Tag Archives: cloud

It’s winter. Time to curl up with a good…list of tech links :) (What I find interesting in tech January 2024)

Posted on January 22, 2024 | Comments Off on It’s winter. Time to curl up with a good…list of tech links :) (What I find interesting in tech January 2024)

500Wow. I have not posted any tech links since last September. Needless to say, I’ve been doing alot of reading on the usual topics, from architecture and cloud to hardware and software. I’ve included many of them in the lists below. There’s a special shout out to COBOL of all things. Is there something on DOOM! in here? Of course there is. Let’s take a look….

Architecture: A mixed bag here, with some focus on enterprise architecture.

Cloud: a number of links on cloud object storage, plus more….

COBOL: COBOL is hot these days. Trust me.

Hardware: mostly but not exclusively on the Raspberry Pi….

Mainframe/middleware: still doing mainframe stuff, but I added on some middleware links….

Linux/Windows: mostly Linux but some of the other OS….

Software: another mixed bag of links…

Misc.:  For all the things that don’t fit anywhere else….also the most fun links….

Thanks for reading this!

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My IT Beach Reads this summer :) (What I find interesting in tech September 2023)

Posted on September 8, 2023 | Comments Off on My IT Beach Reads this summer :) (What I find interesting in tech September 2023)


Yes, this is the stuff I read for fun. Not on the beach, but at least in a comfy chair out in the hot sunny weather. 🙂

Architecture links: mostly my IT architecture reading was AWS related this summer, but not all of it.

Cloud links: a mixed bag of things, all good.

Ops links: I’ve been consulting with clients on operations work, among other things, so here’s  pieces on AIOps, DevOps and more that I thought were good:

Software links: mostly dashboard related, since I was working on…dashboards.

Finally: here’s a mix bag of things, quantum and otherwise, that I enjoyed.

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What I find interesting in cloud tech, May 2023

Posted on May 15, 2023 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in cloud tech, May 2023

It’s long past time to write about IT stuff I’ve been working on. So much so I’ve too much material to provide, and rather than make an endless post, I’ll focus on cloud. I’ve mostly been doing work on IBM cloud, but I have some good stuff on AWS and Azure (Sorry GCP, no love for you this time.)

IBM Cloud: most of the work I’ve been doing on IBM cloud has been hands on, as you can tell from these links:

Other clouds: Not so much hands on, but interesting.

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I asked ChatGPT to do my job and write some code to built out some cloud infrastructure. How did it go?

Posted on March 27, 2023 | Comments Off on I asked ChatGPT to do my job and write some code to built out some cloud infrastructure. How did it go?

For fun I decide to see if I am ready to be replaced with AI via ChatGPT. Part of my work is building cloud based infrastructure using a language called HCL from Hashicorp using a tool called Terraform. You write one or more program files using HCL, run it through Terraform, and voila, you have the infrastructure you need.

For this exercise I entered the following prompt:

Create a terraform file for IBM cloud that will provision a VPC, set up networking for the VPC, and provision a virtual server for VPC. It will have 1 security group and a rule for this security group to allow SSH connection to your virtual server instance, 1 subnet to enable networking in your VPC, 1 VPC virtual server instance and 1 floating IP address that you use to access your VPC virtual server instance over the public network.

A good prompt, I thought. Nothing vague or conflicting. Practically a form of code itself.

I was shocked when in a few seconds I got this response:

To provision a VPC, networking, and a virtual server with a security group and a floating IP address on IBM Cloud, you can use the following Terraform configuration file:

# Configure the IBM provider
provider “ibm” {
generation = 2
region = “us-south”
}# Create a VPC
resource “ibm_is_vpc” “vpc” {
name = “my-vpc”
address_prefix_management = “auto”
}
# Create a subnet in the VPC
resource “ibm_is_subnet” “subnet” {
name = “my-subnet”
vpc = ibm_is_vpc.vpc.id
ipv4_cidr_block = “10.240.0.0/24”
}
# Create a security group
resource “ibm_is_security_group” “security_group” {
name = “my-security-group”
vpc = ibm_is_vpc.vpc.id
description = “Allow SSH inbound traffic”
}
# Add an SSH rule to the security group
resource “ibm_is_security_group_rule” “ssh_rule” {
security_group = ibm_is_security_group.security_group.id
direction = “inbound”
protocol = “tcp”
port_min = 22
port_max = 22
remote = “0.0.0.0/0”
}
# Create a virtual server instance in the subnet
resource “ibm_is_instance” “instance” {
name = “my-instance”
image = “ibm-centos-7-10-minimal-amd64-2”
profile = “bx2-2×8”
primary_network_interface {
subnet = ibm_is_subnet.subnet.id
}
vpc = ibm_is_vpc.vpc.id
security_groups = [ibm_is_security_group.security_group.id]
}
# Create a floating IP address
resource “ibm_is_floating_ip” “floating_ip” {
name = “my-floating-ip”
}
# Associate the floating IP address with the virtual server instance
resource “ibm_is_floating_ip_attachment” “attachment” {
floating_ip = ibm_is_floating_ip.floating_ip.address
instance = ibm_is_instance.instance.id
}

Before running the above code, replace with your IBM Cloud API key and and with the appropriate values for your IBM Cloud region and availability zone.
Once you have saved this configuration file, you can initialize Terraform by running terraform init, and then create the resources by running terraform apply. After a few minutes, Terraform will create the VPC, subnet, security group, virtual server, and floating IP address. You can then use the floating IP address to SSH into your virtual server instance over the public network.

Wow! What an amazing response, I thought!  It was quick, detailed, seemingly knowledgeable. Also…wrong.

There was so much fundamentally wrong with the code that the only way to get it to work was to rewrite much of it and also add a bunch of new code to make it work. I can’t even tell you how it came up with some of the statements: they are not defined that way for Terraform specs for IBM Cloud.

I even had the AI regenerate the code to see if it could get it right the second time. Instead the new code had 9 errors in it.

Fine. My manager provided me with a prompt of his own: see if it will work on AWS. (Good prompt, Ted!)

I did try it on AWS and Azure. With Azure the response was an incomplete script. (At least the IBM script was complete, though wrong.) With AWS the script was better. I could enter terraform plan and terraform thought it looked good. But once I entered terraform apply to build the resources, it failed.

I suspect the larger problem is lack of sufficient overlapping data for the AI tools to train on. So it sort of gets the code right, but sort of isn’t really good enough.

I see people on the Internet raving about how well AI is doing writing code. Some of the examples are interesting, but I think it has a way to go. I’ll stick to doing my day job. Without AI to help. 🙂

 

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What I find interesting in tech and can tell you about, Dec 2022

Posted on December 15, 2022 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech and can tell you about, Dec 2022


Time once again to show what IT stuff I’ve been doing in the last few months. Some of it I can’t include here due to confidentiality reasons, and there’s some things I want to write about separately. The rest is below and worth checking out.

Software: I’ve been doing some python programming lately, so I found these useful: How you can get your browser history via a python library. Also How to Create Your Own Google Chrome Extension...I’ve been wanting to do this. I used this tutorial recently to build a simple stopwatch With Javascript. Relatedly, here’s a  Free Countdown Timer for Your Website.

