Baseline Infrastructure Quest

Cloud Storage Lab

Storage allows storage (duh) and retrieval of data. Can be used to serve website content, archives, and recovery. Can also distribute large data objects to users with direct download. 

These notes will help you create storage buckets, upload objects, create folders and subfolders and make objects publicly available. 

We’re not using the cloud shell in this series so notes will all be in the console

Create a Bucket

Open the Google Console

Navigation menu > Storage > Browser > Create Bucket

Name: enter a unique name

There are rules to naming buckets. See the fine print for details.

Short form is, start with alpha; alphanumeric, -, _, .

Storage class: (pick your choice) Multi-regional 

Location: (your choice) United States

Create

And now your bucket is created.

Upload an Object into a bucket

Grab a file. Any file. For practice a .jpg or .txt file is best. The image should be saved to your local drive.

If you’ve just created a bucket then you should be in the Bucket’s details screen. If not, then find and open your bucket to view its details. 

Drag and drop the file into the bucket’s console or browse your disk for the desired file. 

The file will be added to the Bucket’s list. 

To Delete the file click the box next to the filename and then click delete. Confirm your desire to delete.

OK, let’s upload the file again.

To rename the file click the hotdog icon (That’s three vertical dots on the far right of the row). Select Rename

(Note that the hotdog button may be hiding so you may need to scroll to the right or use a full screen).

Change the file name and then click RENAME.

Now your bucket will reflect the new name of the file. 

Share an Object Publicly

Files in a bucket are private by default. We must edit permissions to make them accessible via URL.

Click the hotdog button and select edit permissions

Click + Add item

We’re going to add a permission for all users:

Under ENTITY select User

Under NAME select allUsers

Under ACCESS select Reader

Click Save

Now that the file is shared publicly a link icon will appear in the “public access” column. Click the file to see it in a new tab.

Create folders in a Bucket

To create a folder click the “Create Folder” link toward the top of the page. 

Name the folder and click Create

Folders have the folder icon in the bucket to differentiate them from files. 

Create a subfolder by entering the first folder and then create a new folder. 

Files can be placed in folders and subfolders. 

Be sure the file is publicly accessible by clicking the hotdog button and selecting Edit permissions

Select + Add item

Enter the same permissions as we did previously.

Under ENTITY select User

Under NAME select allUsers

Under ACCESS select Reader

Delete a folder

Open your bucket. 

Click the box to the left of the folder you desire to delete. 

Click delete again to confirm.

It’s gone!

Cloud Storage: This time with the Shell

Consoles are nice. GUIs have made computers accessible to the general public, which I think we have found is great and terrible all at the same time.  As great as GUIs are, the shell is where its at in terms of efficiency and power. If you want to be a power user then learning shell is essential. This section of the notes does exactly what we just accomplished, but using the cloud shell. 

You can double check your progress at any time in the console by navigating to your bucket and refreshing the browser as you work. (Navigation menu > Storage) 

OK, let’s rock through this.

Open the cloud shell by clicking the Open Shell button

If you’d like to list your active account name use the command

gcloud auth list

List project ID with

gcloud config list project

Let’s create a bucket. Use the gsutil mb command and a unique name to create a bucket.

gsutil mb gs://BUCKET-NAME/

Same bucket naming rules as before apply. In short, alphanumeric, _, -, . Are legal but name must start with alpha and end with alphanumeric

Successful output looks like:

Creating gs://BUCKET-NAME

A 409 ServiceException means you’ve already used that bucket name.

Upload an object into the bucket

In this case, we’re going to get a portrait of Ada Lovelace from her Wikipedia page. 

wget --output-document ada.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Ada_Lovelace_portrait.jpg/800px-Ada_Lovelace_portrait.jpg

Use gsutil cp to upload the image from your disk to the bucket.

gsutil cp ada.jpg gs://BUCKET-NAME/

To remove a file use the rm command.

rm ada.jpg

We can download files stored in our buckets to our Cloud Shell with the gsutil cp command. 

gsutil cp -r gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg

Successful operation returns a “Copying gs” output.

Copy an object to a folder in the bucket

Use gsutil cp to create a new folder and copy the image.

gsutil cp gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg gs://BUCKET-NAME/image-folder/

(Image-folder/ is the name of my new folder.)

