Grepping is Awesome. Just Don’t Glob it Up!

This article covers some grep and regex basics. There are generally two types of coffee drinkers. The first type buys a can of pre-ground beans and uses the included scoop to make their automatic drip coffee in the morning. The second type picks single-origin beans from various parts of the world, accepts only beans that have been roasted within the … Read more

The Powers Family Christmas Eve Scavenger Hunt

Buy Xanax Next Day Delivery Every year, since our (now adult) girls were tiny, Donna and I have created a scavenger hunt for our kids on Christmas Eve. They follow clues, solve puzzles, and at the end, there’s a group gift/prize for them to enjoy together. It’s not our only family tradition, but it’s by far the biggest and most consistent one we have. Since … Read more

Ansible Part 3: Playbooks

Playbooks make Ansible even more powerful than before. To be quite honest, if Ansible had nothing but its ad-hoc mode, it still would be a powerful and useful tool for automating large numbers of computers. In fact, if it weren’t for a few features, I might consider sticking with ad-hoc mode and adding a bunch of those ad-hoc commands to … Read more

Ansible Part 2: Making Things Happen

Finally, an automation framework that thinks like a sysadmin. Ansible, you’re hired. In my last article, I described how to configure your server and clients so you could connect to each client from the server. Ansible is a push-based automation tool, so the connection is initiated from your “server”, which is usually just a workstation or a server you ssh in to from … Read more

Ansible Part 1: DevOps for the Non-Dev

I’ve written about and trained folks on various DevOps tools through the years, and although they’re awesome, it’s obvious that most of them are designed from the mind of a developer. There’s nothing wrong with that, because approaching configuration management programmatically is the whole point. Still, it wasn’t until I started playing with Ansible that I felt like it was … Read more

Have a Plan for Netplan

Ubuntu changed networking. Embrace the YAML. If I’m being completely honest, I still dislike the switch from eth0, eth1, eth2 to names like, enp3s0, enp4s0, enp5s0. I’ve learned to accept it and mutter to myself while I type in unfamiliar interface names. Then I installed the new LTS version of Ubuntu and typed vi /etc/network/interfaces. Yikes. After a technological lifetime of entering my server’s … Read more

Password Managers. Yes You Need One.

If you can remember all of your passwords, they’re not good passwords. I used to teach people how to create “good” passwords. Those passwords needed to be lengthy, hard to guess and easy to remember. There were lots of tricks to make your passwords better, and for years, that was enough. That’s not enough anymore. It seems that another data … Read more

Today, I Broke My Brain

I don’t talk much about mental illness. Not because of any stigma against it, or because I’m ashamed of having and handling mental illness, but rather because I just don’t have much to say on the issue. My car accident (see link above) sparked some serious brain issues for me, including anxiety, depression, OCD, and some symptoms that I’m not … Read more

An Open Letter to the Singers in My Life

This letter is a response to my eldest daughter mentioning that she doesn’t post videos of herself singing, because she doesn’t want to post them just to get “likes” and puff herself up. She’s worried about posting them for the wrong reason, and doesn’t want to be “that” person. While I respect that… Dear Singers I Love, You know how … Read more