I’ve been looking into PyQT for a number of reasons so I found these good: How to Install PyQt for Python in MacOS?, and Python PyQt5 Tutorial – Example and Applications, and pyqt statusbar – Python Tutorial.

Here’s some useful git stuff: Merge Strategies in Git and  best practices on rolling out code scanning at enterprise scale.

Now useful but  cool: matrix webcam. Also this is a cool shell.

A thoughtful piece on DevOps metrics. As for this, DevOps is Bullshit, can’t say I agree.

Finally, I’ve been getting into Neo4J and found this helpful:  Neo4j and graph databases: Getting started.

Hardware/Pi: is this the next new thing: stretchable display? This fast charger is also fun. Game fans, take note: Steam is coming to Chromebooks. 

This is good:  iphone 14 is the most repairable since iphone 7. This is awesome: this retro punk nixie wristwatch actually uses authentic nixie tubes to tell the time. This is handy:  13 great arduino projects to try.

I love this:  Nerdy Hanukkah Card! I also love the idea of making a Raspberry Pi-powered radio. More on that here: at Instructables. Also a good project: How to use Google Assistant on the Raspberry Pi.

Cloud: Here’s some AWS help:  choosing an aws container service to run your modern application, and pointing your Namecheap Domain Name to AWS Linux, and db2 and amazon web services better together.

Some IBM Cloud help: share resources across your ibm cloud accounts, and migrating a large database into ibm cloud databases. Also: Get started with IBM Wazi as a Service.

Some other interesting essays on cloud:

Misc: RIP Kathleen Booth, inventor of Assembly Language. Same for another giant, Frederick P Brooks.

The future is weird:  bereal app gets real roasted with memes and gifs are cringe and for boomers giphy claims.

This surprised me:  amazon alexa is a colossal failure on pace to lose 10 billion this year. In other news, here’s a review of amazon halo rise.

Stratechery by Ben Thompson is always worth a read. Here’s they are on Microsoft Full Circle.

Here’s three stories. One on Zoho (how zoho became 1b company without a dime of external investment), one on Uber (uber says compromised credentials of a contractor led to data breach) and one on Sobeys (inside turmoil sobeys ransomware attack)

 

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Paper Macs! Doom on Doom! Build a Voight-Kampff machine! And more (What I find interesting in tech, Sept. 2022)

Posted on September 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Paper Macs! Doom on Doom! Build a Voight-Kampff machine! And more (What I find interesting in tech, Sept. 2022)

Here’s 70+ links of things I have found interesting in tech in the last while. It’s a real mix this time, but still contains a good chunk on cloud, hardware and software. Some good stuff on UML, Pi and Doom as well. (Love Doom.) Dig in!

Cloud: here’s a dozen good pieces I recommend on cloud computing…

  1. I think hybrid cloud is the future of cloud computing for big orgs, and IBM does too:  IBM doubles down on hybrid cloud
  2. Not to be confused with multicloud: Multicloud Explained: A cheat sheet | TechRepublic
  3. Speaking of that, here’s 3 multicloud lessons for cloud architects | InfoWorld
  4. Relatedly, Vendors keep misusing the “cloud native” label. Customers may not care. You should care, though.
  5. Cloud Foundry used to be the future, but now it’s time for this:  Migrating off of cloud foundry.
  6. I always find these RCAs good:  Details of the Cloudflare outage on July 2 2019
  7. Speaking of outages: Heat waves take out cloud data centers
  8. Google Gsuite: now with a fee. Good luck with that, Google.
  9. Is your app resilient? Consider this four step approach to verifying the resiliency of cloud native applications
  10. If you are an AWS/Oracle user:  using aws backup and oracle rman for backup restore of oracle databases on amazon ec2.
  11. Good tips:  How to add a custom domain to GitHub Pages with Namecheap – Focalise
  12. Good argument:  Rural carriers: We need more subsidies to build 5G

Software: here’s a mix of software pieces, from how to write good bash to how to run good scrums….

  1. Is Internet Explorer dead? Nope!  IE lives! In Korea.
  2. For bootstrap noobs:  Bootstrap tutorials
  3. Fun to consider:  How is computer programming different today than 20 years ago?
  4. Helpful:  Using Loops In Bash – Earthly Blog
  5. More bash goodness:  Bash – Earthly Blog
  6. Related:  Good SED advice
  7. Some python help:  Automate Internet Life With Python | Hackaday
  8. More python:  Analyze Your Amazon Data with Python.
  9. I found this useful indeed:  Google API’s and python
  10. Load testing vs. stress testing: What are the main differences? Don’t confuse them.
  11. Good IFTTT guide:  Send me new jobs available every Monday – IFTTT
  12. Intriguing:   marcoarment/S3.php 
  13. Deploy any static site to GitHub Pages
  14. For fans of either: Visual studio and Terraform
  15. My friend Carl wrote this and it’s good:  The basics of scrum 

UML: I’ve been doing solution architecture lately, and as a result I have been using Visio and PlantUML. I love the latter and found some good links regarding it.

  1. I love PlantUML. Here’s some links on how to use it with Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code:  PlantUML – Visual Studio Marketplace.
  2. and here  UML Made Easy with PlantUML & VS Code – CodeProject
  3. PlantUML and YAML:  https://plantuml.com/yaml
  4. PlantUML and Sequence Diagrams
  5. More on  Sequence Diagram syntax and features

Hardware: here’s some good (and not so good) hardware stories….

  1. This is cool:  teenage engineering google pixel pocket operator
  2. Also cool:  paper thin retro macintosh comes with an e ink display and runs on a raspberry pi (Image on Top of this post!)
  3. Robots:  Roomba Amazon Astro and the future of home robots
  4. Macbook problems:  Macbook Air m2 slow ssd read write speeds testing benchmark 
  5. More Macbook problems:  Macbook repair program: FAIL
  6. Not great:  Starlink loses its shine
  7. A really dumb idea: the switchbot door lock
  8. Finally:  The 20 Most Influential PCs of the Past 40 Years


Pi: I still love the Raspberry Pi, and I want to do more with them soon.

  1. Nice to see this:Raspberry Pi Pico W: your $6 IoT platform – Raspberry Pi
  2. Related:  How to Connect Your Raspberry Pi Pico W to Twitter via IFTTT | Tom’s Hardware
  3. How cool is this?  LISP on Raspberry Pi
  4. Awesome: make your own VK Machine:  Cool Pi Project (image above)

Sensors: one thing I was going to do with a Pi is build a CO2 meter to check on air flow. However the sensor most used for this, the MQ-135, is not all that great. It’s a problem with cheap sensors in general: you just don’t get good results. To see what I mean, read these links:

  1. BUILD YOUR HOME CO2 METER
  2. MQ-135 Gas Sensor with Arduino Code and Circuit Diagram
  3. Measure CO2 with MQ-135 and Arduino Uno – Rob’s blog
  4. Measuring CO2 with MQ135
  5. Air Pollution Monitoring and Alert System Using Arduino and MQ135

Doom! I love stories of how people port the game DOOM onto weird devices. Stories like these….

  1. So many different ports!  Weird devices that run DOOM
  2. Cool!  Even DOOM Can Now Run DOOM! | Hackaday
  3. More on that:  Run Doom inside Doom!

