a picture of the author drinking from a coffee mug with a picture of himself drinking from a coffee mug with a picture of himself drinking from a coffee mug. This joke has gone on for far too long, but he shows no signs of ceasing to make more mugs.
Nerd. Proponent of: Work from anywhere, coffee, beer, my face on coffee mugs, improv comedy. Not a fan of dongles.

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Minimizing the Impact of a Cloud Server Reboot

Last week at work, we had to reboot almost all of our Cloud servers. In anticipation of the reboots, my colleague Alison Oster and I wrote the following article for our customers. I think the advice is valid, regardless of where you host, so I’m reposting it here, and including the video hangout where we covered these tips. Minimizing the Impact of a Cloud Server Reboot We all try to prevent it, but from time to time you might find that your server needs to be rebooted.

Yes And Development

You never know when a passing comment might turn into an actual product. I’ve been performing improv for over half of my life now. By this point, many of the concepts of improv are incorporated into my everyday life. Here’s an example of a principle of improv applied to software development. Two days ago I saw a great tweet: So I did what any good improvisor would do: I “yes anded.

Becoming a Community Manager

Next week I transition to my second job at Rackspace, a Technical Community Manager. I’m very excited, since this role will allow me to spend more of my time extending one-to-many support. I think that my strengths lie in expanding individual support interactions for broader consumption. I’ll be working in our Community Forums and answering as many questions as I can and then looping in other teams for help as needed.

Making Assumptions about my Fellow Passengers

Editorial Note: I wrote this in June of 2012, while waiting on a delayed flight in the Phoenix airport. I wish I had written more of these. Since I have once again been delayed on my flight, I thought I would pass the time by imagining the back story for some of the more outstanding passengers in the terminal with me. First up: The middle aged man in the XFL tshirt.

Vices CD Release Party

Last night my wife and I attended the CD release party for our friend Danny Gibbons who performs as Our Sleeping Giant. We had a fun time with great people, listened to some good music, and got to celebrate Danny’s achievement. The show was at The 1011 in San Antonio. It’s a great little dive bar that specializes in live music and beer - and they do both well. They’re also Spurs fans, so things like this aren’t much of a surprise:

Easy Filesharing with Dropzone3 and Rackspace Cloud Files

From time to time I need to quickly share an image or file with a colleague, a friend or client, and that’s usually something I would do on a one-off basis by emailing, or uploading to Dropbox or something. This is a pretty easy workflow, but it could probably be easier, right? That’s where Alex Chiri and his Dropzone action come in. If you’re not familiar, Dropzone is a great little Mac utility that allows you to perform quick actions by dragging a file up to the icon on the menu bar.