Ben’s Place

Ben’s Place is the personal notebook of Ben Hardill, described simply as somewhere to keep notes on his projects. Rather than a commercial publication, it is a working record of experiments in software development, infrastructure, and occasional hardware tinkering, published as individual blog posts with dates and comment threads.

The content mixes Android app work, such as Tracks2Miles and Tracks2TitanXT, with deeper infrastructure topics like creating client certificates for Kubernetes pods, layer 2 network access over distance, and dealing with bots abusing a Mastodon server. Posts tend to follow the author’s actual process, including the problems encountered along the way.

The site also hosts static pages for privacy policies, an about section, and a curriculum vitae, which makes it useful for anyone wanting context on the author’s background alongside the technical writing. Archives stretch back over many years, so there is a substantial backlog to browse by date.

Developers, sysadmins, and hobbyists exploring certificates, networking, or Android development are the natural audience. Use the archive and search to locate topics, and read the comments for corrections and follow-up questions from other practitioners. It works best as a reference to dip into rather than a structured course.