coins","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/collecting/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Collecting","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/hobby/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Hobby","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":" ","date":"31 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Welcome to my Portfolio \u0026 Blog","summary":"","title":"Welcome to my Portfolio \u0026 Blog","type":"page"},{"content":" About Me # I’m Chris Frome, a Web and Software Developer based in the Baltimore, MD area. I specialize in building modern, scalable applications and bringing ideas to life through clean, user-focused design and engineering.\nEducation # M.S. in Information Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)\nConcentrations: User Experience (UX) Design and Cybersecurity B.S. in Computer Science, James Madison University (JMU)\nMinor: Environmental Information Systems Professional Interests # Full-Stack Web Development Software Engineering DevOps \u0026amp; Cloud Infrastructure User Experience (UX) Design Cybersecurity Awareness Background # I first discovered programming in high school and have been pursuing it ever since. Over the years, I’ve grown from experimenting with code into building full-scale applications in professional settings. Today, I work as a web and software developer, collaborating on projects that combine frontend polish, backend efficiency, and reliable infrastructure.\nBeyond Work # Outside of tech, I’m passionate about community service, cooking, hiking, tabletop RPGs, trivia, and camping/outdoors. These activities keep me grounded, creative, and connected with people.\nContact # 📍 Frederick, Maryland\n📧 chris@chrisfrome.com\n","date":"14 February 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"Welcome to my Portfolio \u0026 Blog","summary":"","title":"About","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"2 January 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/chrisfrome-com/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"chrisfrome.com","type":"personal"},{"content":"","date":"2 January 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Projects","type":"projects"},{"content":"","date":"20 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/presentations/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Presentations","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"20 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/saltstack/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Saltstack","type":"tags"},{"content":"What is Configuration mangement? # Configuration mangement is the practace of centrally managing and configuring systems from a centralized control point. Configuration management tools are used for remote configuration of systems (Windows or Linux) in an environment. Configration Management tools # Ansible\nPuppet\nChef\nSaltStack\nAbout Salt # Started in 2011 by Thomas Hatch\nPython based, and open source\nUses the YAML data structure along with JINJA templating\nIt has a large open source community\nIt uses a client-server model, allowing for remote command execution\nEasily scalable, supporting thousands of nodes\nUses message queue networking\nHighly modular\nArchitecture # Client-server model\nMaster (server) Minion (client) Uses the asynchronous message library ZeroMQ for message queuing\nCommunication encrypted over SSH\nPillars and Grains # Pillars\nUser defined variables that are ctored on the minion Also able to be stored on a git server Grains\nStatic information, such as OS version, about a device (minion) Execution Modules # Add hoc commands on the command line targeting one or more minions States # Each salt state is contained in an Salt State File (SLS)\nEach state file represents a configuration state that a system should have\nThese state files are written in YAML, and can also contain JINJA templates\nnetwork_utilities: pkg.installed: - pkgs: - rsync - curl nginx_pkg: pkg.installed: - name: nginx nginx_service: service.running: - name: nginx - enable: True - require: - pkg: nginx_pkg Top File # There are two top files that exist The states top file maps the machines and the states that should be applied to them The pillars top file maps the machines and the pillar data that they can access base: # Applied to all servers \u0026#39;*\u0026#39;: - universal_setp # Applied only to ubuntu servers \u0026#39;os:Ubuntu\u0026#39;: - match: grain - ubuntu_setup # Applied only to web-server web-server: - apache_setup Targeting Minions # We can target minions using a list, regex, grains, or node groups salt minion1 test.ping salt \u0026#34;minion*\u0026#34; test.ping salt -L \u0026#34;minion1, minion2\u0026#34; test.ping Salt -G \u0026#39;os_family:windows\u0026#39; test.ping salt -N windows_minions test.ping node groups, configured in master configuration (/etc/salt/master) nodegroups: windows_minions \u0026#39;G@os_family:windows\u0026#39; Event System # uses publisher/subscribe model for publishing events\nEvents are published onto the event bus and event bus subscribers listen for the published events.