Working notes. Often. Short. Specific.
Our long-form pieces live under Articles. This is the blog — shorter, more frequent, more technical. AI-era project notes, agent-team updates, infra write-ups, and a slow migration of the best entries from our 2008–2024 Team-Notes archive, rewritten for 2026.
Hello from the 2026 wGrow blog.
We relaunched the studio site, opened a separate blog for shorter notes, and started rewriting our 2008–2024 Team-Notes archive for the AI era.
SQL Server hardening checklist, rewritten for 2026.
Our 2023 SQL Server hardening checklist has been our most-shared Team-Notes post for two years. Here it is rewritten for 2026 — with the controls that aged well kept, the ones that aged badly cut, and the ones that need new framing in light of MGF and modern Azure SQL.
AWS Network Firewall in front of an app server: the 2026 setup we'd actually use.
Our 2023 walkthrough of putting AWS Network Firewall in front of a public-facing app server is still the right shape. The defaults, the MGF angle, and the agent-era addition have all moved.
Cloud security architecture for a medical group, three years on.
Our 2023 architecture for a medical service group — VPN, segmentation, ELK, AWS+Azure dual-cloud — held up. The pieces that aged are exactly the ones that became MGF-relevant in 2026.
Hospital visitor logging under PDPA: hashing, partial IC, and what we'd do differently in 2026.
Our 2023 design — SHA-256-hashed IC numbers plus last-4-digit verification — was sound for COVID-era visitor caps. Three years on, here is what we'd build today, given Singpass, MGF, and PDPC's evolved enforcement.
Scaling a patient-management system without buying a bigger server.
Our 2023 piece on scaling a 500K-client patient system on AWS without upgrading the host became one of our most-quoted notes. Three years later: the architecture held, and the parts that didn't are the ones AI changed.
Virtualizing a Windows Server 2000 box: the boring rescue, twenty years on.
Our 2023 case study on lifting a semiconductor-testing app off a dying HP ProLiant onto VMware vSphere is a reminder that the boring rescue still happens — and what we'd do differently if we got the same call today.
Automating Let's Encrypt for IIS in 2026: most of the C# is no longer needed.
Our 2023 piece walked through a custom C# Windows Service using Certes + Microsoft.Web.Administration to manage Let's Encrypt for IIS. In 2026 the right answer is mostly to use a maintained tool. Here is the honest update.
Watching RDP for brute-force, in 2026: when the homemade service still wins.
Our 2023 RDP-monitoring Windows Service is still in production at three clients. Here's the 2026 reality: most teams should turn off RDP entirely, but for the ones that can't, the design holds.
When Excel VBA is still the right answer.
Our 2023 case study built a sales-order management system in Excel VBA because the client's IT compliance gate was 12 months and Excel was already approved. The pattern still applies — and shows up more often in the AI era, not less.
Cross-cloud business continuity for an ERP, and what we'd skip in 2026.
Our 2023 BCM design for a SG real-estate agency's ERP — primary on AWS, secondary on Azure, JSON sync APIs, Windows resync service — passed an audit and survived three years. Here is what we'd cut, what we'd keep, and the SG listing-readiness angle.
EC sales systems for property developers, four years on.
Our 2023 build for a property developer's Executive Condominium sales-day system — SFTP to HDB, SHA-256 columns, real-time OTP generation — ran clean through three EC launches. Here's what changed.
Pinning financial forecasts on Ethereum: what we tried in 2023, and what we'd do now.
Our 2023 piece used the Ethereum mainnet to pin SHA-256 hashes of quarterly forecasting parameters as a tamper-evidence layer. The use case held; the chain choice didn't. Here's the honest update.
Decentralized voting on Ethereum: what we tried in 2023, archived honestly.
Our 2023 case study built a decentralized voting system on Ethereum + .NET C#. It was a working proof-of-concept. It was not a good idea. Here is the migration, with the honest framing we should have led with.
Vitasg.SG, four years on: what the platform looks like in the agent era.
Our 2023 write-up of Vitasg.SG's eCommerce build covered Shopee/Lazada storefronts, dedicated portal, TECOM order processing, and regional expansion. The platform shape is unchanged. The crew running it is.
Condo management: the system we built, and the agent we'd add today.
Our 2023 product note on the Condo Management System is migrating to /services/. This is the studio note: what's still useful, and the one agent we'd add to it in 2026.
Smart Quotation, in the agent era.
Our 2023 product note on the Smart Quotation system migrates to /services/. This is the studio note: what changed when we plugged an agent into the workflow in 2025.
Our 3G/4G SMS gateway is still running. Here is what we'd change in 2026.
Our 2023 SMS gateway product note is migrating to /services/. The hardware estate has aged. The cellular generation has not. Here's the honest 2026 update.