It gives me great pleasure to introduce amazonwebshark.com! A project that I started in October 2021 is now seeing the light of day and I thought I’d take the time to go through some of the decisions behind it and what my ambitions for the site are.
What Is amazonwebshark For?
At time of writing I’ve been a Data Engineer for a few months and there are several elements of the role that I’d like to get more familiar with – for example my Python skills need sharpening and I’ve not used Git properly yet. By writing about my experiences I can check and confirm my understanding of new topics, give myself points of reference for future projects and exam revision, evidence my development where necessary and help myself out in the moments when my imposter syndrome sees an opportunity to strike.
How Did You Set amazonwebshark Up?
The domain was purchased using Amazon Route 53. This keeps my setup and overall billing somewhat simplified and also means I can try out Route 53’s integrations with other AWS services.
My hosting is via Bluehost. For around £2.66 a month they’re sorting out my server, database, CDN and SSL – that price was a Black Friday special and goes up after a year but so far I’ve been very impressed with their communication and customer service so I’ll see how it goes.
Why Didn’t You Use AWS For Hosting?
Besides the bargain price, Bluehost brings with it a level of convenience. I could have used my own EC2/RDS setup. Or Lightsail. Or even a static S3 site. But my main focus was to get the ball rolling and get something online. I’ve wanted to start a blog for some time, but have run into problems like knowledge gaps, time pressures and running out of enthusiasm. Bluehost offered a quick and simple process that sorted out everything I needed, letting me get the actual blog started.
This is not to say I’m unwilling to roll my own in the future, of course. Stay tuned.
Why Start A Blog At All When LinkedIn And Medium Are Around?
I’m not keen on the Medium model. Many times I’ve seen an article that I fancy reading, only to be met with forced login requests or paywalls. Both of which are deeply frustrating. And LinkedIn is great for articles, but this way I have all my content ringfenced together and under my control. Social media platforms change constantly and there is no guarantee that features, formats and content availability will stay the same or continue to exist from month to month. This site will hopefully let me sidestep any unpleasant surprises of that nature.
What’s The Plan For The Next Few Months?
I’m currently studying towards the AWS Certified Developer – Associate certification, and want to try using my work with the Strava API as the basis for a Lambda function and a CI/CD pipeline to get experience with some AWS services I’ve yet to use. Plus I have a Trello board full of ideas and an unused Rasberry Pi, so plenty to get on with!
Why amazonwebshark?
The name for the site comes from the original Amazon Web Shark – Terabyte:
He hails from Lanzarote and his favourite topics are FinTech, Dy-Nom-oDB and S3 (Shark Storage Service).
Thanks for reading ~~^~~