If you’re successful then you’ll receive a “Copying gs” output.

List contents of a bucket or folder

Use gsutil ls to list contents of a bucket:

gsutil ls gs://BUCKET-NAME

List details for an object

Use the -l flag to receive a detailed list of bucket contents

gsutil ls -l gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg

Make objects publicly accessible

Use the gsutil acl ch command to grand all users read permission of an object stored in the bucket.

gsutil acl ch -u AllUsers:R gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg 

An “updated” output returns when successful. 

The image or file is now public and available. 

Remove Public Access

To remove public access use the same command above with the -d flag.

gsutil acl ch -d AllUsers gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg

Delete Objects

Use gsutil rm to delete objects.

gsutil rm gs://BUCKET-NAME/ada.jpg

A “removing” output returns upon success. 

CLOUD IAM

Cloud IAM is Google cloud’s identity and access management. This is a service that lets users create and manage permissions for their GCP resources. Cloud IAM unifies access control for GCP services into a single system and provides a consistent set of operations. 

These notes will help you assign and remove permissions to a second user.

These section will require logging in as two users. To avoid confusion on Google’s platform I recommend using private mode in your browser for this exercise. 

USER 1 IAM & admin > IAM

This enters IAM & admin console.

Click +ADD

You’ll find all of the project roles under the Project category.

The roles are Browser, Editor, Owner and Viewer

These are primitive roles

Roles specify control access & mgmt for all GCP services. 

It’s a brief summary

Viewer: Read only

Editor: viewer permissions + permission to modify state

Owner: Editor permissions + manage roles and set up billing

Browser (beta): Read access to browse project hierarchy and Cloud IAM policy. Does not have permission to view project resources.

Explore editor roles

Switch to Username 2

Go to IAM Nav menu > IAM & admin > IAM

The table will show the usernames and their roles

Trying to click +ADD will show that you lack permissions to edit.

Switch to Username 1 for the next step

Prepare a resource for access testing

Ensure that you’re in the Username 1 console

Create a bucket (If you receive an error sign out and sign back in as user 1)

Update the following fields. 

Name: choose your own

Default storage class: multi-regional

Note the name of the bucket for later use. 

Create 

Upload a file to the bucket

Rename the file by clicking the hotdog button

Rename to ‘sample.txt’

Click rename.

Verify project viewer access

Switch to Username 2

Nav menu > Storage > Browser

Verify the user can see the bucket

Username 2 should have “viewer” role 

Remove project access

Switch to Username 1

To remove a project viewer

Nav menu > IAM & admin > IAM

Click the pencil next to Username 2 (on the right)

Remove the project viewer access for Username 2 by clicking the trash can.

Click save.

The user will disappear from the list. 

Verify Username 2 has lost access

Switch to Username 2

Nav menu > Home

Nav back to cloud storage 

Nav menu > Storage > Browser

You will see an error.

Add Storage Permissions

Copy username 2 name

Switch to username 1 

Nav menu > IAM & admin > IAM

Click + ADD and paste Username 2 into new members field.

In the Roles field, select Storage > Storage Object Viewer from the drop-down menu

Click SAVE

Verify Access

Switch to Username 2

Username 2 doesn’t have Project Viewer role so the user can’t see the project. But the user does have access to Cloud Storage. So let’s activate the cloud shell. 

Open the cloud shel and enter the command to list the contents of the bucket. 

gsutil ls gs://[YOUR_BUCKET_NAME]

Output will show the sample file.

Try renaming and deleting the file

Stackdriver

Stackdriver monitoring provides visibility into the performance of cloud-powered applications. Stackdriver is used to collect metrics, events, and metadata from GCP, Amazon Web Services, hosted uptime and lots of other services that can be used with GCP. Stackdriver collaborates with Slack, PagerDuty, HipChat and other messaging services. 

Use Stackdriver to monitor VMs and collect logs from 3rd party apps.

Setting up Stackdriver

Create a Compute Engine instance

Nav menu > Compute Engine > VM Instance

Create

Fill in the fields with the following information

Name: lamp-1-vm

Region: us-central1 or asia-south1

Zone: us-central1-a or asia south1-a

Machine type: n1-standard-2

Firewall: Select Allow HTTP traffic

Leave any other fields as default

Click Create

The VM will be ready when the green check mark appears next to the instance.

