Blog

Update (2023-06-23) I’ve created a page on the DevOps’ish site so that you’ll always have the latest access to what I’m sharing out to social media. The DevOps’ish Firehose is available for your regular consumption (Bonus: there’s an RSS feed) In the last issue of DevOps’ish, I stated, “I’m under explicit doctor’s orders to cut stressors out and do things that bring me more joy… I need to stop doing so much.” For this post, “we” could be a combo of myself, my medical team, and my family. We’ve been monitoring many health metrics through many sensors. (Yes, I should put it all in Grafana, but time). ...

I found a topic that I’m going to suggest for an Open Space at every DevOpsDays I go to from this point forward: “Container Conundrum: Pain points around containers” These notes are presented here without opinion. Distilling these notes into a concise narrative will be the topic for an introduction to an upcoming DevOps’ish newsletter. Please subscribe today! I think the best way to look at these notes is to assume that each bullet point is a pain point. ...

I’m not going to lie. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a helpful technology. It’s supposed to have made getting a Linux environment on Windows easier. However, having just tried getting it up and running on the lone Windows box I own, I can confirm it’s a pain to install unless you’re a Windows system administrator or know what you’re doing. The hype for WSL2 appears to have overlooked the user experience. ...

This introduction to eBPF is adapted from the beginning of DevOps’ish 278 I occasionally ask for writing prompts from folks on Twitter for DevOps’ish. Sometimes asking on social media works well. Other times it’s giving someone a good URL and still scratching my head about what to write. But for DevOps’ish 278, the people have spoken. They want to learn more about eBPF. What is eBPF? eBPF (which is no longer an acronym for anything) is a revolutionary technology with origins in the Linux kernel that can run sandboxed programs in a privileged context such as the operating system kernel. It is used to safely and efficiently extend the capabilities of the kernel without requiring to change kernel source code or load kernel modules. ...

I opened someone’s Twitter profile in April and saw a Linktree URL. I click it and start to poke around after signing up for an account. The changing gradient backgrounds amuse me. I appreciate the mobile-friendliness and the built-in analytics. I needed something like this to help me add newsletter subscribers, guide folks to my various projects, and all the other things Linktree does. I have a lot of sites and social profiles. Plus, Linktree is better than throwing my entire website at someone and saying, “You figure me out.” With a Zapier integration, this can lead to newsletter signups too?!?! “I kinda need this,” I think to myself. I plop down my $60 for a year of service and spend the next few weeks adding, tweaking, and tinkering. Then let it sit. ...