Kubernetes: Still keeping up my reading on K8S. For example:

  1. You’ve written a kubernetes native application here is how openshift helps you to run develop build and deliver it securely.
  2. Benefits of Kubernetes 

Twitter: I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten tired of the drama around Elon Musk wanting to buy twitter. However I had a recent spasm where I was reading somewhat on it. Here’s what I read:

  1. Twitter, Musk and Mudge
  2. More on Zatko
  3. Also  Zatko
  4. More on Twitter
  5. Whistleblower: Twitter misled investors FTC and underplayed spam issues. Ok, that’s enough.

Finally: 

  1. Beware Tiktok!  TikTok’s In-App Browser Includes Code That Can Monitor Your Keystrokes. These special browsers have to go.
  2. A bad use of AI in France:  taxing pool owners with hidden pools. It’s bad because the success rate is poor.
  3. Lots of good tech articles at Earthly Blog
  4. Lots of good tutorials at Earthly Blog too.
  5. How do I link my domain to GitHub Pages – Domains – Namecheap.com
  6. Mark Zuckerberg braces Meta employees for “intense period”. That’s a shame, said no on.
  7. Updated: Hardware vendor differences led to Rogers outage says Rogers CTO. More on that Rogers outage.
  8. How to:  Fine-Tune and Prune Your Phone’x Contacts List from The New York Times. Useful
  9. Also useful:  4 iPhone and Android Tricks You May Not Know About – The New York Times
  10. Good to know:  How Updates in iOS 16 and Android 13 Will Change Your Phone – The New York Times
  11. Charge your phone differently:  Phone charging.
  12. Canadian orgs struggle with  Ransomware still.
  13. Apple expands commitment to protect users from mercenary spyware. Good.
  14. Related:  84 scam apps still active on App Store’s steal over $100 million annually

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What I find interesting in tech in general, Apr 2022

Posted on April 21, 2022 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech in general, Apr 2022


Well, I didn’t expect this week to be “what I find interesting in IT Week” , but here we are! I hope you have found it all useful. While the other posts were specific, these are of a general nature. From weird cool stuff to mainframes to iphones to architecture. Dig in!

IT Architecture: Here’s some tools you IT architects can use:

Cloud: some cloud related stuff:

Programming: here’s some things software and hardware folks might find interesting:

Finally: here’s some links that need to be seen without falling into a particular category:

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Tiny DOOM! And other things I find interesting in tech, February 2022

Posted on February 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Tiny DOOM! And other things I find interesting in tech, February 2022


I’ve been doing work in a number of areas recently: IT architecture, Azure, Kubernetes and more. As I do that, I collect a number of links, which I have below. As well, I put together some Raspberrry Pi links, because I love my Pi. Also DOOM because I will always click on a DOOM link. Lots of good material. Let’s review!

IT architecture: I’ve been thinking much about IT architecture these days, and I’ve been writing about it here: BLM on IT. One thing that helped me think about it was this: 5 diagrams you need to document your solution architecture. This is also helpful: Editable architecture diagram resources: IBM IT Architect Assistant. In addition, something on DDD:  Apply Domain-Driven Design to microservices architecture.

Devices: These two pieces are on new trends in devices:  Dell envisions a sustainable laptop allowing you to replace parts creating a design you could grow old with and Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 3 Laptop.

On the other hand, we have this: BlackBerry phone with keyboard is not dead. Remember netbooks? They were great little devices. Here’s a piece on them: Netbooks: The Form Factor Time Forgot.

Cool: Here’s something fun: The Best of 404PageFound and Other Primitive ’90s Websites That Still Exist. I love DOOM, so: Is this one of the smallest playable DOOM devices? and Pocket-Sized Doom Is Actually Playable. Speaking of small things, we have this, A VM in your browser,  this Writing a simple 16 bit VM in less than 125 lines of C and this System/360 simulator. Also this: CHUNGUS 2 – A very powerful 1Hz Minecraft CPU.

Raspberry Pi: for Pi fans, here’s some good links:

Cloud and DevOps: here’s some things I found worthwhile in that space

IBM: Here are two good initiatives my employer is providing: Good probono program from IBM to help environmental groups  and A good initiative from IBM to help on the matter of Racial Justice.

Azure: I have been doing tons of research of Microsoft’s Azure and so I have many links on it here. Enjoy!

Kubernetes:  I have been doing some Kubernetes work too which lead to these links in

Finally, here’s some other useful links I didn’t want to lose:

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What is a cloud architect and how to become one

Posted on November 26, 2021 | Comments Off on What is a cloud architect and how to become one


What is a cloud architect? Well, for one, it is me! But for a more general description, I thought this piece was really helpful: What is a cloud architect? A vital role for success in the cloud | CIO

The piece covers:

  • what they do
  • the various types of cloud architect
  • what they get paid
  • what skills they need
  • how to become one

Very thorough.

I’d like to add:

  • as a cloud architect, you are an architect first. By that I mean you need to know the cloud well, but clients and members of your team will look to you to bring your IT architect abilities first and foremost
  • relatedly, there will be times when the architecture decisions you produce and the architectural thinking you do will fall outside cloud technology. This is especially true of hybrid cloud, but true of other things as well (integration, networking, operations, application). A good architect has 2-3 areas they have depth in. Cloud can be one of them, but you should be able to go deep in other areas.

That piece is good for cloud architects, but also for people who want to become cloud architects. It’s also great for people wanting to hire cloud architects. Worth taking a few minutes to go over.

(Image via Pixabay)

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IBM Cloud, Terraform and DB2 (or some of what I find interesting in tech, nov 2021)

Posted on November 10, 2021 | 2 comments

Wow! I haven’t done one of these posts on things I have found interesting in tech since July! So of course there is a lot here! I need to do these more often.

For this one it is mostly on the cloud and IBM cloud especially. Not so much Kubernetes this time, but lots on Terraform and DB2 in the cloud. A bit of IoT. Some software. I have a section on IT history which I like too.

Grab a coffee or tea or what have you and dig in. Take what you can use.

IBM Cloud: As usual, I’ve been doing work on cloud…mainly IBM Cloud. Here’s some IBM Cloud Docs on using their API. This on the IBM CLI is  a good reference. Here’s a good Alerts Overview on LOGDNA. This is massively helpful: the API Reference for  https : //sldn.softlayer.com/ … it’s very useful on how to use the API to work with IBM cloud. Here’s something on Alerts using sysdig. More on tracking:  IBM Cloud Monitoring Logging and Activity Tracker with Teams ( a good repo).

Other clouds: While I support IBM Cloud, if you are leaning otherwise, this could be helpful: Accelerating your Migration to AWS. Speaking of  AWS: Augmenting VMware Cloud on AWS Workloads with Native AWS services. Here are some pieces on Azure: Microsoft Azure cloud vulnerability is the worst you can imagine. I have no comment. Hey, maybe it’s time to get off Windows and SQL Server 2012 (or run them on Azure). If that’s you, read that.

