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This week saw the UK come into lock-down, we're permitted to leave the house for essentials and for one form of exercise per day. Fortunately my wife Erin is also allowed to work from home and so we've been able to keep each other company and take lunch together. I'm a keen cyclist and I like to take a walk to decompress from the demands of open source and to counter sitting at a desk all day. It's odd to think that you can only do one of them.
How are things by you? Are you doing OK? If you could use a bit of social interaction, feel free to:
- Tweet to me @alexellisuk
- Join our Slack and spark up a thread in #general
- Add our OpenFaaS Ltd office hours call to your calendar - this is going to be an informal session, and a chance for us to get together
Over the past week, I saw several sponsors leave and a few new ones come on board, the net change is -550 USD, which in a time where companies are firing, not hiring consultants is not a good place to be independent. The government offered a life-line to employed people, and to a small group of self-employed people, but it doesn't cover those who started a year ago like myself, or those who work through a Limited company.
I've been doing more writing than usual, partially because business is very hard right now and because I hope that it will result in leads for the business. The company offers calm, confident consulting on cloud native, content and community. You can either book a one-off session in my calendar or email to discuss something bigger or more regular than that.
So, how do you write a top quality blog post? (View Tweet)
- ✅ Only write when you feel like it - make sure you have the creative energy and can finish what you started, delete any drafts over a week old
- ✅ Only one sitting - if you're writing samples, do them before then write-up after
- ✅ Don't worry about being criticized - this rarely happens, "experts" are unlikely to read it anyway
- ✅ Quantity over quality, don't go for perfection - perfect is the enemy of done
- ✅ Just get on with it - get past excuses "when I have time / when I change jobs / when I x"
- ✅ Share on different channels - Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Hacker News, Slack, etc
- ✅ Monitor the views - either using logs, Google Analytics, Bitly, 1-pixel images, built-in tracking, whatever
Then repeat it 1-3 times per week. Start with one per week, that will be the hardest step you can take, from there it gets a lot easier.
- Building a TODO API in Golang with Kubernetes - a detailed, step-by-step guide to building a Golang API for storing TODO items on Kubernetes including persistence with Postgresql
- Bill of Materials for my home office - I'm often asked what keyboard and light I have. No need to ask again, and if you purchase through the affiliate links, I may even receive a few dollars from that transaction. Hope you find something of use - the best upgrades to start with are your keyboard, your webcam and your microphone, after that the lighting.
- What you need to know before you go freelance - this is not an opportune time to go freelance, however, it never hurts to know what it's like and to start thinking and planning for this as a future possibility. There are pros and cons, which I walk through along with sharing my own experience.
If you missed it:
- 5 tips for troubleshooting apps on Kubernetes - updated with some new tips and I hope you'll find something new to help you debugging Kubernetes issues going forward
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In a recent CNCF survey, OpenFaaS holds its position for popularity
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What’s new in Kubernetes 1.18? - it's landed! Go and read up on the highlights from the team at Sysdig. I'm interested in the RuntimeClass for Windows to allow mixed workloads on the same cluster, something that Docker Swarm achieved in 2016. The Kubernetes go-client gains a context for each method, this is going to cause some major headaches for developers and I suspect I'll need a few days to cope with all the changes across the 4-5 controllers I maintain. If you need help, don't hesitate to ask
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flyless.dev - James Governor from Redmonk.com has started a new DevRel initiative around flying less and carrying on, but virtually. Could this "take off"? I think it has legs and was joined by D J Adams from SAP on the second call. James also gave me some points for www.alexellis.io for outlining what my business offers, check it out and let me know what you think of the changes?
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Tinkerbell - watch this project, an open-source bare-metal provisioning platform from Packet that uses Alpine Linux, Docker and comes with its own DHCP/pixie stack. The team say: "Tinkerbell is a bare metal provisioning engine. It's built and maintained with love by the team at Packet."
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Support and licensing offerings for OpenFaaS via GitHub Sponsors - includes 1 or 2x 50min consultations per months, whether you're looking for reassurance, or help when things go wrong, show your boss and get a conversation started
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TBS[13]: Crossplane + OpenFaaS - find out how Crossplane and OpenFaaS can be used together for a rapid development of functions. Daniel Mangum also interviews me on how OpenFaaS started, and what we're building. I loved his take on OpenFaaS: "this is the fastest way to get code into Kubernetes"
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OIDC plugin gains support for Azure AD - the commercial plugin now has support for Azure AD for the implicit and code flows
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Unit test Node.js code with Mocha and Chai - here's an example I put together for a community member, shared so that you can all benefit from it
1st Apr - You can hear me speak on "The Case for a Cloud Native Tunnel" at Cloud Native Rejekts
Register for free online - thanks to Kinvolk for putting this on.
arkade got a nice shout-out from John Arundel. John's the co-author of Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud.
He tweeted: "arkade is the 'brew install' of Kubernetes. You can install and run an application in a single command. Finally!" - nice to see the approach resonates with the broader community
Grab the latest version with arkade update
- PR #67 Update crossplane info message with new terminology by @hasheddan
- PR #48 Added helm3 option to minio app by @kadern0
- PR #62 Updated PR template with ARM checks by @kadern0
Insiders can now take advantage of 10% off the whole store
Grab a distinctive #TeamServerless t-shirt for your video calls next week. We had a designer help us put this logo together, and the theme was "NASA space missions". I hope you'll like yours.
If you don't like looking the business, then grab yourself an inlets or openfaas mug in the store, with a lower price than ever and global shipping from the EU or the USA, buy now and get it within a few days.
If you could use some killer content for your brand, project, or company, I know someone who can be of help. Likewise, if you would like to stretch your skills, I offer 1:1 coaching sessions via Calendly and can consult on an ad-hoc / drop-in basis if that suits your budget better. You know how to contact me.
It would be great to see you at our OpenFaaS Ltd office hours. If you have some #TeamServerless swag already, why not show it off on the call?
Your discount code for the store is we-are-insiders valid until March 29th.
Whatever it looks like, enjoy your weekend and stay safe and feel free to reach out if I can be of help.