UPDATE: 2022-01-17 16:33 CST Forget the below. Just do this instead! UPDATE: 2022-01-15 16:43 CST It appears that Docker as configured within the runners provided by GitHub Actions do not native support building ARM images. However, you can use qemu-user-static to emulate instructions for other CPU architectures to get around this. This image uses binfmt_misc to tell the host’s Linux kernel to tell a third-party application (in this case, qemu) to execute binaries in formats that it doesn’t recognize. … »

First, huge shout out to the five of you that actually read stuff from my WordPress blog! You might have noticed that, with the exception of a a few posts for my company, I’ve been mostly silent. I haven’t given up on writing; quite the contrary, in fact! I haven’t run out of neurons to fire either (darn!). I’ve stopped writing on my own site for one reason: I pledged to not write again until I was completely out of WordPress. … »

Intro I was in high school when I got introduced to this weird app called VMware Workstation. I thought the idea of using your Windows machine to run other machines was really compelling - a perfect fit of my younger and geekier self. You couldn’t pay me enough back then to believe that almost all[^1] of the world’s most important applications would eventually run on virtual machines…on someone else’s computers! I really liked the idea, but Workstation was a bit of a bear to use at the time and the virtual machines it created were quite slow. … »

Computing is expensive. Desktops and laptops cost lots of money. Printers cost even more money. (Printers are really funny, actually; buying one or two isn’t so bad, but once you’re managing tens or hundreds or more laser printers and printing hundreds or thousands of pages per day, the cost of toner/ink and repair skyrocket like a SpaceX shuttle.) Desks cost even more money. Accessories cost even more money. The list goes on and on,infinitum ad nauseum.

Now that we live in an age where downloading high-def movies takes less time than starting up your car, leveraging the cloud and having people bring in their own devices has become a highly lucrative alternative. The bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, movement has picked up a lot of steam over the years, so much so that Gartner expects for “half of the world’s companies” to enact it. Over a billion devices are expected to be using BYOD by 2018, and as more and larger companies begin to take advantage of cloud computing, this trend will only accelerate.

I’ll spend the next three posts talking about three key components of most BYOD environment:

1. Virtual desktops,
2. Laptops and desktops, and
3. Mobile phones and tablets

I’ll explain who the major players involved with each component are, their importance in BYOD and some things to watch out for during considerations.

Your servers are useless, and you should sell them.

Many businesses small and large buy servers for many wrong reasons. Some businesses want a server for an application they wrote. Some others want to keep their data “private.” Others still want servers for “better speed.” All of these reasons are wrong. There are only three reasons that I can think of that justify the purchase of physical servers (feel free to list more in the comments!):

1. A regulator your business is beholden to requires it,
2. Your app really does need that kind of performance (read on to find out if this is you), and
3. You have a strong passion for burning money.