HN Explorer

Ask HN: Appetite for DevOps Screencasts?

17 points by WestCoastJustin ↗ HN
Hi,

I am putting together a sysadmin/dev/ops screencast site, the kind of thing I wished existed, when I was coming up as a sysadmin.

I have produced five episodes so far @ http://sysadmincasts.com/

  - Am I on the right track?
  - Episode ideas? Automation seems to be taking off. Puppet for sure.
  - General feedback..
Thanks, Jusitn

17 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] thread
cpursley
I'm interested in getting notified when new screencasts are available. Where can I add my email address?
WestCoastJustin
Okay, I could add a form, or would a RSS feed be better? Maybe I'll add both, and see what the turn out is. Thanks for the suggestion!
tptacek
For the love of all that is holy, when people offer you their email addresses, take them! Don't look for alternate ways to engage prospects long term. Get email right, right now.

There's a reason email drip marketing is such a hot topic in startupland right now. It turns out that email is a pretty damned effective way to stay engaged with people, especially compared to "hoping someone subscribes to this RSS feed or ever remembers to look at this website again". Don't make your prospects remember things; do the remembering for them.

Try using Mailgun instead of an actual email server you run; we've had a lot of good luck with it.

WestCoastJustin
Thanks for the detailed comment! Do the remembering for them -- I like that. I'll implement your suggestion asap. I'll checkout Mailgun too!
tptacek
You're very welcome. It looks like you've got something people are interested in. Get everyone's email addresses and keep it rolling. Congrats!
adient
You'll probably want something more like MailChimp than Mailgun for mass emailing subscribers.
roderick3427
I'd say you're on the right track. I wouldn't mind seeing some screencast of the following:

- How to setup automated deployment for rails apps, scala play apps, node.js apps and so forth.

- How to use Vagrant to simulate an app that uses riak clusters.

WestCoastJustin
Cool, I've jotted those down. I'm just loving Vagrant right now! Thanks for the feedback!
jyu
I'd like to see setup, automated deployment, and maybe going through some basic troubleshooting when you can't just search for it.