On cloud in general, in case you were wondering, the answer to this question: Resiliency Is Automatic When I Move to the Cloud Right? is No. Here’s an interesting piece: The love/hate relationship the cloud has with Linux

Time flies! Happy 15th Birthday Amazon EC2. Lastly, here are the 5 Biggest Cloud Computing Trends In 2022 

Terraform: in working on cloud recently, I’ve been using Terraform and gathering links on using it. Lots of them. Here they are in somewhat random order. For example, discover best-practice VPC configuration for application deployment. Another piece on   IBM and Terraform.  Here’s more on it. Need a terraform Template for Monitoring with Sysdig Teams? If you need to plan create and update deployment environments using TF and IBM Cloud. This is a good blog post on Provisioning IBM Cloud Services With Terraform. If you need to deploy a n-Tier Web App in a Virtual Private Cloud using Terraform & Ansible. This piece is essential if you want to create services in IBM Cloud using Terraform IBM Cloud Services Info. Here’s how to give a .tf file as input in Terraform Apply command.  A page on data sources in Terraform resources explained with example. How about how to create Multiple Instances in a VPC Using Terraform. Or how to create reusable infrastructure with Terraform modules. Or a VPC. Or an n-Tier Web App in a Virtual Private Cloud using Terraform & Ansible .Here’s a piece on IBM Cloud Toolchain- Managed Devops for Schematics/Terraform. If you want to create Virtual servers in IBM cloud Terraform with for loop. A good intro: Getting started with IBM Terraform provider.

Still more on getting started with Terraform. Something harder: How to deploy high-availability web app using Terraform.

DB2: I have been doing lots of work on using DB2 on IBM Cloud. Here’s something on querying the IBM Cloud Databases API from the Command Line. Here’s something on using RESTful APIs and Microservices to Work With Db2. Here’s some examples of using the DB2 API: DB2 get about info,  and  Db2 get overall stuff, and Using the DB2 API.

Kubernetes: doing less stuff on Kubernetes this month, but I thought these were good: OpenShift vs. Kubernetes: What is the Difference? Helpful: Enable Rolling updates in Kubernetes with Zero downtime. Also helpful: Configure Liveness Readiness and Startup Probes.

Software (plus AI): for my DB2 work, I was calling the APIs using bash scripts. Here’s the answer to the question: What is the simplest way to dockerize a bash script? from Quora . Here’s something on executing a SHELL script in a docker container. Relatedly, here’s how to run a Bash script in an Alpine Docker container? 

Here’s some Unix pieces: Canonical extends Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 life cycle to 10 years. Good! Here’s how to do this on Debian 9:upgrade python 3.5 to python 3.7. Relatedly, here’s how to Install Python 3 on Mac – Brew Install Update Tutorial. Also related: Python on MacOS (Big Sur) . More related stuff on this:  How to fix “macOS: xcrun: error: invalid active developer path missing xcrun” error? 

I used to love the language APL. Here are two things on it: Is APL Dead? and Dyalog APL Tutor. I am curious to see how this plays out: Microsoft announces Windows 11 SE a new Chrome OS competitor.

Here’s two random AI links: The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms (bad) and Motorist fined after CCTV confuses his number plate with woman’s T-shirt (funny bad).

IOT: Need to build front panels for your IOT projects? This is good for them. Relatedly the Ultratroninator3000.

Speaking of IOT projects, here’s some worth checking out: Top project ideas for the Raspberry Pi Zero. Then there is this: Simple Raspberry Pi Weather Station. Related: E-Ink Tide and Weather Tracker. This is a cool project for finance folks:  This tiny IoT ticker-meter turns your tabletop into a miniature stock forex and crypto market! Nice: Kobowriter transforms the Kobo Glo HD into an E Ink typewriter. I loved this: The Simpsons TV Made IRL with Raspberry Pi @Raspberry_Pi #PiDay #RaspberryPi.

IT History: here are a few good pieces on IT history. This was a great piece on how the iPod was developed: A Prototype Original iPod. Going back in time, here’s a good article on Sinclair’s amazing 1974 calculator hack. There was lots of talk about Sinclair computers after the great Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged recently at 81. Meanwhile in ancient history, IT wise: 50 years ago today the first UNIX Programmers Manual is released.

IBM History: I was reading this piece on  How IBM “lost the cloud” and it got me thinking. First, I don’t think IBM has lost the cloud business. I also think that IBM’s history is never straightforward and it is risky to count it out. For example, after e-business, IBM tried to promote the idea of autonomous computing. Here’s two pieces on it: Autonomic computing and Q&A: IBM sticks to autonomic computing agenda. It was a good idea, and it supported the work IBM was doing in the Tivoli space, but it was not as big a success as e-business IMHO. From there IBM did work on their Smarter Planet campaign and I believe it was more successful. I did some work in this area myself. From there IBM went into cloud. First there was a homegrown service, and then IBM bought Softlayer and went with that to compete with Amazon and then later Microsoft and Azure. For now the history is still being written. No one has won or lost until cloud is over or someone exits the field. Again, my opinion only.

Cool stuff: here’s something on a A LOST 1981 TRS-80 ADVENTURE GAME (SLIGHTLY REMASTERED FOR THIS CENTURY). Do you want to Turn your Android phone into a pocket Mac Plus? .Of course you do! Here’s a cool tool:  Doodle Ipsum. Check this out: This tiny Simpsons TV lets you watch tiny Simpsons TV. Very fun!

Here’s some cool Microsoft stuff:  Microsoft accounts to no longer need passwords and how to use a VBA procedure that deletes the current page in a Word document. Also this: Office Editing for Docs Sheets & Slides.

Here’s some cool Mac stuff: 12 Clever Apple TV 4K Settings Everyone Should Know About and macOS Terminal commands every Mac user should know

Very cool:  Need a new monitor for your computer? You can wear one on your face.

Generally:  here’s how to How to Mass Delete Emails in Gmail. Here’s a PrinCube Mobile Printer. I like it. Another cool device is this gloriously Fixable Laptop.

Speaking of laptops, here is the  Best cheap laptop of 2021. And here is something else cheap: The HP Chromebook 14 is just over $230 at Amazon right now. Relatedly, here’s 9 Reasons You Should Buy a Pixel 5a Over the iPhone SE.

These are some simple free fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything. And Elon Musk says Tesla is working on humanoid robots…sure…whatever edgelord.

Finally: document your code.  And remember, no matter how fast your networks get….

… never, never, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. 🙂

As always: thanks for reading this!

(Top photo from the story on the ipod. Bottom photo by Mostafa tarek on Unsplash)

 

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IBM Cloud tip: take advantage of tags to better manage your cloud environment

Posted on November 1, 2021 | Comments Off on IBM Cloud tip: take advantage of tags to better manage your cloud environment

Last week I encouraged you to  consider your naming standards before adding services. This week I’d like to encourage you to use tags as well to help you manage your IBM Cloud environment.

 

As this piece from the IBM Cloud Docs on Working with tags explains, you can use tags to

organize, track usage costs, and even manage access to your resources. You can tag related resources and view them throughout your account by filtering by tags from your resource list. To see a full list of tags in your account, go to Manage > Account in the IBM Cloud® console, and select Tags. You can apply user tags to organize your resources and easily find them later or help you with identifying specific team usage or cost allocation. By creating access management tags, you can control access to your resources without requiring updates to your IAM policies.

