Thoughts

Bonsai Start

juniper-start

You can buy one from the big box stores or local garden nurseries. It is not until you select a small tree, make decisions as to which branch or root remains, when it becomes official, personal. This is my first bonsai. I have a prelude with two attempts before this juniper; first to transform a dwarf Christmas tree (a gift from our real estate agent) and the big box mini pine tree into a bonsai.

Both died – the first after heavy-handed clipping, the other after neglected watering and locked in the original planter pot. The lesson was noted.

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At Home with Category 6, part 2

The right tool for the job. That phrase is a core principle in my work and home. Sometimes I’ll explore workarounds and “creative” solutions, but when it comes to any kind of construction it is best to use the right tool. Ultimately, you will save money, time, and have better results. Recently, I have been getting a quick lesson is working with Category 6 ethernet cable. I got a good deal on 1000 ft roll of CAT6 not knowing that it’s not as easy to work with as CAT5 or CAT5e. It came down to the connectors. Of course I thought I could use my 15+ year old RJ45 crimper and connectors, but my cable failure rate was 75%. That’s very frustrating.

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At Home with Category 6, part 1

Ethernet crimping

If only I had known. It had been years since I crimped my last bit of ethernet cable. I’ve pulled and crimped many feet of category 5 (Cat5) cables from trade show floor to retail store installations. I am just getting gigabit fiber internet at home and I need to spread the speed across the house. Wi-fi is fine, but hardware connections are best. The router was brought in to the basement and I wanted to run some ethernet cable upstairs to center of the house and from to a network switch and an access point will bathe the upstairs with wireless happiness.

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Headless & Decoupled CMS

Start

It’s been over a year. I’ve been searching for the right decoupled Content Management System (CMS); avoiding the obvious and exploring the limited open-source systems out in the wild world of the internet. During this time, I’ve gotten my feet wet in the DevOps pool and venturing in exploring Node.js and app deployment to Amazon Web Services.

What is the obvious? If I were to say “More than 25% of websites on the internet run on this system (including this one).” You would know, right? WordPress is the answer. For a creative tech, some times we want to go to the edge, only to realize we should just sit down and work with what we know.

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