Add Apache2 HTTP Server to the Instance

To the right of the VM, click SSH to open the instances terminal 

Set up an Apache2 HTTP Server with the following commands in the SSH window:

sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install apache2 php7.0

Press Y to continue 

If php7.0 won’t work then use php5

sudo service apache2 restart

In the console, on the VM instances page find the External IP and click the link to see the Apache2 default page.

Create a Stackdriver account

To use Stackdriver the project must live inside a Stackdriver account. 

The following steps will create an account with a free trial period:

Nav menu > Monitoring

Click NO THANKS to trying the beta version 

Stackdriver will be ready when you see the Stackdriver dashboard.

Click Install Agents in the top banner. There are commands in the SSH window. Run those commands to install the Stackdriver monitoring agent and logging agent.

The required scripts are below

Monitoring agent install script

curl -sSO https://dl.google.com/cloudagents/install-monitoring-agent.sh

sudo bash install-monitoring-agent.sh

A Logging agent does what it sounds like, it logs streams from your VM instances and from selected third-party software packages. 

Logging agent install script

curl -sSO https://dl.google.com/cloudagents/install-logging-agent.sh

sudo bash install-logging-agent.sh

Click Monitoring Overview to return to the Dashboard.

Create an uptime check

Uptime checks verify that resources are accessible. Let’s create an uptime check to verify that the vm is up.

On the Stackdriver console click Create Check button on the dashboard. 

Select Uptime Checks in the left-hand menu

Select Uptime Checks Overview

Click Add Uptime Check

Edit the New Uptime Check panel by adding the following 

Title: Lamp Uptime Check

Check type: HTTP

Resource Type: Instance

Applies to: Single, lamp-1-vm

Path: leave at default

Check every: 1 min

Leave any other fields at default

Click Test to verify that your uptime check can connect to the resource.

Green check marks indicate that the connection is ready. 

Click Save

When asked about creating an alerting policy click No Thanks

The uptime check takes awhile to become active. We will create an alerting policy for a different resource while we wait.

Create an alerting policy

Open the Stackdriver console and refresh the screen

In the left menu, Alerting > Create a Policy

Next we’ll configure conditions, notifications, and documentation

1. Conditions: click Add Condition

A panel will open, edit the following values, leave all others as default.

Target: Start typing “GCE” in the resource type and metric field then select:

* Resource Type: GCE VM Instance (gce_instance)

* Metric: Type “network” then select Network traffic

Configuration

* Condition: is above

* Threshold: 500 bytes

* For:  1 minute

Click Save

2. Notifications: Select Email Address then enter your personal email address in the Email field

3. Documentation: Add a message in documentation, which will be included in the emailed alert

4. Name the policy: type in the name Inbound Traffic Alert

Click Save

This will create the alert policy. We can create a dashboard and chart and then we will check out logging. 

Create a dashboard and chart

Display metrics collected by Stackdriver Monitoring in your own charts and dashboards. We’ll create charts for the lab metrics and customize our dashboard.

1. In the left-and menu of the Stackdriver Monitoring Console select

Dashboards > Create Dashboard

2. Click Add Chart in the upper right of the screen

3. Click into the Find resource type and metric field and start typing “CPU” then select CPU Load (1m).

The GCE VM instance is automatically selected as the Resource type. The chart names itself after the metric you’re using, but we can rename it.

4. Click Save

Now we will create a second chart.

1. Select Add Chart in the upper-right menu of the new dashboard

Find resource type and metric field and start typing “Network” then choose “Received Packets”. Leave the other fields with their default values. Chart data will show in the preview section. 

2. Click Save

3. You still need to name your new dashboard. Change Untitled Dashboard  to “Stackdriver LAMP Qwik Start Dashboard”

View the Logs

Stackdriver Monitoring and Stackdriver Logging share integrations. We can now view the logs for our lab.