\n# Watch the event bus forever in a shell while-loop. salt-run state.event | while read -r tag data; do echo $tag echo $data | jq --color-output . done Reactor # Allows for taking actions related to events by watching the event bus for event tags that match a given pattern and then running one or more commands in response Installation and Configuration # Installation (Ubuntu example) # 1. Install the SaltStack repo and key: ```wget -O - https://repo.saltstack.com/apt/ubuntu/18.04/amd64/latest/SALTSTACK-GPG-KEY.pub | sudo apt-key add -`` 2. save ```/etc/apt/sources.list.d/saltstack.list``` to ```deb http://repo.saltstack.com/apt/ubuntu/18.04/amd64/latest bionic main``` 3. Install the needed Salt components using apt-get 1. salt-master, salt-minion, salt-ssh, salt-api Once insalled all Salt components are controlled through systemd unit files Configuration # salt master: /etc/salt/master\nMinion: /etc/salt/minion\n","date":"20 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/saltstack/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"SaltStack","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 February 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/software-development/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Software Development","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"19 June 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cast-iron-cooking/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cast Iron Cooking","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"19 June 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/cooking/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Cooking","type":"categories"},{"content":"Dutch Oven Cast Iron Cooking # One of my favorite things to use for cooking is the dutch oven. I got my first introduction to using cast iron from being in the Boy Scouts. The dutch oven makes for easy one dish meals with easy cleanup. You can make everything from breakfast casseroles to soup/stew, pizza or even dessert. Cast iron in general, is great not just for camping but is great when cooking at home too. However, you may not be too familiar with how to properly use use one, so here are the steps (both outdoor and indoor cooking):\nHere is a video on cooking with cast iron from Tasty : Cooking with cast iron\nOutdoor Cooking with Dutch Ovens # Pick a Dutch Oven For outdoor use you want a pre-seasoned tri-leg camp dutch oven with a flanged top. a flanged top will allow you to evenly spread coals on top. The tri-pod legs will keep the dutch oven from sitting directly on the colas underneath. The sizes can range anywhere from 2-qt. - 8-qt. (4 - 12 in.). Here is a great example of an outdoor dutch oven: Lodge outdoor dutch oven Other Materials Needed Long tongs Thick gloves Charcoal briquets (regular, not competition-style) Charcoal chimney starter for lighting the charcoal Prep the fire Light 50 regular briquets in a chimney starter and burn until spotted gray, 15 minutes. Arrange the coals Method A Bottom heat cooking : For recipes where you want concentrated heat from underneath, for sautéing or making a quick meat dish, just use tongs to spread the coals into an even layer the size of the dutch oven and set the pot on top. Method B Top and bottom heat cooking: For recipes like long-cooking stews, you need heat coming from top and bottom. Use tongs to arrange some of the coals in a circle a little smaller than the circumference of the dutch oven. Set the oven on top, then arrange the rest of the coals evenly over the lid. Method C Baking: Here you need heat coming from top and bottom, arranged carefully for even browning. Use tongs to arrange some of the coals in a circle a little smaller than the circumference of the dutch oven. Set the oven on top, then arrange a single ring of coals on top of the lid, around the lip. Space a few more across the lid. Check the food To check food and temp, lift the lid occasionally by sliding tongs through the pot lid\u0026rsquo;s ring and bracing them against the edge of the lid closest to you. Tweak the temperature To decrease heat, scrape away some fuel. To increase heat, or to cook longer than 45 minutes, add 5 to 6 new briquets to both the top and the bottom of the dutch oven (touching lit ones, so they’ll ignite) about every 30 minutes, or add wood embers. If briquets don\u0026rsquo;t light, be ready to ignite them in the chimney. However, there are some debates on whether to use soap on cast iron, but many say that a little soap wont hurt the pan. Indoor Cooking with Dutch Ovens # Pick a Dutch Oven Since you will be putting your dutch oven in the oven it is ok for the top to be rounded instead of flanged. Here is a good example of a dutch oven that will work well inside: Le Creuset Signature Round Dutch Oven Can a Dutch Oven go in an Electric Oven? Dutch ovens have been successfully prepared in gas and electric ovens, conventional and convection ovens, buried in campfires coals, inside barbecue grills, in roasters, and even on stovetop burners. The only type of oven I know that you should NOT use with a cast iron Dutch oven is a microwave oven. An oven can work just as well as coals, and the temperature can easier to control. Just make sure your oven can reach 450 degrees fahrenheit. Personal Experience # The majority of my dutch oven cooking experience occurred while on campouts with the Boy Scouts. I have learned to cook everything from breakfast casserole, biscuits, pizza, and dessert cakes and cobblers. Dessert cooking is one of my favorites, and I even learned a hack when making a cake. Instead of adding everything listed on the box to the cake mix, all you need is a bottle of sprite or other soda. This will work as a replacement for the ingredients like eggs and water and allow you to have a moist and delicious cake.