January 19, 2021

Python Test Automation

Here’s a post I wrote for TestIm a while back. It’s more of a listicle than a tutorial, but looking into Python tools I wasn’t already familiar with was fun. A few weeks ago, we talked about automating tests. Now it’s time to take a look at six of the best Python test automation tools. The good news is that the Python standard library already includes excellent unit testing tools. You can go a long way toward setting up robust test automation using the language’s built-in capabilities.

January 13, 2021

Ansible Tutorial

More Ansible! I wrote this one for Cprime last year, around the same time as the other Ansible post. Enjoy! Ansible is an automation tool for cloud provisioning, configuration management, application deployment, and other IT operations. You can use it for simple tasks, like deploying and configuring software releases, or for managing complicated multi-tier environments. Ansible doesn’t need agents and works with existing security infrastructure, so it’s easy to integrate into an existing network.

January 10, 2021

Developing a Last.fm shortcode for Hugo

I moved this blog to Hugo from Ghost over the holidays. This was after about a year of dissatisfaction with (very expensive) hosted Ghost, after many years on WordPress. While Hugo has fewer bells and whistles, it suits my purposes perfectly. I can write in Markdown, which I prefer over any other format. Ghost claims to support Markdown, but you can only input Markdown to its editor. You can’t see it.

January 5, 2021

Java Stack Traces

I was a Java developer for a little more than five years at Thomson Reuters. That wasn’t the only time I wrote Java code, just the most recent. So, I tend to jump on the opportunity to write a nuts and bolts Java post. This one was for Scalyr. Deploying your Java code to production limits your troubleshooting options. Connecting to your app in production with a debugger is usually out of the question, and you might not even be able to get console access.

January 3, 2021

Raspberry Pi: Programming the GPIO

So far, you’ve unboxed and assembled a UCTronics Robot Car. Then, you set it up as a Wifi client and installed JupyterHub so you could write Python code to control it via a web browser. Just before the holidays, I dug up my old post about reading a USB game controller and refreshed it, so you can use a gamepad to control the car after I go over how to control the motors.

January 2, 2021

Zwift: January 2, 2021

The one thing that’s taken me the longest to learn, and I’ve had to relearn it several times, is that the mind doesn’t work well if you neglect the body. I managed to lose a lot of weight so far during the pandemic. I fell off the wagon for a few weeks, but now I’ve set up a “smart” trainer for my bike and I’m giving Zwift a try. So far, I enjoy it.

December 21, 2020

Happy Holidays!

Last year I was in Heidelberg for Christmas. I visited family and a few places I remembered from my time there in the Army. The pandemic was a footnote in the news, and I was looking forward to a better year at the new job I had just started a couple of months earlier. 2020 didn’t turn out like I had imagined, but I can’t complain. I was able to continue working, I’m one of those folks that enjoy staying home (nearly) alone, and none of my close friends or family has been hurt by the virus.

December 14, 2020

Crosspost: Using Ansible for Configuration Management

I wrote this for Sensu last year. I had just finished a very large project with Ansible and loved working with it. So naturally the next gig required Salt…. Ansible is a powerful configuration management tool for deploying software and administering remote systems that you can integrate into any existing architecture. It relies on industry-standard security mechanisms and takes full advantage of existing operating system utilities. Ansible uses no agents and works with your existing security infrastructure.

December 13, 2020

New Digs

I moved the site off of Ghost and to a Hugo site hosted on GitHub pages. You may see a few missing images (I guess that would be “not see a few missing images?") and broken pages as I finish cleaning up from moving the content over. Photo by Andres Iga“https://unsplash.com/@andresiga")