I work with several clients and often we are using different version of tools at different times. While I’m endeavouring to move my development processes to use docker containers I still do a lot of development locally on my Mac. I’m still running Mac OS (or is that OS X??), and so I use brew to install many of my tools. What I’ve struggled with in the past is installing certain versions of the many tools. Read more

As many people know I usually use a GNU Linux desktop environment, and have for a few years. I have previously had to use Windows during stints at large Engineering orgs, but most of the time, I was able to setup a second computer with Linux on it for day-to-day tasks. I’ve also used macOS/OS X a few times in the last few years, and I’ve got pretty frustrated with it. Read more

I have been putting a lot of thought recently into how the Australian and NSW government are pouring money into road infrastructure in Sydney. I think they are about 20 years too late, and believe they should stop throwing that money away and change directions. We are living in a world where telecommuting is a reality. I am fortunate enough to work for a great company where I can do that. Read more

I have been waiting in anticipation to buy a copy of Gene Kim’s “The Phoenix Project”, and when it was released last week, I wasted no time snapping up a copy. By no means am I a big reader, or a fast reader, I do have a high comprehension rate, and I generally stick to reading white papers, blog posts, Etc., as opposed to technical books, I have a few on my virtual shelf, and I have read them in one form or another (e. Read more

Recently I needed to restore a MMM (MySQL MultiMaster) cluster after both databases become corrupted for various reasons. Evaluating the environment it was decided that we should use the current active node as a true state and use this as a replication point, and provide database backups so that transactions could be played back manually if required. We use Pecona Xtrabackup for a large number of clients and this was the case this time as well. Read more