Always update the BIOS first
A reminder from a failed Bluefin installation: update the BIOS before losing hours debugging Linux boot issues.
The Monospace Mentor blog
Easily digestible pieces of information written to make you more successful.
8
Automation
Career
Collaboration
Community
CompanyCulture
Course
Deployment
DevOps
DistributedTeam
Documentation
Junior
Learning
Linux
Management
MentalHealth
MentorMonologue
OpenSourceSoftware
Podman
Rails
RemoteWork
Ruby
Shell
Skills
SoftwareEngineering
TeamWork
Testing
Vim
genAI
no
random
A rocky but encouraging start with Rails credentials
Lessons from a difficult Rails credentials migration while upgrading a managed hosting dashboard from Rails 6.0 to 7.1.
Flatpak saved my live stream
A rough weekend rebuilding my livestreaming setup after switching from X11 to Wayland.
Taking time off is part of the job
Taking time off is not a guilty exception to work. It is part of sustainable engineering work itself.
I was on the Beyond Blocks podcast
A conversation on the Beyond Blocks podcast about Drupal, infrastructure automation, DevOps, Linux training, and keyboards.
The secret to Linux workstation peace of mind
Why Bluefin has become my default Linux workstation setup and how it supports a calmer engineering workflow.
Talk: Infrastructure as Ruby Code
A recording of my Ruby Unconf Hamburg 2024 talk about configuring servers with Chef and CINC.
Reading recommendations, week 35/2024
AI for sysadmins, a non-murderous design pattern, how to apply for SRE jobs and how to find focus doing them, and an interesting fish.
Reading recommendations, week 33/2024
The role of mentorship, why Perl remains indispensable today, how to do a personal retreat, remembering the LAN, and how to cleanly shut down Kubernetes pods.
My top 5 DevOps book recommendations
Five DevOps book recommendations for software engineers and system administrators entering the field.
How you know if you are improving
How to tell whether your learning efforts are actually helping you improve as an engineer.
The three key drivers for making progress
Motivation problems often point to a missing driver: purpose, progress, or people to learn and work with.