On diversity
··2117 words·10 mins
Diverse teams lead to great outcomes, but how we measure diversity
remains a challenge. Enforcing it is even more challenging. 🌎
Advice
2023
Car buying guide
··2170 words·11 mins
If you love to nerd out on just about anything, give it a try the next time you buy a car.
Open source contributions: Just do it
··1169 words·6 mins
Want to make a change in an open source project? Take the Nike approach and Just Do It. 👟
Engineering through layoffs
··1457 words·7 mins
Layoffs create traumatic times for many. Find ways to break through the frustration
and pain. For those that stay, your ability to influence the business can grow. 🪴
Red flags
··1380 words·7 mins
Every job has its ups and downs, but when is it the right time to double down
or the right time to leave? Make a list of red flags that help you decide. 🚩
2022
Amateur Guide to Running
··1308 words·7 mins
Running gets me outside and gives me a challenge where I can compete against myself. Here are my tips for becoming an amateur runner. 🎽
Strong impacts require soft skills
··811 words·4 mins
Success at work depends on more than your technical ability. Improve your soft skills to increase your impact. 💪
How I write blog posts
··740 words·4 mins
This feels very meta, but I thought it would be a good idea to share my blog post writing process anyway. 📝
Raise the bar with an SBAR
··1457 words·7 mins
Efficiently communicate a problem and your recommendation in record time with an SBAR. 📝
2021
Persuasion engineering
··2359 words·12 mins
Improve your persuasive skills to get your team on board with solutions to tough problems. 🤔
2016
Why should students learn to write code?
··984 words·5 mins
There are lots of efforts underway to get students (young and old) to learn to write code.
Preventing critical services from deploying on the same OpenStack host
··579 words·3 mins
OpenStack’s compute service, nova, manages all of the virtual machines within a OpenStack cloud.
Talk recap: The friendship of OpenStack and Ansible
··569 words·3 mins
The 2016 Red Hat Summit is underway in San Francisco this week and I delivered a talk with Robyn Bergeron earlier today.
Troubleshooting OpenStack network connectivity
··1140 words·6 mins
NOTE: This post is a work in progress.
Lessons learned: Five years of colocation
··1958 words·10 mins
Back in 2011, I decided to try out a new method for hosting my websites and other applications: colocation.
Fight cynicism with curiosity
··779 words·4 mins
I’m always interested to talk to college students about technology and business in general.
Nobody is using your software project. Now what?
··887 words·5 mins
Working with open source software is an amazing experience.
2015
Talking to college students about information security
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I was recently asked to talk to Computer Information Systems students at the University of the Incarnate Word here in San Antonio about information security in the business world.
Impostor syndrome talk: FAQs and follow-ups
··1079 words·6 mins
I’ve had a great time talking to people about my “Be an inspiration, not an impostor” talk that I delivered in August.
Fedora Flock 2015: Keynote slides
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Fedora Flock 2015 is still going here in Rochester, New York, and I kicked off our second day with a keynote talk about overcoming impostor syndrome.
Book Review: Linux Kernel Development
··760 words·4 mins
I picked up a copy of Robert Love’s book, Linux Kernel Development, earlier this year and I’ve worked my way through it over the past several weeks.
Adventures with GRE and IPSec on Mikrotik routers
··1696 words·8 mins
I recently picked up a RB850GX2 from my favorite Mikrotik retailer, r0c-n0c.
Review: Lenovo X1 Carbon 3rd generation and Linux
··852 words·4 mins
After a boatload of challenges with what I thought would be my favorite Linux laptop, the Dell XPS 13 9343, I decided to take the plunge on a new Lenovo X1 Carbon (3rd gen). My late-2013 MacBook Pro Retina (MacbookPro11,1) had plenty of quirks when running Linux and I was eager to find a better platform.
2014
Evade the Breach
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This post appeared on the Rackspace Blog last week and I copied it here so that readers of this blog will see it.