In the Stackdriver left-hand menu, click Logging to see the Logs Viewer. Let’s change the focus to see our logs

In the first drop-down menu select GCE VM Instance > lamp-1-vm

Select syslog in the second drop-down menu and then click OK

Leave other fields as their default

Click the Start streaming logs icon. It looks like the play button at the top beside Create metric and create export.

Now we can see our logs in the VM instance.

Start and stop the VM to see how this affects the Logs

You can see this in real time if you orient the compute engine console and the Stackdriver logging console are side by side. 

In the console, in the VM instance window, click on the lamp-1-vm instance

Click Stop at the top of the VM instance details window and then confirm to stop the instance. The instance may take a few minutes to stop.

Watch the Logs view tab for when the VM is stopped. 

In the VM instance details window, click Start. Confirm. 

It will take a few minutes for the instance to restart.

Watch the log messages to monitor the start up.

Check the uptime check results and triggered alerts

We should be able to see if alerts have been triggered now. 

View Stackdriver uptime check results

1. In the let pane, click Uptime Checks > Uptime Check Overview. We should now see information about active uptime checks, including web site status.

2. Check the name of the uptime check.

—If Location results message outputs “No checks have run yet” then wait a few minutes and refresh the page.

Check if alerts have been triggered

1. In the Stackdriver console, in the left page click Alerting > Incidents. If there are no open incidents then look in the RESOLVED tab.

2. Still in the Stackdriver console, click Alerting > Events. You should see a number of Events listed. 

3. Check your email account. You should see Stackdriver Alerts in your inbox. 

This concludes this exercise. Once complete be sure to remove the email notifications from your alerting policy to avoid further emails. 

Lab resources may be active for several minutes. You may continue to receive email notifications during that time.

I just completed the GCP Essentials Quest on the Google Cloud Training Platform. Below you’ll find all of my notes. They include the most essential gcloud shell commands for establishing virtual instances, working with Kubernetes and setting up load balancers.

If you’d like to learn more about using the command shell in Google Cloud then it may be helpful to know that the Essentials Quest path involves 5 lessons. Google accounts come preloaded with 20 credits to take these lessons. Most lessons are worth 1 credit. A credit is valued at one dollar, USD. I earned my badge with plenty of free credits to spare. You can earn a shiny badge like this for yourself at https://google-run.quiklabs.com. (No affiliation, this is just something I’m doing).

Without further delay, here are my notes. Fair warning, it’s not a pretty list. These are my notes, nothing more. That said, steps for spinning up VMs or creating load balancers are written in the correct order of operations as the qwik lessons presented them.

GCloud scripts

* List active account name

gcloud auth list

* List project ID

gcloud config list project

* create vm instance with gcloud

gcloud compute instances create [NAME] --machine-type [TYPE] --zone [ZONE]

* gcloud vm instance help

gcloud compute instances create --help

* Set default zone and region for VM instances

gcloud config set compute/zone [ZONE]

gcloud config set compute/region [REGION]

(Example follows):

gcloud config set compute/zone us-central1-a

gcloud config set compute/region us-central1

* Default regions and zones can also be set using:

google-compute-default-zone

google-compute-default-region

* to see default region and zone settings run

gcloud compute project-info describe --project [PROJECT ID] 

* Enter SSH through gcloud

gcloud compute ssh [VMNAME] --zone [ZONE]

* Check if a server is ready for RDP connections

gcloud compute instances get-serial-port-output instance-1 --zone us-central1-a (USE YOUR INSTANCE NAME AND ZONE)

(SERVER IS READY WHEN OUPUT == “Finished running startup scripts”)

* if not in Cloud Shell then gcloud can be installed as part of the Google Cloud SDK with

gcloud init

Set up Environment variables in gcloud

Env variables define your environment. These can be used to save time when writing scripts that contain APIs and executables

* Project variable ID

export PROJECT_ID=<your_project_ID>

* Set ZONE env var

export ZONE=<your_zone>

* Verify correct variables:

echo $PROJECT_ID

echo $ZONE

* Create a vm instance w/env vars:

gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME --machine-type n1-standard-2 --zone $ZONE

Create your own instance name and use whatever type of machine type you want to use. The $ZONE refers to the zone env. Variable.

