Take (version) control of your network systems

Do you use a tool to record the current settings of your network devices, and compare them to older states?

Apparently RANCID does this.

– Shrubbery Networks, Inc. – RANCID

My fave IT guy didn’t know about this. I assume there are similar tools that are newer, RANCID has been around for a while.

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If not now, when? (Seth)

Seth Godin said “It really is up to us. Which is great, because we’re capable of changing everything if we choose.”

I agree.

Just one thing I want to add.

That is, “choose” :

1. Pick one now, that you are not already doing.
2. Do that for a week. You will start to feel better.
3. Now look at the list again:
   1. Which one makes the most sense for the rest of this year?
   2. Is there a better one for you, for this year, that is not on this list? Or is it already on the list?
   3. Do that one.

It’s when we choose, when we become consistent, when we make a change permanent, that we change ourselves, and we change the world.

6 Tips for Improving Apache Ant

I have worked with Apache Ant for years. I keep running into its limitations, probably because I have never used it to compile Java! On the plus side, it has some of the trappings of a functional language:

First steps with Docker and Company

I haven’t played with the whole cloud thing yet.
It’s about time.

I started by downloading a Docker container that contains a system that I also needed to know about.

Should your software build role be a separate person?

Are you asking your software developers, or maybe your testing team, to take on the build role as well?

Lots of companies use their software developers to do all the support work for their software team. This approach works for a small team, especially when you are in a pre-release stage for your software. However, as the team gets bigger, you should consider getting a dedicated build person. How big? I think you should start asking questions if you have than more than 5 software developers.

Here are some questions to consider asking:

You need to post how many Tweets per day?

For marketing, you may have been told that you have to send out some number of tweets per day.
Why?