BrianChristner.io

Life Hacking

2022 Retrospective 2022 and Goals/Predictions for 2023

There is no beating around the bush about 2022; it was damn hard! 2022 challenged me professionally, physically, and organizationally. But, at the same time, we had some great highlights to celebrate the small wins. 2022 will go down in history as unique that we finally came out of the

startup Featured

Apple Freeform vs Miro

A review of the collaboration canvas tools Apple Freeform and Miro. Both tools allow for brainstorming with virtual post-it notes with others to structure ideas visually. This article compares Apple Freeform with Miro.

Web3 Featured

Could a DAO Model Be the Key to Rescuing Open Source Funding?

Open Source is struggling to secure funding and resources to support projects long term. DAOs are the answer to secure and transparently organize funding and resources.

DevOps

DevOps vs GitOps which one should you use?

If you're like most people, you've probably heard of both DevOps and GitOps. But what do they mean, and where do they overlap? In this blog post, we'll explore the differences between DevOps and GitOps, as well as where they intersect.

startup

How to Make Your Marketing Team More Agile

Do you feel like your marketing efforts are falling behind the competition? Are you having a hard time keeping up with the latest trends? If so, you may need to start using agile marketing techniques. Agile marketing is a way of working that is fast, flexible, and responsive. It allows

DevOps Featured

Top 5 DevOps skills to boost your job profile

I am a firm believer in continuous learning. I'm often asked how to get started in tech by people curious to start in tech, new engineers, and aspiring DevOps engineers. It's our job as practitioners to develop up-and-coming talent by sharing information. We work in Open Source, so we should

monitoring

How to Monitor Third-Party SaaS applications

The business world is powered by an ever-increasing number of SaaS applications. But who is monitoring the SaaS applications and can you afford a critical SaaS application going offline and impacting your business?

NFT

You, Me, and Utility NFT's

NFT have adapted from just pictures on the blockchain to utility. Learn how NFT's are enabling new use cases and bridging online to offline with NFTs.

random

2021 in Review

Another Brian Christner year in review highlighting what went well, improvements, and wish list for 2022. Let's get started with 2022.

books

Book Review - The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

A complete review of the new Seth Godin book The Practice Shipping Creative Work. A great book for those looking for inspiration or need a recharge to get going.

books

Book Review - Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story

How storytelling is one of the most important trait to connect and persuade people. Peter Guber gives us the basics of story telling with amazing examples from A listers to World Leaders.

docker

Why I created online courses

How I transitioned from presenting courses and workshops to converting to online courses.

Security

How to use Docker Security Scan Locally

How the new Docker security tool Docker Scan helps to push left and find bugs before they hit production

random

Maintaining Open Source Projects is Hard

Open Source has become incredibly easy to consume but how can we motivate more people and organizations to give back?

Life Hacking

Making Reading Books a Habit

Time to make reading a habit, start being more creative, and start shipping creative work.

Life Hacking

Third Time on the Front Page of Hacker News

A reflection on how three of my blog articles made it to the front page of Hacker News.

DIY

How to Monitor Airplane Traffic with a Raspberry Pi

Ever wonder what airplane is flying overhead? Wait no longer with this easy to build RaspberryPi Groundstation to track overhead flights.

Life Hacking

The Why Quality

Sometimes the easiest way to attain information is just by asking Why. Start with Why and unlock insightful information.

Bootstrapping

Hacking the McDonalds API

What if I told you McDonalds doesn't have a public API. Better yet, what if someone spent the time going through the McDonalds online order process to figure out how to interact with the online ordering system to see if the Mc Sundae machine is online or not. The Verge

random

Similarities Between Software Development and Skunk Works Projects

Take a peak behind the curtain inside the Skunk Works projects. How these planes were developed have a lot similarities with modern software development.

Life Hacking

Looking forward to 2020

2020 is now upon us. It is up to us to start making things happen. Here's my quick recap of 2019 and looking forward to 2020 things to do.

docker

What is Docker BuildKit and What can I use it for?

Docker BuildKit is a little known feature now available in the latest Docker release 19.03. BuildKit enables higher performance docker builds and caching possibility to decrease build times and increase productivity for free.

docker

Analyzing VMWare, Docker, and Kubernetes Trends

We take a look at VMware, Docker, and Kubernetes Google Trends to understand the popularity according to Google and the direction we are going with each technology.

docker

Attaching Networks to Docker Build

The docker build command is a vital element in the DevOps process. Unlocking the full potential of docker build opens up new use cases and prepares us for the future Buildx.

docker

Deploy, Configure, and Monitor Traefik with Prometheus and Grafana

Traefik is my top drawer tool to solve multiple use cases while not adding additional complexity. Need a Reverse Proxy, a Let's Encrypt integration, or a Docker Swarm/Kubernetes integration then Traefik is just the tool for the job.