* View a list of configurations in your gcloud env

gcloud config list

* Check that all properties are set:

gcloud config list --all

* List components

gcloud components list

Gcloud help

Get simple usage guidelines with the -h flag. i.e.

gcloud -h

Obtain verbose help with the --help flag. Or run gcloud help command.

gcloud help

gcloud config --help

To scroll through the help use Enter or Spacebar keys.

Exit content with q

q

EQUIVALENT HELP COMMANDS 

gcloud config --help

gcloud help config

* Shortcut for help toggle: F2

* F2 help changes help STATE, toggle ON or OFF with F2

Auto-complete with gcloud prompts

glcoud interactive 

This sets up auto prompting for commands and flags with inline help snippets.

* Install beta components

gcloud components install beta

* Enter gcloud interactive mode

gcloud beta interactive

* When using interactive mode click on the tab key to complete file path and resource args. If a dropdown menu appears use tap to move through the list. Use the Space bar to select a choice.

Test this with:

gcloud compute instances describe <your_vm_instance_name>

Kubernetes Engine on gcloud

* Create a cluster (start with a letter, end with alphanumeric, < 40 characters) (ignore output warnings, allow time to finish cluster creation)

gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER-NAME]

* Get auth reds for the cluster. Required to interact w/cluster.

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [CLUSTER-NAME]

Output will look like: 

`Fetching cluster endpoint and auth data

kubeconfig entry generated for my-cluster`

* Create a new deployment for containerized apps (This uses a premade sample app. Use your own image for realzies)

kubectl create deployment hello-server --image=gcr.io/google-samples/hello-app:1.0

Output in this scenario should be:

`deployment.apps/hello-server created`

* create kubernetes service, a resource to expose app to external traffic.

Kubectl expose deployment hello-server --type=LoadBalancer --port 8080

--port specifies the port that the container exposes

type=LoadBalancer creates a compute engine load balancer for the container

Should see output:

`service/hello-server exposed` (and it’s no big surprise…)

* Inspect the hello-server service with kubectl get

kubectl get service

* If external IP column is ‘pending’ then try again after 60 seconds

* To view app, copy the external IP address and enter:

http://[EXTERNAL-IP]:8080

* to delete a cluster:

gcloud container clusters delete [CLUSTER-NAME]

* Type Y when prompted to confirm delete. Deleting can take a couple minutes.

Creating Web Server Instances

Write a script to create Nginx web server clusters 

In the shell create a startup script that will be used by every virtual machine instance. This script will set up an Nginx server upon startup:

cat << EOF > startup.sh

#! /bin/bash

apt-get update

apt-get install -y nginx

service nginx start

sed -i -- 's/nginx/Google Cloud Platform - '"\$HOSTNAME"'/' /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html

EOF

Next create an instance template that will use the startup script

gcloud compute instance-templates create nginx-template \

         --metadata-from-file startup-script=startup.sh

You’ll get an output showing the that template was created. 

Next thing to do is create a target pool. This allows a single access point to all instances in a group. It’s required for load balancing. At least the way we’re doing it here.

gcloud compute target-pools create nginx-pool

You’ll get an output confirming the target pool.

Next you’ll create a managed instance group using that instance template.

gcloud compute instance-groups managed create nginx-group \

         --base-instance-name nginx \

         --size 2 \

         --template nginx-template \

         --target-pool nginx-pool

You’ll then receive an output confirming the MIG (managed instance group)

This example creates two VMs with names prefixed with “nginx-“. Allow time for VMs to spin up.

You can see these by listing the compute engine instances:

gcloud compute instances list

Next we configure a firewall. This allows us to connect the machines to port 80 using the EXTERNAL_IP. (External_IP is derived from compute instance list output)

gcloud compute firewall-rules create www-firewall --allow tcp:80

Open your favorite browser (I use Brave) and check out the instance via http://[EXTERNAL_IP/

Create a network load balancer

Create a L3 network load balancer that targets the instance group

gcloud compute forwarding-rules create nginx-lb \

         --region us-central1 \

         --ports=80 \

         --target-pool nginx-pool

Output will confirm 

* List all Google compute engine forwarding rules in the project:

gcloud compute forwarding-rules list

Visit the load balancer from a browse using the IP_ADDRESS.

http://IP_ADDRESS/

Create an HTTPS Load Balancer

* Create a health check

gcloud compute http-health-checks create http-basic-check

Output will confirm creation.

