June 2015 – John Congdon

Jenkin’s Build Pipeline

I watched a great video of a presentation by @adamculp about Jenkins. I have been setting up a Jenkin’s build server for a while, but this thing can be both easy and complicated at times. The video, while great, left me wanting more of the specifics of the setup, not just “look at what this can do”. I wanted, “This is how you do this”.

I reached out to Adam on the twittersphere and he told me which plugins I needed. The one I really wanted was the Build Pipeline Plugin, and when I finally took a second to scroll down on the plugins page, things started to click. Specifically “views”. I hadn’t used them before.

Even with the instructions, I missed the key point. It says to add a new build pipeline view, so I kept clicking on New Item and not finding it. I read a little closer and looked at the picture, and it was clear… Click the “+” to create a new view.

I have been getting on a soap box a lot lately, and thought I would take a moment to put my words into a blog post. This will be a long post, but I have so much passion for this right now that I have to write it down.

I am terrible with money. I live well, but like most people, at the end of the month, the money is gone and I don’t know where it went.

My wife and I have been saying to each other that we need a budget. She or I would take the first step to start an excel document, load up a bunch of numbers, and then pretend we never saw it. Because we would get so overwhelmed, it just never got completed or looked at.

That is… until I found YNAB. Something in this program made the whole idea of managing money click for me. I don’t know why, or how, it just did. They have fantastic videos on their approach, and do it in a very personable manner.

Of course, you will still not have any money at the end of the month (at first), but I think if you stick with it… that will change.

So my challenge to you. If you are someone that knows me well enough (mostly family), and you want to try You Need A Budget, start your free trial now. You have 35 days to use it. If at the end of 35 days, you are convinced that this is for you, but you truly can not afford the $60, I will buy it for you. (Disclaimer: I have the right to turn down any request for any reason) 😀

Keep your categories simple. Track your major expenses, and if you have a bad habit you want to quit, create a category just for that. Track what you are spending and then make an honest assessment. You will be amazed that when you start budgeting and realize that to pay for that habit, you have to knowingly remove money from savings, that you may just want to stop that habit anyway.

And I like the idea of paying yourself first. Start with a small percentage, say 5%. When you get your check, let’s say it’s $100, first things first, put $5 into your savings category. Yes, you may need to use that, but do it anyway. Then when you are budgeting the rest of your money, you will have to knowingly take the money from that savings line, and put it somewhere else. Again, it’s that act of doing this that makes you aware of your money.