Hi, my name is Constantin Gonzalez and this is my blog. You can find out more about me on my my LinkedIn profile and my Bluesky page. Life My current home is in Munich, Germany. I live here with my wife Friederike, my daughters Amanda and Helena, and our dog Elvis. Business I’m a Principal Solutions…
Kevin Kelly, co-founder and executive editor of Wired magazine, recently turned 70. Happy Birthday!
His birthday gift to us all is “103 bits of unsolicited advice”. Each one brilliant and full of wisdom. And all are free.
The paradox of “free” is that people tend to not value the “free” things, exactly because it’s free: If it didn’t cost much, it’s probably not worth much.
If somebody took these and added an anecdote or two to each one, plus some background, they could turn this into a bestseller. Probably a series of bestsellers, too.
But here they are, hard-earned lessons for all of us. Free for those who care, and who recognize the value of great advice.
Don’t underestimate “free”. Free can be valuable.
When I started blogging in the early 2000s, RSS emerged as an open standard for spreading the news. New post? Blam, everybody interested got a notification in their favorite newsreader. Back then, building a proper RSS feed was more of an art than an exact science: Crafting proper XML while taking a…
A long time ago (2017), I wrote about modernizing my blog’s infrastructure. Guess, what: Time to modernize again! Back then, I migrated from Drupal to a self-written, Jekyll-inspired static site generator written in Python (my current language of choice for most projects). I spent the majority of th…
A lot has happened since I changed my job more than 5 years ago.
I learned new stuff, met a lot of customers, blogged and podcasted (though on other platforms), and I didn’t get to give this blog much care.
In the last few articles, I shared a few thoughts on how I think the world of IT is changing, which became the context for my good-bye to the world of physical IT altogether.
As of last week, I started working for Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a Solutions Architect, helping customers architect systems and solve technical problems using the latest cloud computing technologies. I’m very thankful to be able to work here, as it brings me back to the very center of IT innovation and gives me the opportunity to do lots of new and interesting things.
In the last weeks, I’ve been digging around AWS and its services, playing with stuff and meeting lots of inspiring people. So I thought I’d put together a few links for those interested in exploring the world of the AWS cloud computing platform for you to learn more about AWS:
A while ago, I argued that the world of IT is changing, and that change is good. And that as a result of change, many people would need to change their jobs.
Well, I did it. Last Tuesday was my last working day at Oracle.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. (Marcus Aurelius)
If you have a job in IT (and who among my readers hasn’t?), then it is going to fundamentally change soon.
Why?
In my own job, I see the full spectrum from where IT innovation is created to the very last laggards who are still depending a lot on mainframes and other ancient technology. Some things in IT are new (like, every week there’s a new startup/technology/trend that is shaking up the industry), and some things are just repetitions of stuff that has happened before, albeit in slightly different colors.
So now, the world of IT as we know it is changing (again) and this time, change will impact organizations, roles and jobs.
Let’s dive a little bit into what’s happening. Don’t worry, change is good, but only if you prepare for it.
Recently, I attended a customer workshop where the customer declared that they standardized on x86, VMware and Linux.
That got me and my colleague thinking about what standardization really means and whether that actually makes sense.
The workshop was actually about defining a PaaS platform for the customer, and early in the process they just said: Fine, but it’s gonna be x86, VMware and Linux, because that’s our standard. WTF?
First of all: Apologies for not posting for a long time. The reason? I was having too much fun with node.js and the Joyent Cloud :).
What started as a small experimental hack turned quickly into an exciting new pet project involving the good old Mandelbrot Set, as a web service, running in the Joyent cloud, programmed in node.js.
But first things first: Let’s take a look at node.js as a language and programming model, at the Joyent Cloud and how it relates to Solaris and finally some details on how the picture you see was rendered inside the Joyent Cloud, including an interactive Mandelbrot Set explorer you can play with now, written as a web app.
The year 2011 is almost two weeks old, and by now you’ve probably read every other review/resolutions/plans blog post out there. Now you have time to read this one :).
But first of all: Apologies for not having blogged for weeks. I’ve been moving to a new home over the last two months, the holiday season took its toll and there were a few other personal and job projects that demanded my attention.
Now, normality (whatever it is) is starting to come back and I can start devoting more time to this blog again.
This blog is now one year old, although I had been blogging for more than five years before. Time to reflect, plan and flip some switches for the future.
Here’s a quick recap of 2010, some plans and ideas for this blog, a call for feedback and hints to some other projects for 2011.
Every year, on the last Friday of July, Sysadmin Day is celebrated around the world.
You know, the guy (or gal) that makes sure you always receive your emails on time, strips away the spam, cuddles your web server so you can write blog articles, or makes sure the network is always online, so you can read your favorite blogs. Or install new servers and storage so your web experience becomes faster and so your data is never lost.
Sysadmins often have a hard time: Noone calls them to tell them “Thank you for delivering all my emails!” or “Thanks for making sure my data is backed up every day!”. Instead, they only get phonecalls when something goes wrong, or worse yet, some anonymous electronic complaint in some soulless ticketing system.