Define an HTTP Service and map a port name to the instance group. Once created, the load balancer will forward traffic to the named port.

gcloud compute instance-groups managed \

       set-named-ports nginx-group \

       --named-ports http:80

Output will confirm

Create a back-end service:

gcloud compute backend-services create nginx-backend \

      --protocol HTTP --http-health-checks http-basic-check --global

Output will confirm

* Add the instance group into the backend service:

gcloud compute backend-services add-backend nginx-backend \

    --instance-group nginx-group \

    --instance-group-zone us-central1-a \

    --global

Create a default URL map that directs all incoming requests to all instances:

gcloud compute url-maps create web-map \

    --default-service nginx-backend

Output will confirm

Create a target HTTP proxy to route requests to URL map

gcloud compute target-http-proxies create http-lb-proxy \

    --url-map web-map

Output will confirm

Create a global forwarding rule to handle and route incoming requests. Note that the global forwarding rule does not support multiple ports.

gcloud compute forwarding-rules create http-content-rule \

        --global \

        --target-http-proxy http-lb-proxy \

        --ports 80

Several minutes may be required for configurations to propagate.

List with:

gcloud compute forwarding-rules list

Connect in a web browser using the IP_ADDRESS

These things can take 3 - 5 minutes to go live.

Enter SSH through gcloud with env variables

* Create a wrapper around SSH to handle auth and mapping of instance names to IP addresses

gcloud compute ssh VM_INSTANCE_NAME --zone $ZONE

* Type “y” to continue after warning, follow prompts

* Exit SSH with:

exit

The gcloud HOME directory

The home dir persists always across projects between all Cloud Shell sessions with 5GB of storage

* Change current working dir

cd $HOME

* Open .bashrc config file using the vi text editor:

vi ./.bashrc

This will open and display the contents of the file. To exit, press the ESC key and then “:wq” to exit editor

ESC

:wq

SSH commands and scripts

* Get root access using sudo 

sudo su -

* update OS

apt-get update

* install NGINX (establish NGINX on GCP VM Instance

apt-get install nginx -y

* Check that NGINX is running

ps auwx | grep nginx

Now that I’ve completed GCP Essentials I’ll move on to the Baseline Infrastructure Quest.

This link is to a Create a load balancer YouTube tutorial (I haven’t watched it all the way through but it looks promising)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn7pGQYkKnA

What does this say about our culture? The older generations who don't "get it" are considered backwards and out of the times. Anyone sixty or younger owns at least one screen, the traditional TV, a tablet, computer, laptop, smartphone, watch... Where does the list end? It's not just children. We're all in our screens physically and mentally. Have mercy on the individual who interrupts Facebook time for some old school peer-to-peer interaction. 

We are a species prone to addiction. Anyone who says "I don't have an addictive personality," is full of the nasty stuff. Myself included. Maybe not prone to nicotine addiction, perhaps not prone to alcoholism, but down to every last person I know, except possible my mother, bless her soul, she doesn't "get" Facebook, is addicted to their screens. Prove me wrong. Go a day without your screen. Without your phone. Without your tablet, laptop, desktop. You can't because they're everywhere. At your desk at work, on the wall in the break room, in your living room, family room,  bedroom, in your purse, in your pocket. They're in our economy. If all the screens stopped working the world would come to a screeching halt and then jumpstart into a panic not seen in America since the crash of 1929.

Parts of the world would go on as they have for thousands of years, but all of us first-worlders would have no idea what to do without the ability to post meta first-world-problem memes.

Young people have no idea how to date the way their grandparents or parents dated. My son, my precious little angel wakes up, he runs to me clutching for my leg, and the first words out of his precious mouth, every single morning, without failure are, "pad? pad, da!" "Pad" almost sounds like "dad" in the mouth of a two year old learning to speak. It's heartbreaking. 

