Author Archives: David

Diabetes Sucks

Yes, it should be pretty obvious that I think diabetes sucks. Otherwise, why would I be working so hard to help eliminate it.

Anyways, I figured it was high time I started talking a bit more about the topic… so I created a category to discuss diabetes, Tour de Cure, and related topics.

As always, you can donate to my Tour de Cure fundraising ride by visiting diabetessucks.net.

If you are interested in seeing where donors to my ride are from, visit diabetessucks.net/map.

Enjoy!

Lightsail Network Isolation

Amazon Lightsail started offering a managed database service a few months ago.

I took a look at it … and tried it out … a while back and wasn’t really happy with it.

Although it had some nice features, I wasn’t given a ‘root’ (or super user) account and (as I sometimes do) was able to completely trash the instance within a few hours of creating it (I tried to manipulate the permissions on the master database user and ended up revoking all of them).

So I was considering creating my own database server using MySQL on a stand alone Amazon Linux instance.

This would give me a stand alone database with the flexibility to do anything I wanted.

My big concern was network security. I wanted to make sure that only my Lightsail instances would be able to communicate with the database server.

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I fell off my trainer

I’m probably one of the few people who can honestly claim that they fell off a bike trainer.

Keep in mind that, when riding on a bike trainer, the bike is locked in place on the trainer and it can’t move.

Nonetheless, I managed to fall off my trainer. Well, more like catapulted off.

This happened quite a while ago … I was using the Zwift training software with my Kinetic Road Machine dumb trainer (not dumb as in bad, just not a smart trainer).

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Good Customer Service from Road iD

A number of years ago I purchased a Road iD bracelet so, if I crashed during a ride, anyone who tried to help me would know who to contact if I wasn’t able to tell them.

I’ve worn that bracelet for most, if not all, my rides. It’s gotten kind of beat up over the years.

At this point the metal plate with the emergency contact information is pretty scuffed up and almost illegible.

While browsing the Road iD web site, I noticed they have a lifetime guarantee.

Yesterday I sent their customer service department a note indicating that the plate is scuffed and illegible … and they responded, within about an hour, indicating that they would provide a replacement.

They confirmed the information for the bracelet and shipping address … and said it would be sent out that day.

Today I got the shipping confirmation of the replacement.

That’s good customer service.

Http/2, Apache, & Lightsail

This post only covers the technical details of how to implement http/2 on an Apache web server running in Amazon Linux on Lightsail. It does not go into the details of what http/2 is or why use it. For that information, I suggest https://http2.github.io.

First you have to switch the Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs) from pre-fork (the default) to another one. I chose the event mpm for no particular reason.

To do this, edit /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-mpm.conf and make the following changes …

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Temporary Wahoo RPM Cadence Mounting

If you’re like me, when cycling, you prefer to have a bike computer and some sensors with you on a ride.

On a recent vacation, where I rented a bike, I brought my bike computer (Garmin Edge 1030) and my Wahoo RPM Speed & Cadence sensors along.

The RPM Speed sensor mounted fine on the bike’s hub using its built in rubber bands.

The issue was with the cadence sensor.

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