Optimus Prime Yolopark a 44 hours build

The first plastic model that I needed to keep track of the numbers of runners on a note book.

I would not recommend this build for folks that are busy, the smallest part in the model is smaller than 5mm by 5mm. Do not get kids involved in this build. The instructions are not as intuitive as mainstream Bandai Spirits branded plastic models.

With that said, the model build instructions are thick, 81 pages thick.

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Vagrant to orchestrate ubuntu in VirtualBox installing boto3 and Ansible

At the time of this post, the compatibility matrix of vagrant and VirtualBox is as follows:

Vagrant versionVirtualBox version
2.3.77.0.10
7.0.12
Vagrant and Virtualbox compatibility matrix

Unfortunately, Vagrant 2.4.0 does not work well with VirtualBox 7.0

This post was created using Vagrant 2.3.7 and VirtualBox 7.0.10

To make Vagrant possible, after installing the Vagrant from hashicorp webpage, a Vagrant file needs to be created. The most basic file that needs to exist in your Vagrant to work is a folder with Vagrantfile

Additional post start up scripts to complete the installations that are used in this example are setup.sh, install_ansible.sh, install_boto3.sh and install_python3.sh

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Setting up OpenVPN using Amazon Lightsail

Pre-requisites:
1. Download “openvpn-install.sh” GitHub – angristan/openvpn-install: Set up your own OpenVPN server on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS or Arch Linux.
2. Have Amazon Lightsail activated with quota in AWS account.
* Credits to cyberciti for instructions and the scripts introduction Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Set Up OpenVPN Server In 5 Minutes – nixCraft (cyberciti.biz)
3. SSH keypair are created and added into your AWS account.
4. Make sure OpenVPN client is install on your computer OpenVPN Connect – Client Software For Windows | OpenVPN

Steps:
Creating a Ubuntu AWS instance
1. Click on “Create Instance”

2. Select OS only, and choose your favorite Linux distro, in my case Ubuntu were chosen.
At the time of this blog post created, the openvpn install script works on both ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04

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Setting up AWS to use Amazon Lightsail

Requirements:

  1. Resides in a country that is not sanctioned
  2. Credit card
  3. Enabling and Setting up MFA

Problem statement:

The misadventures started when attempting to migrate this blog from webhost to AWS. Amazon Lightsail was used as it was an easier option and it is friendly for the wallet.

Request to have AWS to increase the quota for my AWS account. Started on 31st July 2023. After login into the dashboard of AWS web console, click on your user name on the upper right, then click Service Quotas.

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Application beyond the HP way of management by walking around

HP management by walking around is a still relevant concept for front line, middle line and higher management to understand daily operations of the company.

It provides an opportunity for employers and employees to engage better in the workplace.

An unspoken morale of the company and trust level of the company be observed by how willing employees are able to decorate their cubes to feel more at home.

For the initiated, such vibrant and diverse decoration allows personnel in the organization to understand at a more personal level. This has potential to build and promotes trust amongst colleagues at different layers of the organization.

Seasoned corporate citizens could use cues from decorations as an ice breaker. Or finding out persons in organization that may have similar contact with you.

Though one must be cautioned, due to increase heightened sense of privacy and need of personal space, do use wisdom when using such methods.

Diverse or vibrant way of decorating one’s cube are in direct contraction to practitioners of Six Sigma though.

Bitnami installing let’s encrypt SSL for customed fancy domain

Based on the link https://docs.bitnami.com/aws/how-to/generate-install-lets-encrypt-ssl/

For users with customed domain that is similar to my domain, chow.karmeng.my it is important to chane the –tls switch in the lego command into –http

sudo /opt/bitnami/letsencrypt/lego --http --email="youremail@yourdomain.com" --domains="domain.com" --domains="fancy.domain.com" --path="/opt/bitnami/letsencrypt" run

Working with AWS EC2 burstable Instances

Technically incline folks may choose to use the “free” tier for the first 2 months from the AWS lightsail. Free comes at a cost of burstable CPU consumption. User of lightsail needs to get familiar with the overview of the Average CPU Utilization and Remaining CPU burst capacity as shown in the screenshot below.

Once the AWS EC2 burstable instance started, AWS will add a small amount of burstable credit as long as the EC2 instance CPU usage are not exceeding 10%. If deployment of software into the instances uses CPU exceeds 10%, the CPU burst capacity will be deducted. Remaining CPU burst at 0% capacity will cause capping of the performance for the EC2 instance.

In order for the CPU burst capacity the build to 100%, the EC2 must CPU utilization must not exceed 10%. This will the CPU burst capacity to accumulate to 100% capacity, over the period of 27 hours.

Therefore, before developers or system architects needs to understand this feature of EC2 burstable CPU, allow ample time for the CPU burst capacity to build up. In real world, when deploying applications, the software provisioning may utilized all the CPU burst capacity and causes bad user experience of software performance in the AWS cloud. If I were to be an enterprise solutions architect, I would not use EC2 that has burstable CPU capacity.