I'm asking my peers: Gen Xers sending their children to college, older Millennials with young children: What are we doing to ourselves and to the succeeding generation? As one man on the street to another. Is this right? Is this healthy? Is this okay? Is this the world we want our children to experience? The world where everything happens within a five-point-one-inch-screen? Will our grandchildren be part of the cyborg revolution with screens surgically tattooed in their wrists, internal heart monitors, blood pressure sensors, RFID tags in the fatty tissue of the hand? These things don't scare me. I'm not preaching the apocalypse or the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. I'm just asking. And saying, our children talk to screens more than they talk to faces. 

What role-model are we establishing when we're checking our phones 150 times per day? That's 6.25 times per hour in 24 hours. But you're sleeping a full eight hours a day, right? So that's actually 9.4 times every hour in a 16 hour day. On average, that's every 6 and a half minutes. However, there are times when checking-in turns into screen time. Assuming twenty minutes is spent on the phone every waking-hour, that drives check-in time to every 4.3 minutes. (Do you know how often you check your phone? There's an app for that).

The smartphone is not the only screen time to consider. The average American spends 24 hours per week on the television. That's nearly 3.5 hours a day on the TV. Next time someone asks where did all the tinkerers and self-starters go tell them they're watching television. We are drowning in our screens and this cannot help but to change our culture, and quite possibly our neurodevelopment. 

There's a lot of data to sift through regarding this subject. Individuals will be prone to their confirmation bias, but there is no doubt that screen time is higher than it's ever been, and it looks as though that trend will continue to climb. Stay plugged in and watch for the results.

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones co-starred in the picture that observed the relationship of the famous Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane Hawking, as based on her book Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen (2007). The Theory of Everything portrays a memoir of the early romance, marriage and (no spoiler here) dissolution of the Hawking's union.

This award-winning film touches on many things: the evolution of Hawking's studies, his pursuit for a theory to explain all things, atheism, faith, the regressive effects of Lou Gehrig's disease, the duty of friends and family and most importantly the determination of a man and woman to prevail against the severest of hardships. 

Hawking could have wallowed at the loss of his bodily functions, but we are a resilient species and the desire to live trumps all if grief is given enough time to process. The Theory of Everything is a triumph of the power of love and the indomitable spirit of youth. Dissolving the marriage would have been an easy out for Jane, shuddering the world would have served as escapism for Stephen, but they strove to raise a family and to prosper.

Both Hawking and Jane have their failings, their moments of weakness. That is not extraordinary, that is common to the human experience. What is most spectacular is the strength they found from deep within, the ability to cherish small moments even after sensual love passed from their relationship. 

Anyone who has worked as a freelancer, contractor, temporary worker or some other form of unattached accomplice to the workplace can testify to the challenges of building a career without a sound security blanket. Working from day to day with the faith that solid and consistent performance will pay off and provide the satisfaction of being a free agent can become unnerving at times. Bonus checks don't come around on the holidays, no one is paying for sick leave or holidays. Freelancers can quickly feel like it's them against the world. The constant search for referrals, consistent work and maintaining a network can be draining for spouses and partners who rely on the income to help pay the bills.

I reached out to Andrea Wetzel, founder of Wetzel Creative LLC for her take on this subject. "Leaving a great job to start a freelance career was one of the scariest things I've ever done. It meant letting go of security, coworkers and scariest of all, needing to ask for help. Fortunately, my fiancé Eric always had my back even while I voiced the downsides of irregular payments, unforeseen business expenses, taxes, lack of social interaction and long hours. His support and confidence allowed me to leap into a field where I can grow and develop while creating work that I am proud of. Plus, you can't beat the commute and the coffee here is great."

Those with the drive and talent who dream about throwing off their corporate lifestyle should consider the emotions and mental pressures such a move will place upon their spouses, partners and dependents. Ideally, in a two-person household one brings home the bacon and the other is free to provide income for discretionary spending. However, this hasn't been the reality of most American homes for half-a-century. 

Here are a few things to do before stepping out into the wilderness of the independent contractor. 

1. Talk about each other's expectations. Explain your deep need to find personal fulfillment in an independent career and listen to one another's fears without judgment or instant disregard.
2. Make a game plan with a timeframe to meet small objectives. How many connections have you made? How many can you expect to make in a month's time? When will you make your first $500? $1,000? Where are potential sources of income?
3. Verbally commit to your partner with the same determination that you've committed to being independent.
4. Try contracting part-time before handing in your two-week notice. Give yourself an opportunity to adjust to the new work. You want to know that you enjoy your new field and can be efficient before going full-time.
5. If possible, cut your household overhead and save three to six months' worth of living expenses.