Here’s some examples, partially taken from the same piece:

  • Use tags to identify or even manage access to your development environment, not to mention QA, UAT, Production and DR
  • Use tags to identify or even manage access to a project: project:lw-wizard, app:poc-app
  •  Use tags to define compliance requirements: dataresidency:germany, compliance:hipaa, compliance:pii
  •  Use tags to help you automate optimization: schedule:24×7, maxruntime:12days

So use tags: your IBM cloud environment will be easier to operate if you do.

For more on this, here’s a good blog post on tags, here: Characteristics of User and Access Tags on IBM Cloud | IBM

And this piece in IBM Cloud Docs is a good tutorial that will guide you:

…through the steps to centrally manage access to the resources in your account at scale (using tags). By completing this tutorial, you learn how to create an access management tag, add the tag to selected resources, and define a policy to assign access to resources based on the tags on those resources.

Good stuff. Start using tags more and you will find it much easier to manage your resources in the IBM Cloud. If you are unsure, start with a few for now (e.g. tag your production environment, tag resources belong to specific groups).  You’ll start to see the benefits soon.

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IBM Cloud tip: consider your naming standards before adding services

Posted on October 25, 2021 | 1 comment

Before adding services to your IBM Cloud environment, consider adopting a naming standard for them. By default IBM Cloud services will give them a unique name (e.g.IBM Log Analysis-4g, DB2-r0). While that may be fine, giving them a name that clearly identifies their role and service (e.g. DB2-Development, IBM Log Analysis for Production) helps the support teams do their job easier. It can also help later if you are deciding to pare back services. If you have 10 instances of DB2 or 100 devices, clear naming standards will also help you decide which ones to delete and which ones to keep.

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What I find interesting in tech, August 2021

Posted on August 31, 2021 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech, August 2021

Here’s a cornucopia of things I have found interesting in tech in the last month. As usual, lots of cloud, some Kubernetes, DevOps and software of course, as well as IOT. Grab a drink and read!

Cloud: 

Devops:

Software:

Kubernetes:

Security:

IOT:

Cool stuff:

General

(Photo by Sam Albury on Unsplash )

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What I found interesting in tech, July 2021

Posted on August 1, 2021 | Comments Off on What I found interesting in tech, July 2021

Here’s 59 links (!) of things I have found interesting in tech in the last while.

It ‘s heavily skewed towards Kubernetes because that’s mostly what I have been involved with. Some stuff on Helm, since I was working on a tricky situation with Helm charts. There’s some docker and Open Shift of course, since it’s related. There’s a few general pieces on cloud. And finally at the end there’s links to a bunch of worthwhile repos.

Almost all of these links are self explanatory. The ones that aren’t…well…few if anyone but me reads these posts anyway. 🙂 Just treat it like a collection of potentially good resources.

Raspberry Pi / Pico: I have been interested in doing work with the Raspberry Pi Pico, so here are some links I liked:
Raspberry Pi Pico: Programming with the Affordable Microcontroller and Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico – Control LED brightness with PWM | Raspberry Pi Projects and How to Use an OLED Display With Raspberry Pi Pico | Tom’s Hardware.

I am interested in getting bluetooth working with my Raspberry Pi Pico, so I am reading things like Bluetooth serial communication with Mac, JY-MCU Bluetooth and Arduino | Cy-View and How to: Setup a bluetooth connection between Arduino and a PC/Mac | ./notes and Cheap BlueTooth Buttons and Linux – Terence Eden’s Blog

Not a Pico, but I am also interested in doing work with the ATTTiny 85 chip, so I saved this: How to Program an ATtiny 85 Digispark : 8 Steps – Instructables

Here’s two projects I am interested in. Using a Pico to press a key on the Mac using bluetooth: How to run an AppleScript with a keyboard shortcut on macOS while here is a fun project – Making an Email-Powered E-Paper Picture Frame–

Here’s some cool MIDI projects with a Pico: this one, NEW GUIDE: Modal MIDI Keyboard @adafruit @johnedgarpark #adafruit #midi « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers, this Code the Modal MIDI Controller | Modal MIDI Keyboard | Adafruit Learning System, and this Build smart, custom mechanical keyboards for MIDI – or really tiny Ableton Live control – CDM Create Digital Music

Kubernetes/OpenShift / Containers: I’ve been doing more and more work on K8S and OpenShift and found these useful…

Cloud: some advanced cloud knowledge here:

Software Development: here’s some random dev links:

 

 

General: finally here are some interesting links on IT in general:

(Image: via NYT piece on mesh)

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In the future, will you own anything?

Posted on July 15, 2021 | Comments Off on In the future, will you own anything?


In 2030, you may not own any gadgets, says this Gizmodo piece: In the Future, You Won’t Own Any Gadgets.

It makes some strong points. It’s true, younger people aren’t as keen to own things. (Heck, this is also true of older people who get fed up with the accumulation of things). And companies are keen to lease things. Add that up and you will see less and less owning.

From an IT perspective, I’ve been through this before. For a long time IBM had a very strong business in leasing technology. That gradually went away and more and more companies bought their technology. Then server farms came followed by the cloud, and now we are effectively seeing companies lease more IT again. Will it switch back again?

I think so. Eventually the cons outweigh the pros, be it for leasing or owning. People will move to leasing because it saves them money in the short term. Then eventually it gets more costly and the restrictions on the leases push them to own things again. Until the costs of owning add up and they switch back to leasing.

So yes, people will be moving to leasing for some time. Then they will switch back to owning more stuff. Of this I am confident.

(Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash)

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What I find interesting in tech, May/June 2021

Posted on June 3, 2021 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech, May/June 2021

Here’s what I found interesting lately in tech, from cloud to coding and lots more.

Cloud: I’ve been doing lots of work on Azure recently. Some things I found useful were this listing of Virtual machine sizes Also disk types. This piece on how to expand your virtual hard disks on a Linux VM was good. If you want to run Websphere on Azure, read this: Run WebSphere Application Server on Azure Virtual Machines.  If you want to learn more about deploying applications in Red Hat, read this. Finally here’s some good stuff from IBM on
Cloud Architectures.

Coding: If you want to print coloured text in Python — and who wouldn’t? — this is good. If you want to turn your HTML into an RSS feed, read this.  This will help you set up VS Code to do PHP Development. For people wanting to learn more about machine learning, IBM can help you. If you love Prolog or Javascript — or both! — check out: Tau-Prolog

Raspberry Pi/IOT: This is a great guide on how to troubleshoot problems with a Pi. This is a cool project using an OLED to make a clicker counter. If you need to load an OS or anything else on a Flash card, check out balenaEtcher. Here’s some advice on getting started with Bluetooth Low Energy. If you want to connect a raw serial terminal to a bluetooth connection, read that. If you want to do a cool Raspberry Pi Pico project with a MIDI, see this.

Fun and cool: Not a real Captcha, but a real fun one! DOOM Captcha – Captchas don’t have to be boring. Also fun: Crappy robots, ranked!. As an old user of 3270s, this downloadable version of 3270 fonts is awesome. Speaking of cool, here’s kinda the source code for Eliza! Check it out.

Other: Here’s some help on how to control smart home devices using speakers and displays. Here’s a good reminder that robots have a way to go yet: Peanut the Waiter Robot Is Proof That Your Job Is Safe. Developers! Here’s What’s Hot/What’s Not in terms of skills. Finally, have you considered how to
write software that lasts 50 years?

