Eric Mann

  • Blogs and NUCs and Caching, Oh My!

    ·

    A year ago, I migrated my site to a self-hosted NUC cluster, defying industry skepticism about home hosting. Using a WordPress stack with Varnish and Cloudflare, I optimized performance and security, achieving over 30% traffic caching.

    Read More

  • When is a Deployment “Good Enough?”

    ·

    Balancing speed and quality is crucial for software delivery. While rapid development can lead to fragile systems, overengineering may allow competitors to succeed. I’ve used containerization and Kubernetes for years, and I’m building a new tool to simplify both for all engineers.

    Read More

  • GitOps and DIY Infrastructure: A Match Made in DevOps Heaven

    ·

    GitOps represents a transformative approach to managing and deploying applications by merging version control with DevOps. It automates changes, enhances security, and offers a single source of truth, especially beneficial for DIY infrastructure. GitOps practitioners can achieve self-healing infrastructure and improved management through infrastructure as code while overcoming learning curves.

    Read More

  • Simplify, simplify, simplify

    ·

    Recently, I’ve been diving into Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, which offers insights into his approach to business. Musk’s approach to process improvement isn’t dissimilar from my own. He suggests that if you’re not reintegrating at least 10% of what you cut, you’re not being aggressive enough in your simplification. In my experience managing…

    Read More

  • Consistent Infrastructure

    ·

    I first learned to code using GUI-based tools on Windows. This included tools like TortoiseSVN for version control and WAMP to run a local an Apache/MySQL/PHP stack. It was a great introduction to programming, but didn’t prepare me for the real world. Why? Because production wasn’t Windows. It was terminal-only Ubuntu. That meant I was

    Read More

  • A Foray into Private Hosting

    ·

    I’m going to revolutionize the way you host software on the internet! Follow along as I build in the open – starting with a private git server run by Forgejo and networked with Tailscale. Follow and stay tuned for more!

    Read More

  • Technology has gotten dumber

    ·

    I was searching Digital Ocean’s website for a specific product. I found it! Except, it doesn’t actually exist. It seems technology has just gotten dumber over time …

    Read More

  • WordPress Drama: Crossfire

    ·

    Automattic faces a cease-and-desist letter over alleged trademark violations concerning WP Fusion Lite. But it really does look like their use could be classified as “fair use.” If not, any WordPress site using the .org repo is also in violation …

    Read More

  • WordPress: The Drama Continues

    ·

    The WordPress.org team has forked the Advanced Custom Fields plugin amidst a legal dispute with WP Engine, raising concerns about user awareness and security updates. Were they right to do so? It’s complicated, but likely yes.

    Read More