Remember to have patience with yourself and with your loved ones. Being your own boss can be extremely rewarding and provides its own set of unique opportunities, but the road to success is paved with many failures. So be kind to yourself, be nice to your spouse even when the rent is almost due and most importantly, have fun with the extra time (and income) that independent work can provide.

In light of this challenge, and my love for the work of Saul Khan, I decided to listen to the entrepreneurial videos while completing contracted work. While listening to the brilliant minds of our day I began to notice common themes. Anyone familiar with Khan's work knows its not mediocre in any sense. These interviews follow the same rigorous quality assurance checks. Guests included Richard Branson, Mark Ecko, Phillip Rosedale, Zach Kaplan, T.A. McCann, Ben Milne, Giles Shih, Danny O'Neill and Lara Morgan. The list, admittedly very caucasian and male, goes on to include top entrepreneurs such as LaKeshia Grant, Linda Jescehofnig and Renaud Laplanche. 

To move toward the point, common themes that appeared one after another include the idea of delivering a product that's better and faster than anyone else's, that failures are an integral part of success and that those who do better than anyone else in their enterprise are those who are the most passionate and most excited about their product or service. Money from successful ventures will follow, but those who follow the money will compromise their core values and be left with a shell of what they once created.

The consistency of these themes was uncanny. Entrepreneurship requires grit, a bit of reckless abandon and at some point, cash flow. But cash is not often the foremost reason for creating an enterprise. Rather, it's the drive to see an idea come to life that moves these innovators to do what has never been done before.

One never grows too old to pursue their passion. Young people who succeed and amass great wealth receive overwhelming amounts of media attention because it's so uncommon. Think of all the 20-something people you know. They are probably very hard working, inspired and interesting, but not on the cover of Forbes. It's rare that one finds their point-of-focus so early in life. So, if you're a little older and reading this don't be discouraged by the advice of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. Rather, find strength in the possibility that the dream of a profitable venture is still available to those who learn from their failures and are willing to work hard to make their dreams reality.

The best news for would-be entrepreneurs is that society has never known a better time to innovate, create and begin something completely new. It's time to launch your dream into the stratosphere of reality.

I switched from SubLime a couple days ago and am so far pleased with the text editor. It's an open source project on GitHub and hackable in about every way possible. True to GitHub, ATOM embraces crowdsourcing and has the potential to become the most powerful and customizable text editor of this generation. It'll be interesting to see how the competition responds.

When you download ATOM (not if) you'll be given a quick introduction to the most basic customizations available. You can quickly set ATOM to run from the terminal by following these quick and easy steps.

1. After downloading move ATOM to your Applications folder.

2. Open ATOM and take your time to go through the customization options.

3. Select the ATOM menu --> Install Shell Commands and you'll be set to run the commands atom or apm (Atom Package Manager) from the terminal or Git-Bash.

Like other text editors, you can create a new file from the terminal using:

atom desired-file-name.extension

This will open atom with the specified new file.

If you need to create the file in a different directory that only requires a few steps:

cd ~  Changes directory to your home directory

mkdir new-version-control-folder  Makes a new directory

cd new-version-control-folder  Goes to the directory as named

atom desired-file-name.ext  Open the Atom text editor and creates the file as named.

With ATOM users will be able to install a number of packages including linters, GitHub integration packages and a countless number of visual customizations for font, color and background.

Tell me what packages you've installed for ATOM and why you like them. 

He's growing in independence, but still likes his companion nearby. Especially to join in play. He wants to share his favorite places and games. I have to remind myself to be in the moment. In my adult world there are always a dozen things to be done and playing with a ball or chasing for no purpose is never in that list. Sometimes I have to recognize that my list of things to do is not as important as the opportunity to bond with my son. You'd think that's a no brainer, but the list is a powerful lure for a busy adult desiring to make busy work.

One day he'll go out to play and won't need me or necessarily want me to come along so JP, enjoy these days while you have them. Not all men are as fortunate.