(Image via Raspberry Pi)

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What I find interesting in tech, April 2021. Now with Quantum Computing inside!

Posted on April 2, 2021 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech, April 2021. Now with Quantum Computing inside!

Here’s 9000 links* on things I have found interesting in tech in the last while. There’s stuff on IT Architecture, cloud, storage, AIX/Unix, Open Shift, Pico, code, nocode, lowcode, glitch. Also fun stuff, contrarian stuff, nostalgic stuff. So much stuff. Good stuff! Stuff I have been saving away here and there.

On IT Architecture: I love a good reference architecture. Here’s one from an IBM colleague. If you need some cloud adoption patterns when doing IT architecture, read this. Here’s a tool to help architects design IBM Cloud architectures. Like it. Here’s some more tools to do IBM Cloud Architecture. Architectural Decision documentation is a key to being a good IT architect. Here’s some guidance on how to capture ADs. This is also good on
ADs I liked this:some good thoughts on software architecture.

Here’s some thoughts from a leading IT architect in IBM, Shahir Daya. He has a number of good published pieces including this and this.

One of my favorite artifacts as an architect is a good system context diagram. Read about it here. Finally, here’s a piece on UML that I liked.

Cloud: If you want to get started in cloud, read this on starting small. If you are worried about how much cloud can cost, then this is good. Here’s how to connect you site to others using VPN (good for GCP and AWS). A great piece on how the BBC has gone all in on serverless.. For fans of blue green deployments, read this. A good primer on liveness and readiness probes. Want to build you own serverless site? Go here

Storage: I’ve had to do some work recently regarding cloud storage. Here’s a
good tool to help you with storage pricing (for all cloud platforms). Here’s a link to help you with what IBM Cloud storage will cost. If you want to learn more about IBM Object storage go there. If you want to learn about the different type of storage, click here and here.

AIX/Unix: Not for everyone, but here is a good Linux command handbook. And here is a guide to move an AIX LPAR from one server to another. I recommend everyone who use any form of Unix, including MacOS, read
this. That’s a good guide to awk, sed and jq.

Open Shift:  If you want to learn more about Open Shift, this is a good intro. This is a good tutorial on deploying a simple app to Open Shift. If you want to try Open Shift, go here.

Raspberry Pi Pico:  If you have the new Pico, you can learn to set it up here.
Here’s some more intros to it. Also here. Good stuff. Also good is this if you want to add ethernet to a Raspberry Pi pico.

On Networking: If you want to know more about networking you want to read this, this and this. Also this. Trust me.

Code: Some good coding articles. How to process RSS using python. How to be a more efficient python programmer. Or why you should use LISP. To do NLP with Prolog the way IBM Watson did, check this out. If you want to make a web app using python and Flask, go here. If you need some python code to walk through all files within the folder and subfolders and get list of all files that are duplicates then you want this. Here’s how to set up your new MacBook for coding. Here’s a good piece on when SQL Isn’t the Right Answer

Glitch: I know people who are big fans of Glitch.com. If you want to see it’s coolness in action, check. out this and this

No Code Low Code: If you want to read some good no-code/low-code stuff to talk to other APIs, then check out this, this, and this.

Bookmarking tool: If you want to make your own bookmarking tool, read
this, this and this. I got into this because despite my best efforts to use the API of Pocket, I couldn’t get it to work. Read this and see if you get further.

Other things to learn: If you want to learn some C, check out this. AI? Read this Open Shift? Scan this. What about JQuery? Read this or that Bootstrap. this or this piece. Serverless? this looks fun. PouchDB? this and this. Express for Node? this. To use ansible to set up WordPress on Lamp with Ubuntu, go over this. To mount an NFTS mount on a Mac, see this. Here’s how to do a Headless Raspberry Pi Setup with Raspbian Stretch

Also Fun: a Dog API. Yep. Here is CSS to make your website look like Windows 98. A very cool RegEx Cheatsheet mug.. And sure, you can run your VMs in Minecraft if you go and read this. If you want to read something funny about the types of people on an IT project, you definitely want this.

Contrarian stuff: Here are some contrarian tech essays I wanted to argue against, but life is too short. Code is law. Nope. Tech debt doesn’t exist.Bzzzt. Wrong. Don’t teach your kids to code. Whatever dude. Use ML to turn 5K into 200K. Ok. Sure.

Meanwhile: Back to earth, if you want to use bluetooth tech with your IOT projects, check out this, this, this, and this. If you have an old Intel on a stick computer and want to upgrade it (I do), you want this. If you want to run a start up script on a raspberry pi using crontab, read this If you want to use Google Gauge Charts on your web site, then read this and this.

Nostalgia: OS/2 Warp back in the 90s was cool. Read all about it
here.Think ML is new? Read about Machine Learning in 1951
here. This is a good piece on Xerox Parc. Here is some weird history on FAT32. And wow, here is the source code for CP/67/CMS. And I enjoyed this on Margaret Hamilton.

Finally: Here are IBM’s design principles to combat domestic abuse. Here is how and why to start building useful real world-software with no experience. Lastly, the interesting history of the wrt54g router

(* Sorry there was less than 9000 links. Also no quantum computing inside this time. Soon!)

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Need a temporary Mac? Now with AWS, you can get one!

Posted on December 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Need a temporary Mac? Now with AWS, you can get one!

How? By using their cloud service: AWS brings the Mac mini to its cloud.

Perfect for those times you need access to a Mac for a short period of time (e.g. testing software).

Throughout my career I have been involved with Macs and cloud technology. I remember when Apple made Mac servers. There was even a separate MacOS for them. So I am loving this evolution and the repositioning of Macs in a data center.

Image from here which also has a write up on this.

 

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What I find interesting in tech, November 2020

Posted on November 30, 2020 | Comments Off on What I find interesting in tech, November 2020

Kubernetes

Here’s 59 links (!) of things I have found interesting in tech in the last while. It ‘s heavily skewed towards Kubernetes because that’s mostly what I have been involved with. Some stuff on Helm, since I was working on a tricky situation with Helm charts. There’s some docker and Open Shift of course, since it’s related. There’s a few general pieces on cloud. And finally at the end there’s links to a bunch of worthwhile repos.

Almost all of these links are self explanatory. The ones that aren’t…well…few if anyone but me reads these posts anyway. 🙂 Just treat it like a collection of potentially good resources.