Therefore, this Friday, the 30th of July, 2010, think about your sysadmin, call her up and say something nice, or consider giving them a gift. Here are some geeky gift ideas for sysadmins to celebrate Sysadmin Day 2010, from low-budget to truely-devoted-appreciation pricing order.
After all, you really don’t want your sysadmin to turn into a grumpy BOFH, do you?
Darren from ProBlogger today posted his 7 Link Challenge. A fun idea in which he asks bloggers to share 7 links to posts, based on the 7 criteria he selected.
ProBlogger is a great website with lots of useful tips for bloggers. Even if you don’t plan to make money with your blog, or if you don’t think of yourself as a pro blogger, this site is still one of the best in terms of blogging advice.
I’m currently reading his book “ProBlogger” (affiliate link) and I can highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking more seriously about blogging.
Now, let’s get started with the ProBlogger 7 Link Challenge for Constant Thinking:
War is waging in the galaxy. This time it’s not the Rebels against the Empire, or Good vs. Evil.
No, this war is different, and it has been going on ever since products designs companies entities existed.
What I mean is the war between Quality and Popularity.
Let me explain:
(Drumroll, Roman fanfare, then dramatic Anime action trailer a la Mortal Kombat, etc.)
As of May 21st, Google officially declared war on the Apple iPhone.
Sure, there was some teasing here and there for weeks, if not months, but this is serious.
One of the web 2.0 startup hypes du jour is called Flattr. It’s a micro-payment service that enables readers to allocate a monthly budget they can use to “flattr” blog posts and other content by clicking a simple badge. The monthly flat-rate is then distributed to the “flattred” authors as a way of appreciation.
More on that in this short video.
A lot of people are jumping on the Flattr bandwagon, and of course, rewarding creators is always goodness.
But I’m not convinced.
Why? Because IMHO there’s no need for a middle man handling the “Thank You” transaction between a blogger (or other content creator) and the reader (or other content consumer).
Instead, here are ten (10) better ways to accomplish the same thing (supporting your favorite creator). They can involve money or not - you choose - and in each of them, everybody wins.
Yesterday, I cleaned up my home directory at work. I went from ca. 15 GB of data down to 1.1 GB. And I only stopped there, because I didn’t want to spend too much more time cleaning up. Here’s how to do it.
In the previous post of this mini-series, we looked at why it’s important to have our emails and files organized, then attacked our INBOX to reach zero-message-nirvana. I’m happy to see that others are living by these principles, too. Thanks, Gregor!
Now let’s look at that other dark spot in our IT lives: Our Desktop and file system. If you’re like me, you see this very often, too: Cluttered desktops with so many files and folders and downloads and icons and stuff, you can barely make out the underlying desktop background.
Spring’s around the corner and the Easter weekend is upon us, giving us some time to sit back, relax and do some spring cleaning!
This also applies to your data, in particular your Email folders and your home directories. In this two-part series, we’ll clean up our email INBOX to zero (yes: null, nada, zip) emails, simplify email folders, then clean up our home directory file structure. That’ll save us time, help us find peace of mind and make us more efficient so we can concentrate our energies on what really matters to us.
In a recent blog article about the future of IT admins, my MUCOSUG-Buddy Wolfgang wondered whether the new generation of self-managed, appliance-like systems like Oracle Exadata (no link, page no longer exists), Oracle Sun Storage 7000 (no link, page no longer exists) and their friends from other vendors are making IT personnel redundant, or what kind of jobs IT people are supposed to be doing in the future.
This reminded me of Dan Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind” (Amazon.com|co.uk|de, BooksOnBoard (no link, booksonboard.com no longer exists)). Pink argues that today’s “left-brainish” jobs are threatened by “abundance, automation and Asia” (the latter really meaning “outsourcing”) and that today’s knowledge workers need to learn how to better employ their “right-brain” and add creativity to their jobs, as a new competitive differentiator.
How does this relate to Technology or IT jobs?
Dear reader, my name is Constantin Gonzalez, and welcome to Constant Thinking!
This blog is about useful technology for the quality geek. As the name implies, I’m constantly thinking about technology, trying to figure out where it leads to, and how to get the best out of it. I try to learn, create and share useful technology stuff every day.
I’ve been playing with computers since the early 80’s, and with Unix and the Internet since the early 90’s. I’ve created and installed websites since 1994, started working for Sun Microsystems in 1998 and as of now, I’m now a Principal Field Technologist at Oracle through their acquisition of Sun. My job is to provide Technical Expertise to customers in Germany, and help with other customer projects in rest of the world. My focus areas are SPARC processors and systems, Solaris and Cloud Computing.
(Deutsche Version (Impressum).) Site Info (English) I am responsible for the content of this web site, except for the content written by and attributed to others. Therefore I am also not responsible for comments, including anonymous ones, nor the content of other linked sites. Here’s my contact data…