\nCleaning Cast Iron # Is soap good for cast iron? Some will say its fine, while other will tell you to never use it. Here is a link to how to clean cast iron: cleaning cast iron.\nRecipes # Here is a great collection of recipes from lodge cast iron: Lodge Cast Iron Recipies Things to cook when using a dutch oven inside: 5 ways to use your dutch oven in the oven\n","date":"19 June 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/dutch-oven-cooking/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Dutch Oven Cast Iron Cooking","type":"posts"},{"content":"Laravel with Homestead : Web app Development and Management # PHP Docs\nLaravel Docs\nWhat is Homestead # Homestead is a pre-packaged vagrant box that provides you will all the development tools that you need by default\nOnce you have setup your virtual machine and vagrant, you simply add homestead box to it and all of the development tools are installed automatically for you. This saves you the time of individually installing the required software.\nLaravel homestead isn’t limited to the Laravel framework.\nYou can generally development any PHP web application using homestead.\nAdvantages of Homestead # Local development environment simulates production environment\nNeeded software out of the box\nVM’s can be disposable and recreated within minutes without affecting application source code\nEasily share your vagrantfile with others\nIntroduction to PHP and Laravel # PHP, very much like node.js or ruby is a back-end language. It is especially suited for web development.\nLaravel is a front-end framework for PHP.\nWriting PHP and Laravel feels very similar to writing Ruby and Rails respectively.\nAn example of this can be seen here when we make controllers for websites:\nRails # class ForumsController \u0026lt; ApplicationController def index @forums = Forum.all end end Laravel # \u0026lt;?php class FarmController extends Controller{ public function index(){ $farms = Farm::all(); return view(\u0026#39;farms.index\u0026#39;, [\u0026#39;farms\u0026#39; =\u0026gt; $farms]); } } ?\u0026gt; How to Setup and Install # First we needs to install virtual box and vagrant:\nVirtual Box\nand\nVagrant\nOnce these two are installed type the following in your terminal:\nvagrant box add laravel/homestead You will need to make a choice of what provider you want, enter 2 for virtualbox: Next type into your terminal: git clone https://github.com/laravel/homestead.git Homestead To Initialize our homestead we need to cd into the homestead directory and type: bash init.sh Create an ssh key if it doesn’t exist: ssh-keygen -t rsa -C “your_email@example.com” Open the homestead directory in your preferred text editor, change homestead.yaml to the following:: In the terminal type: sudo nano /etc/hosts At the end of the file add the following: 192.168.10.10 homestead.app Press ctrl + X followed by Y and then enter to save your changes. Vagrant Global Aliases # # Some shortcuts for easier navigation \u0026amp; access alias ..=\u0026#34;cd ..\u0026#34;; alias vm=\u0026#34;ssh vagrant@127.0.0.1 -p 2222\u0026#34;; # Homestead shortcut function homestead() { ( cd ~/Homestead \u0026amp;\u0026amp; vagrant $* ) } To up vagrant box use: homestead up\nTo stop vagrant box use: homestead halt\nTo log into vagrant box use: homestead ssh\nCreating Your First Project # Homestead ssh\nCd to shared folder ~/Code\ncomposer create-project \u0026ndash;prefer-dist laravel/laravel Laravel\nCreates a default project in a directory called Laravel inside of the code folder\nLaravel uses a MVC architecture\nTo view the created app load homestead.app in the browser, which has been linked to 192.168.10.10 in the host file\nLaravel File Structure # The important files created in the root are:\nartisan: It is end point for artisan command which is used for various tasks and functions in Laravel.\ncomposer.json: Dependency and all list for composer installation\n.env: This file contain configuration based on the environment of the application.\npackage.json: This file contain node related dependency, for example compiling SASS or LESS.\nUpon installing following directories will be created\napp bootstrap config database public resources routes storage tests vendor App Directory # App Folder is one of major folder / directory in Laravel Framework, In Laravel Most of logics are written in App folder. This folder / directory contains below folders.