  1. How to create custom Helm charts
  2. How to make a Helm chart in 10 minutes | Opensource.com
  3. Basic kubectl and Helm commands for beginners | Opensource.com
  4. A visual guide on troubleshooting Kubernetes deployments
  5. Kubernetes Canary Deployments for User Beta testing | by Damien Marshall | ITNEXT
  6. Hands-on guide: developing & deploying Node.js apps in Kubernetes
  7. Deploying Java Applications with Docker and Kubernetes – O’Reilly
  8. Kubernetes, Kafka Event Sourcing Architecture Patterns, and Use Case Examples – DZone Big Data
  9. 10 most important differences between OpenShift and Kubernetes – cloudowski.com
  10. Node.js in a Kubernets world – IBM Developer
  11. Learn Kubernetes in Under 3 Hours: A Detailed Guide to Orchestrating Containers
  12. Service accounts — Kubernetes on AWS 0.1 documentation
  13. Copy directories and files to and from Kubernetes Container [POD] | by Nilesh Suryavanshi | Medium
  14. Monitoring Kubernetes in Production: How To Guide | Sysdig
  15. Kubernetes Cheat Sheet | Red Hat Developer
  16. Kubernetes In a Nutshell | Enqueue Zero
  17. Kubernetes Deployment in a Nutshell | Clivern
  18. Kubernetes namespaces for beginners | Opensource.com
  19. Level up your use of Helm on Kubernetes with Charts | Opensource.com
  20. Running Solr on Kubernetes
  21. Solr on Kubernetes on Portworx
  22. Zookeeper – Unofficial Kubernetes
  23. Kubernetes for Everyone
  24. Chris Biscardi’s Digital Garden
  25. Istio / Getting Started
  26. How To Set Up a Kubernetes Monitoring Stack with Prometheus, Grafana and Alertmanager on DigitalOcean | DigitalOcean
  27. Kubernetes Ingress Controllers: How to choose the right one: Part 1 | by Eric Liu | ITNEXT
  28. An introduction to Minishift, OpenShift, and IBM Cloud – IBM Developer
  29. How To Set Up an Nginx Ingress on DigitalOcean Kubernetes Using Helm | DigitalOcean
  30. An introduction to Kubernetes.
  31. Health checks in Kubernetes for your Node.js applications – IBM Developer
  32. Beyond the basics with Cloud Foundry – IBM Developer
  33. Build a cloud-native Java app using Codewind and your favorite IDE – IBM Developer
  34. Accelerating the application containerization journey – Cloud computing news
  35. 6 Key Elements for a Successful Cloud Migration | IBM
  36. An introduction to Minishift, OpenShift, and IBM Cloud – IBM Developer
  37. There aren’t enough humans for cloud-native infra. Can DevOps deal? – SiliconANGLE
  38. Leverage deep learning in IBM Cloud Functions – IBM Developer
  39. CloudReady for Home: Free Download — Neverware
  40. Council Post: It’s Time To Accelerate Your Hybrid Or Multicloud Strategy
  41. Getting started with solution tutorials
  42. How to get started with GCP  |  Google Cloud
  43. Setting up Solr Cloud 8.4.1 with Zookeeper 3.5.6 | by Amrit Sarkar | Medium
  44. solr – How to force a leader on SolrCloud? – Stack Overflow
  45. Play with Docker Classroom
  46. Getting any Docker image running in your own OpenShift cluster
  47. Building Docker Images inside Kubernetes | by Vadym Martsynovskyy | Hootsuite Engineering | Medium
  48. Get an IBM MQ queue for development on Windows – IBM Developer
  49. Ultimate Guide to Installing Kafka Docker on Kubernetes – DZone Big Data
  50. Kafka on Kubernetes — a good fit? | by Johann Gyger | Noteworthy – The Journal Blog
  51. How To Install Apache Kafka on Debian 10 | DigitalOcean
  52. Chapter 7. Monitoring and performance – Kafka Streams in Action: Real-time apps and microservices with the Kafka Streams API [Book]
  53. charts/incubator/cassandra at master · helm/charts · GitHub
  54. atlas-helm-chart/charts/zookeeper at master · xmavrck/atlas-helm-chart · GitHub
  55. nhs-app-helm-chart/solr.yaml at master · pajmd/nhs-app-helm-chart · GitHub
  56. GitHub – manjitsin/atlas-helm-chart: Kubernetes Helm Chart to deploy Apache Atlas
  57. GitHub – IBM/Scalable-WordPress-deployment-on-Kubernetes: This code showcases the full power of Kubernetes clusters and shows how can we deploy the world’s most popular website framework on top of world’s most popular container orchestration platform.
  58. A Dockerfile with (almost) all the tools mentioned in Bite Size Networking by Julia Evans · GitHub
  59. GitHub – sburn/docker-apache-atlas: This Apache Atlas is built from the latest release source tarball and patched to be run in a Docker container.

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Quote

Is Cloud Computing Green?

It depends on how you measure it, but according to this New York Times Article, cloud computing has brought environmental benefits.

The article starts with this:

The computer engine rooms that power the digital economy have become surprisingly energy efficient.

A new study of data centers globally found that while their computing output jumped sixfold from 2010 to 2018, their energy consumption rose only 6 percent. The scientists’ findings suggest concerns that the rise of mammoth data centers would generate a surge in electricity demand and pollution have been greatly overstated.

That’s good. The other good thought here is that centralized computing can continue to drive out efficiencies that distributed computing can not.

All in all, one more reason for companies to embrace cloud computing.

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Posted on March 23, 2020 in IT, new!

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How to better understand Kubernetes networking

Posted on May 3, 2018 | Comments Off on How to better understand Kubernetes networking

Kubernetes networking is a non-trivial thing to understand, but if you are going to get into the use of Kubernetes, then you need to understand it. This trio of posts is a good way to do that. Highly recommended.

  1. Understanding kubernetes networking: pods – Google Cloud Platform — Community – Medium
  2. Understanding kubernetes networking: services – Google Cloud Platform — Community – Medium
  3. Understanding kubernetes networking: ingress – Google Cloud Platform — Community – Medium

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What I find interesting in tech, November 2017

Posted on November 6, 2017 | 1 comment


Here’s an assortment of 42 links covering everything from Kubernetes to GCP and other cloud platforms to IoT to Machine Learning and AI to all sorts of other things. Enjoy! (Image from the last link)

