Month: April 2016

AWS Elastic Beanstalk – Managed Platform Updates

AWS Elastic Beanstalk can now update to the latest version of your underlying platform during a specified maintenance window.

ElasticBeanstalk_Thumbnail[1]Last night, I logged into the EC2 instance that supports this blog. Turns out that I’ve been a negligent system administrator – there were 69 updates pending!

The issue of patching and maintenance may seem trivial; however, companies spend millions of dollars keeps the underlying platforms for their enterprise systems up-to-date.

Enter the Managed Platform Updates updates to the AWS Elastic Beanstalk service. As stated on the AWS blog:

You can now choose to have your AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments automatically update to the latest version of the underlying platform running your application during a specified maintenance window. Elastic Beanstalk regularly releases new versions of supported platforms (i.e., Java, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, Python, .NET, Go, and Docker) with operating system, web & application server, and language & framework updates. Previously, you had to manually initiate updates to your Elastic Beanstalk environments using the Elastic Beanstalk console, command line interface (CLI), or API. Now, you can simply select a weekly maintenance window and have Elastic Beanstalk automatically update the platform version of your environment during that window.

It’ll be interesting to see if companies take advantage of this functionality, and if it causes a reduction in TCO for systems as they move to AWS.

Going from Skinny Fat to Fit: With a Personal Trainer

How working with a personal trainer helped me on my journey to get fit.

TrainingI don’t know why most guys have a stigma about hiring a personal trainer.

A few weeks ago, I got into a conversation with some of the neighborhood dads about healthy habits. We were all lamenting about how hard it was to make time for exercise and that eating healthy was a chore.

I mentioned that, for me, I had to make my health a priority. I changed my diet and I committed to exercising four times a week. That was received with a chorus of attaboys and goodforyous.

Then I causally added: “The biggest impact to my health my was decision to hired a personal trainer.”

Silence, followed quickly by “I just couldn’t do that.”

Silly, right? We hire people to help us with our taxes, our lawns, and our laundry, but won’t turn to a professional when we need help meeting health goals. For some, a personal trainer might be overkill, or not needed. For me, it was a necessity to getting in shape. Continue reading “Going from Skinny Fat to Fit: With a Personal Trainer”

RIP Phife Dawg – Favorite Verses: #1 – “Check The Rhime”

_88917865_f28f58d1-b452-468d-b112-3d8c3450916f[1]Johnathan Davis and Malik Taylor.

The Abstract Poetic and the Five Foot Assassin.

Q-Tip and Phife Dawg.

The greatest MC duo ever.

Better than Run and DMC (because of the way ATCQ traded and intertwined verses). Better than Andre and Big Boy (who built on “the Player and the Poet” mystique created by Tribe). Better than Black Star (only because of longevity).

The special thing about the Tribe MCs was that their personalities were so different and complimentary, which allowed them to achieve a near perfect balance of heft/levity, styles, and tempo. This relationship was highlighted when Phife and Q-Tip traded lines mid-verse (like “Electric Relaxation”) or handed off the mic (see “Vibes and Stuff”).

The gold standard example of their symbiotic relationship is “Check the Rhime”. Backed with a laid-back sample of Minnie Riperton’s “Baby, This Love I Have”, Q-Tip and Phife effortlessly alternate taking lead, building on their shared story (growing up in Queens).
Continue reading “RIP Phife Dawg – Favorite Verses: #1 – “Check The Rhime””