An Old Noob #7 - Badges

#beginners #webdev #security #challenge

I tend to get pretty busy lately.

Even after just writing that first sentence, that one right above this one, i was asked to move some drapes and hang a mirror.

But that's not what i want to talk about. During my recent diversions, i forgot to publish last week. That means i missed out on the Dev.to 8 Week Streak badge. Don't get me wrong, i wish i had published for more reasons than the streak badge. But badges are fun.

Except when they're not.

For those of you unfamiliar, allow me to introduce you to Immersive Labs, an IT Security training platform which fortunately is offered through my employer. It's a great platform for exposure to all kinds of subjects within the cybersecurity realm, from Windows exploitation to NIST standards to malware reverse engineering. The landing page doesn't do the amount of content justice.

Since i enjoy a challenge, one could accurately assume that when we were granted access to the over 1500 labs available i jumped in feet first. Fast forward about 6 months and i've been able to complete a lot of labs. Some of those labs offer badges of completion. I've got to say, my IL dashboard looked pretty cool. I thought it would be cool if i could share these achievements somehow.

Immersive Labs knows badges are fun too, and they recently announced the ability to now share badge completion on social media (can't find an announcement for it or i'd link it). Now the last thing i want to do is go out and share each badge individually on social media, not to mention i doubt anyone wants their feed inundated with such noise. That got me thinking back to my cloud resume: wouldn't it be a decent addition to add a page of all the Immersive Labs badges i've earned and link that from my resume?

And that's just what i did.

Rather than just a page full of images, each image is a link to the badge completion date and details about the lab collection. I also included a full transcript of the individual labs i've completed in a link in the footer on the off-chance someone might want to see the 26-page pdf file (knowing full well that's highly unlikely, but i'm up to 371 labs!).

Yeah, i know all this may be overkill. But i've spent a lot of time working on these labs and don't think i'm asking too much to display my achievements in a relatively obscure yet easily accessible location.

Now that i've gotten my moment of selfish pride out of the way, if you do get a chance to look at Immersive Labs, there are some really solid challenges there.

And if you've got an achievement you want to share with the world, share it! Then bask in the knowledge that your success is forever hosted on the internet, whether anyone sees it or not =]