Since about the beginning of the year, I switched to using Obsidian as my Markdown, Note Taker, and Journal editor of choice on the Mac. It replaced simply using Visual Studio Code that I have used for 4-5 years.

What makes Obsidian a better choice is that there are plugins to help tie all of your documents together. For example it indexes all of the Markdown items that are in your "Vault". It also promotes interconnecting documents by using either Markdown based references that use the [Link Name](File.md) or simply linking to another document with the Wikimedia based referencing [[Link Name]].

I currently have 12,000 items in my Journal that dates back all the way to 2002. In Obsidian, there is a super informative graph view that shows you the interconnections between my documents. I am actually in the process of retrofitting my Journal with "Previous Entry | Next Entry" links so that the graph view will at least interconnect entries linearly in time. I also have made Journal entries of members of my family. Linking to them in daily posts has created a quick and easy way to see how many posts are associated with which family member.

I have spent a good bit of the last couple weeks researching Platform Engineering. The concept behind it feels appropriate for scaling out traditional DevOps via an Internal Development Platform (IDP).

You can't talk about IDPs without touching on a UI portal, so I first stood up Backstage. My first attempt at running the app was in a Kubernetes cluster. While the helm chart was simple to deploy the configuration was horrid. The default container comes with no plugins. To even kick the tires, I quickly backed off to trying to run it locally. It wasn't until I got the application running that I figured out that Backstage is meant to be a "product" of the Platform Engineering team. You literally have to change code to integrate with plugins. After over a decade of using a plugin based developer tool like Jenkins, I can't believe companies are investing so much time to roll their own opinionated portals.

This 2.5 hour video was one of the most comprehensive on how to configure Backstage:

The Ultimate Backstage Guide (2024 Version) - Backstage with OrkoHunter

It is a good starting place for those new to Backstage. Don't make the same mistake and jump to a container + cluster deploy. There is also a demo UI for those who want to try it out before downloading the Backstage code from GitHub.

My followup task is to take a step back and look at a more middle layer Platform Engineering tool, like Score.

I started last night the book Myths of Geography: Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong by Paul Richardson. I am only 2 chapters in, but so far it is a fascinating read about Geography and where some of our conceptions of the world come from.

The book references the Hereford Mappa Mundi (map). It is a map of the T-in-O variety that puts East on the upper part of the map. Everything outside of the O of the map is the "Unknown" lands. The T is made up of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Egypt. Everything is in Latin and from nearly 700 years ago, but it is still recognizable even though the creator(s) were not trying to make it accurate.

The book also is an introduction for me to Muhammad al-Idrisi's Tabula Rogeriana (map) where it has South at the top and Mecca in the center. The map is shown in Wikipedia upside down, but I want to study it right side up so I can find place names. Europe is a little hard to decipher because of the arabic, but I do see small things like Sardinia.

And finally there is the Waldseemüller map also known as the Universalis Cosmographia (map). It is the first map that mentions America over 500 years ago (over South America). America is an honorarium for Amerigo Vespucci, a bit of trivia most school age children learn, but not always the context.

About 3 weeks ago I took the CKS exam twice and failed. I took the first exam and failed by 1 point. I picked myself up, studied a bunch for 3 days and took it again. Then failed by 2 points. I was faster taking the exam the second time, but was tripped up by two things that took a lot of my time. I can't talk too much about it because of NDA reasons, but needless to say I was crushed from all of the studying I did. It was a practical exam and while I feel like I knew all of the subject matter, the time pressure is no joke. One of the questions that I felt like I messed up on was on both of the tests.

After I failed the retake, I sent a feedback email to the Linux Foundation that I was disappointed in my results. After a few days, they sent back a message saying that I need better time management to double check questions, which I figured. And one of the questions I called out that I felt was too hard for a 2 hour test. I was sure that I got it wrong. They told me that I got it right! I still can't believe that part.

The silver lining is that they gave me a 50% discount for a CKS retake. Now that I am back from Summer vacation I am back to studying. I am hoping to take it next weekend.