  1. Prometheus Kubernetes | Up and Running with CoreOS , Prometheus and Kubernetes: Deploying – Kubernetes monitoring with Prometheus in 15 minutes – some good links on using Prometheus here
  2. Deploying a containerized web application  |  Container Engine Documentation  |  Google Cloud Platform – a good intro to using GCP
  3. How to classify workloads for cloud migration and decide on a deployment model – Cloud computing news – great insights for any IT Architects
  4. IP Address Locator – Where is this IP Address? – a handy tool, especially if you are browsing firewall logs
  5. Find a Google Glass and kick it from the network – Detect and disconnect WiFi cameras in that AirBnB you’re staying in– Good examples of how to catch spying devices
  6. The sad graph of software death – a great study on technical deby
  7. OpenTechSchool – Websites with Python Flask – get started building simple web sites using Python
  8. Build Your Own “Smart Mirror” with a Two-Way Mirror and an Android Device – this was something I wanted to do at some point
  9. Agile for Everybody: Why, How, Prototype, Iterate – On Human-Centric Systems – Medium – Helpful for those new or confused by Agile
  10. iOS App Development with Swift | Coursera – For Swift newbies
  11. Why A Cloud Guru Runs Serverless on AWS | ProgrammableWeb – If you are interested in serverless, this is helpful
  12. Moving tech forward with Gomix, Express, and Google Spreadsheets | MattStauffer.com – using spreadsheets as a database. Good for some
  13. A Docker Tutorial for Beginners – More Docker 101.
  14. What is DevOps? Think, Code, Deploy, Run, Manage, Learn – IBM Cloud Blog – DevOps 101
  15. Learning Machine Learning | Tutorials and resources for machine learning and data analysis enthusiasts – Lots of good ML links
  16. Importing Data into Maps  |  Google Maps JavaScript API  |  Google Developers – A fine introduction into doing this
  17. Machine learning online course: I just coded my first AI algorithm, and oh boy, it felt good — Quartz – More ML
  18. New Wireless Tech Will Free Us From the Tyranny of Carriers | WIRED – This is typical Wired hype, but interesting
  19. How a DIY Network Plans to Subvert Time Warner Cable’s NYC Internet Monopoly – Motherboard – related to the link above
  20. Building MirrorMirror – more on IT mirrors
  21. Minecraft and Bluemix, Part 1: Running Minecraft servers within Docker – fun!
  22. The 5 Most Infamous Software Bugs in History – OpenMind – also fun!
  23. The code that took America to the moon was just published to GitHub, and it’s like a 1960s time capsule — Quartz – more fun stuff. Don’t submit pull requests 🙂
  24. The 10 Algorithms Machine Learning Engineers Need to Know – More helpful ML articles
  25. User Authentication with the MEAN Stack — SitePoint – if you need authentication, read this…
  26. Easy Node Authentication: Setup and Local ― Scotch – .. or this
  27. 3 Small Tweaks to make Apache fly | Jeff Geerling – Apache users, take note
  28. A Small Collection of NodeMCU Lua Scripts – Limpkin’s blog – Good for ESP users
  29. Facebook OCP project caused Apple networking team to quit – Business Insider – Interesting, though I doubt Cisco is worried
  30. Hacked Cameras, DVRs Powered Today’s Massive Internet Outage — Krebs on Security – more on how IoT is bad
  31. Learn to Code and Help Nonprofits | freeCodeCamp – I want to do this
  32. A Simple and Cheap Dark-Detecting LED Circuit | Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories – a fun hack
  33. Hackers compromised free CCleaner software, Avast’s Piriform says | Article [AMP] | Reuters – this is sad, since CCleaner is a great tool
  34. Is AI Riding a One-Trick Pony? – MIT Technology Review – I believe it is and if AI proponents are not smart they will run into another AI winter.
  35. I built a serverless Telegram bot over the weekend. Here’s what I learned. – Bot developers might like this.
  36. Google’s compelling smartphone pitch – Pixel 2 first impressions | IT World Canada News – The Pixel 2 looks good. If you are interested, check this out
  37. Neural networks and deep learning – more ML
  38. These 60 dumb passwords can hijack over 500,000 IoT devices into the Mirai botnet – more bad IoT
  39. If AWS is serious about Kubernetes, here’s what it must do | InfoWorld – good read
  40. 5 Ways to Troll Your Neural Network | Math with Bad Drawings – interesting
  41. IBM, Docker grow partnership to drive container adoption across public cloud – TechRepublic – makes sense
  42.  Modern JavaScript Explained For Dinosaurs – fun

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Serious about your music? You might want to avoid Apple Music then

Posted on July 23, 2015 | 1 comment

If you are serious about your music and you already have alot of digital music, you must read this before getting started with Apple Music: Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it. If you don’t read it and proceed, you may find your music collection in shambles.

Maybe it will be better in a year from now. Based on iTunes, though, I seriously doubt it.

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How to be more productive at work? check out what tools other people use

Posted on December 17, 2014 | Comments Off on How to be more productive at work? check out what tools other people use

Chances are, if you talk to five different people at work, you will find five tools or techniques they use to be productive that you hadn’t even heard of.

Rather than do your own polling, you can also check out this article: Most Popular Apps Employees Use At Work – Business Insider.

Remember, these are just for work, and yes, Facebook still shows up there. And this is just the cloud / distributed services. (Also, I am wondering Evernote didn’t show up there.)

I  would be surprised if you read it and didn’t adopt at least one of the items on the list by the end of your work day. Good luck.

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How IBM SoftLayer’s Private Network works (technical, obvs)

Posted on October 17, 2014 | Comments Off on How IBM SoftLayer’s Private Network works (technical, obvs)

Many clients ask about this, and there is often confusion over the private aspect of the network. Confused or not, a good place to get clarification is here: Private Network | SoftLayer Blog.

Here’s a representation of the networking layout (you can get a bigger version of it at the SoftLayer blog):

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Posted in advice, IT

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Are you looking to move things to the cloud?

Posted on August 19, 2014 | Comments Off on Are you looking to move things to the cloud?

Then I recommend you review this article: How to classify workloads for cloud migration and decide on a deployment model – Thoughts on Cloud.

I really like this diagram, for starters:

P.S. Yes, it is hard to read, I know. The article has a version that is readable.

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Posted in IT

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Bezos’s (naturally) says it’s time to ditch the datacenter for cloud computing

Posted on August 18, 2014 | 2 comments

And he and Softlayer (part of IBM) make a good case for it here: Bezos’s law signals it’s time to ditch the data center  in Tech News and Analysis.

This reminds me of a similar article, by Nicholas Carr, that was famous some time ago: Does IT Matter?

In both cases, where IT is a commodity like electricity or running water, getting the lowest cost and most generic (but good quality) version of it should be the goal.

However, IT can also be used as a differentiator. So can a data center. In those cases, company’s should control and manage their IT / data center to give themselves a competitive advantage.

P.S. As always, these views are my own and not necessarily my employers. See the “About” page for more on this.

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Posted in cloud

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A good list of Bluemix benefits here

Posted on August 13, 2014 | Comments Off on A good list of Bluemix benefits here

I highly recommend this post on the top five benefits of Bluemix for anyone considering using PaaS, Bluemix, or cloud technologies in general.

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The significance of cloud computing, as explained by the great Stephen Fry (@stephenfry)

Posted on April 4, 2014 | Comments Off on The significance of cloud computing, as explained by the great Stephen Fry (@stephenfry)

This is a really well done video on the importance of cloud computing. It’s 5 minutes long, and well worth it.

Obviously, I would argue that your best bet for Cloud Computing services is from the company I work for, but otherwise I highly recommend this.

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Posted in IT, youtube

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Who will be the big losers in the recent price drops in cloud computing?

Posted on April 1, 2014 | 2 comments

Over at The Motley Fool, there is this article, The Big Losers in the Cloud Pricing Wars, that talks about recent price drops for services at Amazon and Google and how these price drops will affect the cloud computing business. (The Cloud Pricing Wars is very dramatic – I am not sure it is an all out battle at this point: we need more time to see if that becomes the case)

Anyone interested in cloud computing should check it out.

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Is the Dropbox DMCA takedown thing new? And can Dropbox even do that?

Posted on March 30, 2014 | Comments Off on Is the Dropbox DMCA takedown thing new? And can Dropbox even do that?

I’ve been seeing this showing up on Twitter alot lately:

And so I had two questions: 1) is this new? 2) and can Dropbox do this? I found the answers here: About that Dropbox DMCA thing … | Android Central. The short answers are 1) no 2) yes. (Click through the link for the details.)

Dropbox is a great tool for sharing files, provided they are yours. Always remember: the Dropbox folder is not “yours”, even if the files you place there are. (And if they are not your files, then you have another set of problems.)

 If your files are important, I recommend you don’t make Dropbox your one and only place to store them. The more important files are to you, the more backups you should have.

 

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