BrianChristner.io

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.

docker

Säntis Systems Summit Recap

The inaugural Säntis System Summit in Appenzell, Switzerland kicked off. The unconference was full of great people, topics, and beautiful scenery.

startup

Limit your Tech Toolset

It's easier than ever to buy new tools. Stop, first evaluate existing tools, do some information gathering, and combine the number of tools you have.

docker

Become a Docker Power User with Microsoft VS Code

VS Code combined with the Docker extensions will not only unlock amazing features but also allows us to increase productivity and reduce context switching.

docker

How a Single Raspberry Pi made my Home Network Faster

The Pi Hole project adds an entire new level of performance and security to our home network. Powered by Docker and a Raspberry PI I can now block all unwanted Ads and Metrics network wide.

Security

Transforming into an Open Business

Being Open and Transparent is more than Git projects. We are now opening our blog and company metrics to add more transparency to our business and industry.

docker

Configure Windows Server for Docker Development

Configure a Windows Server for your Docker Development environment. Matching the Windows Host OS in Development is important for consistency across environments.

startup

I Broke It

It's easy to get swept up in daily life. But I broke something that was important to me and that is sharing information.

docker

Journey to Docker Certified Associate

The journey from first using Docker, to becoming a Docker Captain, and now a Docker Certified Associate.

docker

Docker Prometheus Project Road to 1,000 Stars

The road to 1,000 GitHub stars for the Docker Prometheus project, learnings, and what's next. The project is being used around the world and continues to be updated and used.

Ghost CMS

Enough is Enough, Time for SaaS

After a couple tragic website outages I finally decided to investigate alternatives. SaaS is the way to focus more on delivering content and less about maintaining.

docker

Creating Cloud Agnostic Container Workloads

Ensuring our workloads conform to Cloud Native standard architecture is allowing more flexibility and portability while removing vendor lock-in.

docker

Introduction to Container Monitoring

This introduction to container monitoring explains why we should monitor containers and what is different about monitoring them versus VM's.

docker

How to Monitor a Traefik Reverse Proxy with Prometheus

Recently, I started using the reverse proxy Traefik [https://traefik.io/] as a default for my projects. Out of the box, Traefik supports Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and many others. What's unique about Traefik compared to NGINX or Apache is that it dynamically listens to your Orchestrator like Docker and knows