I was recently talking with a colleague of mine about where AWS is today. Obviously, these companies are migrating to EC2 & the cloud rapidly. The growth rates are staggering. The question was… “What’s good and bad with Amazon today?” It’s an interesting question. I think there are some dirty little secrets here, but also…
If you run MySQL as your backend datastore is there one thing you can do to improve performance across the application? Those SQL queries are surely key. And the quickest way to find the culprits is to regularly analyze your log. I’ve put together a howto & script for doing this on Amazon RDS. Automate mysql…
Recently I was searching Google for “startup consultant” to see what I might find. I came across this article by John Greathouse titled Beware the Consultant. No self-respecting, hard-working consultant would sit back and take hits without defense, so in true poetry slam style, I thought I’d write a quick retort. Beware the Client… Truth Is…
Over the years, a lot of people have approached me asking how to become a tech consultant. What do I need to do to get started? How can I take my first step? I also hear from managers and CEOs that have asked how I got my start, and how I keep the business running….
As a tech consultant, one of the most interesting parts of the job is being able to observe human relations at work. I’ve learned through the years that because tech people and non-tech people speak different ‘languages’, bridging the communication gap is a critical part of my role as a consultant. How Should You Treat…
In a Twitter chat, I posted some comments about hiring. Some folks were complaining that they had applied to various jobs, and not heard back. I commented… “Apply for a job and don’t hear back, it’s nothing personal” In this article, I will discuss about it so that you as a job seeker understand it…
I saw this thread recently posted on Hacker News. “We’re not paying invoices due to the pandemic” – How to handle these. What shocked me is what Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) suggested: “The right response is probably ‘I have received your letter. The invoice is good. I demand payment by the date on the invoice, under the…
An article I read on Tech Crunch recently got me thinking about startup culture. In Are You Building A Company, Or Just Your Credentials Geoff Lewis, expressed his distaste for a friend’s plan to get on Y Combinator’s ‘no idea’ startup incubation program. In this experimental approach, groups or individuals with a desire to be part of a…
Sometimes, you have to be the bad guy. Be resistant to change. Here’s a story about how stubbornness pays off. As we’ve written about before A 4 letter word divides Dev & Ops. A True Story of Resistance I had one experience working as the primary MySQL DBA for an internet startup. Turns out they had…
In the constantly evolving world of cloud computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has established itself as a pioneer. It is now offering businesses unparalleled levels of performance and scalability. Among the many features and services provided by AWS, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and Elastic Block Storage (EBS) stand out as the leader in achieving…