\nConsole Exceptions Http Controllers Middleware Providers Bootstrap Directory # The bootstrap directory of Laravel contains files are used for bootstrapping and configuring Laravel Framework itself. This directory is also contains a cache directory which holds all framework generated files for performance optimization and\nbootstrap cache Config Directory # This directory contains all configration related files of laravel Framework. This directory consist of below files\napp.php auth.php broadcasting.php cache.php database.php filesystems.php mail.php queue.php services.php session.php view.php Database Directory # Laravel’s Database Directory is used to kept your database migrations and seeds. If you are going to use SQLLITE Dtabase, then you can also use this directory to hold and SQLLITE DB.\nPublic Directory # The public directory of laravel consist of a file named index.php. In Laravel this file is an entry point for your application .This directory also holds your public assets like images , js , css files.\nResources Directory # Laravel’s Resources directory contains all view files of your application. This directory also hold your language files\nRoutes Directory # The routes directory of laravel contains all of the routes of your applications. web.php, api.php, console.php and channels.php are default routes files that are included in Laravel 5.4\nweb.php: - This file contains all routes that RouteServiceProvider places in web middleware group which provides session state, CSRF protection, and cookie encryption. api.php: - This file contains all routes that RouteServiceProvider places in the api middleware group, which provides rate limiting. console.php: - In this file you may define all of your Closure based console commands. channels.php: - In file you may register all of the event broadcasting channels that your application supports Storage Directory # The storage directory of laravel contains all of your coompiled blade files,sessions files, file caches, and other files generated by the framework.\nThe storage/app/public is available for storing user-generated files, such as profile image,product images etc\nTests Directory # The tests directory contains all of your automated tests\nVendor Directory # The vendor directory contains Composer dependencies related files of your application.\n","date":"25 March 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/laravel/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Laravel","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"25 March 2018","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/laravel/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Laravel","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/bin-convert/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Binary Converter GUI","type":"personal"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/hugo-nix/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Hugo Nix Theme","type":"personal"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/hugo-website-code/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Hugo Website Code","type":"personal"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/jmu-cs-vm-tool/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"JMU CS VM Configuration Tool","type":"contribution"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/jordanenvironmental-net/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"jordanenvironmental.net","type":"contribution"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/projects/liquid-stats/","section":"Projects","summary":"","title":"Liquid-Stats","type":"personal"},{"content":" Chris Frome – Resume # Professional Summary # A highly accomplished Web and Software Developer with 6+ years of experience designing, developing, and deploying scalable applications. Skilled in cloud infrastructure, automation, and full-stack development using AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, and modern JavaScript frameworks.\nExperience # Web Developer — Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory # June 2022 – March 2025 | Laurel, MD\nProvisioned EC2 instances using Ansible for secure data processing Built data acquisition \u0026amp; display systems using AWS, Vue.js, and Node.js Automated CI/CD pipelines with GitLab Developed backend APIs using Nest.js \u0026amp; Swagger/OpenAPI DevOps Engineer — Applied Insight # Nov 2018 – June 2022 | Fulton, MD / Remote\nBuilt React- and Angular-based portals Deployed microservices on AWS EKS with Docker \u0026amp; Kubernetes Automated compliance using AWS Config + Lambda (Python) Developed full-stack tools with Angular + Laravel/Django REST Education # Degree Institution Years Concentrations/Minor M.S. Information Systems UMBC 2020–2023 UX Design, Cybersecurity B.S. Computer Science JMU 2014–2018 Environmental Information Systems (Minor) Technical Skills # Cloud \u0026amp; DevOps Web Development Databases Languages AWS (Lambda, EC2, EKS, ECS, S3, DynamoDB, CloudFormation, SAM), Terraform JavaScript/TypeScript, Node.js, Vue.js, React, Angular, Django, Sails.js, Nest.js, Laravel SQL, NoSQL (MongoDB, DynamoDB) Python, Go, Java (Spring), PHP Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, GitLab CI/CD, Ansible Community Involvement # Eagle Scout (Silver Palm) Vigil Honor, Order of the Arrow Leave No Trace Trainer Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 1191 📄 Download PDF # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/resume/","section":"Welcome to my Portfolio \u0026 Blog","summary":"","title":"Resume","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]