DevOps and enterprise inertia
··780 words·4 mins
As I wait in the airport to fly back home from this year’s Red Hat Summit, I’m thinking back over the many conversations I had over breakfast, over lunch, and during the events.
Annoying security requests highlight company silos
··125 words·1 min
I stumbled upon this video earlier today via Tripwire’s Twitter feed:
Be an inspiration, not an impostor
··514 words·3 mins
Many of the non-technical posts on the blog are inspired by the comments of others.
2013
Information security nuggets from DevOps Weekly #150
··279 words·2 mins
Keeping an eye out for the DevOps Weekly email is something I’ve enjoyed since it started at the end of 2010.
Need an edge at work? Learn accounting and finance.
··639 words·3 mins
I spent two days last week in a class called “Accounting and Finance for Non-Financial Managers” at UT Austin’s Texas Executive Education program.
Handling terminal color escape sequences in less
··268 words·2 mins
This post is a quick one but I wanted to share it since I taught it to someone new today.
Changing your ssh server’s port from the default: Is it worth it?
··544 words·3 mins
Changing my ssh port from the default port (22) has been one of my standard processes for quite some time when I build new servers or virtual machines.
Reprint: Stop Disabling SELinux!
··708 words·4 mins
This article appeared in SC Magazine and I’ve posted it here as well.
Seriously, stop disabling SELinux
··147 words·1 min
After many discussions with fellow Linux users, I’ve come to realize that most seem to disable SELinux rather than understand why it’s denying access.
Survive the Google Reader exodus with Tiny Tiny RSS
··301 words·2 mins
It’s no secret that Google Reader is a popular way to keep up with your RSS feeds, but it’s getting shelved later this year.
Controlling sensitive company data means losing some control of it
··1073 words·6 mins
This year’s RSA Conference was full of very useful content but the most useful session for me was a peer to peer discussion regarding BYOD on mobile devices.
What my toddler taught me about information security
··894 words·5 mins
My new role has caused me to look at information security in a different way.
2012
Monitoring and protecting your reputation online
··706 words·4 mins
After a recent issue I had with some users in the Puppy Linux forums, I thought it might be prudent to write a post about how to monitor and protect your reputation online.
Great guide for using traceroute and understanding its results
··237 words·2 mins
Anyone who has been a system administrator for even a short length of time has probably used traceroute at least once.
What installing a ceiling fan can teach you about administering servers
··577 words·3 mins
The feedback from my last lengthy post (Lessons learned in the ambulance pay dividends in the datacenter) about analogies between EMS and server administration was mostly positive, so I decided to do it again!
Lessons learned in the ambulance pay dividends in the datacenter
··1495 words·8 mins
While cleaning up a room at home in preparation for some new flooring, I found my original documents from when I first became certified as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in Texas.
Getting a Technical Job at Rackspace
··741 words·4 mins
You’ve probably noticed that the blog has slowed down a bit recently.
Why technical people should blog (but don’t)
··1108 words·6 mins
I originally wrote this post for the Rackspace Blog but I decided to post it here in case some of my readers might have missed it.
Preparing for Red Hat Exams
··1006 words·5 mins
I originally wrote this post for the Rackspace Blog but I’ve posted it here just in case anyone following my blog’s feed finds it useful.
Looking back at the long road to becoming a Red Hat Certified Architect
··1991 words·10 mins
The grades came back last Friday and I’ve passed the last exam in the requirements to become a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA).
2011
How to write e-mails to nerds (that they will actually read)
··790 words·4 mins
Standard e-mail etiquette is pretty obvious to most of us and if you’re good at it, you’ll get your point across more often without stepping on toes or causing unneeded confusion.
Contest winners from the “Inspire a sysadmin” contest
··440 words·3 mins
Before I get started, I’d like to give a big thanks to all of the visitors who dropped by and participated in the contest last week.
Success with stress
··529 words·3 mins
This is a copy of a post I wrote for the Rackspace Talent blog.
Do your homework before a technical interview
··817 words·4 mins
If you work for a growing company like I do, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to do your fair share of interviewing.