I think I am almost ready to take the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) practice exam soon on killer.sh. I made it through the 11-hour YouTube series that comes widely recommended. I also did this nice set of videos that go through the killer.sh questions with answers from the Cloudastic channel.

I am penciling in taking the practice exam this Saturday or Sunday, but coincidentally it also is at the same time as the Pokemon Go Fest Global. I will be spending the morning catching Pokemon with my kids and hoping I won't be too wiped out to do the exam in the afternoon.

I am setting aside 4 hours to get through the exam even though it will only grade you for 2 to mimic the real exam. That is what I did for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam. The practice exam is meant to be tougher than the real thing.

My Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) studying is back on track after weeks of distraction. I am posting all of my notes to GitHub:

https://github.com/elrikose/tutorials/tree/main/k8s/cks

And have been following this free 11 hour course on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9xfB5qaOfg

It is a little old (Kubernetes 1.19 and 1.22 are referenced), but there is some good theory and practice in the course. I am over halfway through.

I got an email from the Linux Foundation a couple weeks ago suggesting that I take the exam before September 15th. Apparently October through December are the busiest exam taking months. I have penciled in that I want to take the exam before the end of the summer.

Last week I went out to the Microsoft Build 2024 Conference in Seattle. I saw a lot of interesting technology at the event, most of it centered around AI.

One of the perks of going is GitHub (owned by Microsoft) was giving out a choice of a $99 certification. I picked the GitHub Actions certification since the Foundations course looked a little too easy. Yesterday I started studying for it via GitHub's study courses. I am hoping that I can take the test sometime in early summer.

I have been studying for the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist mostly on the weekends.

The CKS is a practical test, so for the most part I have been spending time on theory and only a little on the practice. I want to see the forrest for the trees. I read the book Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) Study Guide by Benjamin Muschko.

On the practical side, I have made it through all of the exercises on Killercoda in a very superficial way. I plan to revisit after switching gears.

I also have two good open source Github repositories that have CKS sample questions, including Muschko's:

• https://github.com/bmuschko/cks-crash-course/tree/master/exercises
• https://github.com/snigdhasambitak/cks

Next step is to go through and understand all of the questions and answers.

Also there is a cool Network Policy visual editor that I plan to understand.

https://networkpolicy.io

For Cyber Monday, I signed up to take the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) certification to help me with my career. Last year I took the Certified Kubernetes Admistrator (CKA) exam so this is the next logical progression of that learning path.

I started strong with the studying by reading CKS literature and watching videos. The holidays slowed my pace considerably. The issue is that I am also interested in other things at the moment that are distracting me, including:

• I am enjoying some YouTube channels that are teaching basic electronics. I was awful at Electrical Engineering 201 in college and want to remedy that by self-learning.
• I binged and watched all of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Animated Series. Both I have never seen end-to-end.
• My wife got me a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for a present. I have been researching my glucose spikes. While I don't have diabetes, I have been interested in improving my health lately. Understanding my lows and highs and how it relates to carbs has been enlightening.
• I have been trying to work out more. I have been doing that by playing Pokemon Go. It gets me out of the house to either bike or walk.

Tonight I plan to crack open the CKS book! I would expect future blog posts as I dive in deeper with security. Some things I already am familiar with like kube-bench and network polices. More Linux specific things like AppArmor, I have my work cut out for me.

Yesterday I was looking through Github and noticed my contributions fell off right around the time that I switched jobs last May.

The new company uses Azure DevOps for source code and CI/CD, so now I only make changes to my personal code that lives there. Most often I only do a single commit here and there that doesn't even register. I should go and do a cleanup of old forks.

Edit: Derp. I just realized that my .gitconfig still points to my old company's email address which is no longer connected to my Github account. When I commit using the old company's email address it doesn't register as a contribution anymore. Fixed it, committed 4 changes today, and now things are magically showing up for 2024. 🙌