Here is an old-school bash+Python application tutorial for the American Cloud Compute offering (think EC2 from AWS).

I am proud to release this tutorial for American Cloud, a service I trust and a valuable player in the SaaS marketplace, taking on the giants!

I was not paid or compensated for this work. This release is both a kata and the grassroots support new enterprises need.

I consider this an accomplishment, especially because in 2010, I asked a friend to show me how to "get an instance of Python running on AWS," He gave up after 2+ hours teaching me and endless fixes.

Since then, I have not seen a tutorial, such as the one I am sharing, showing the bare-bones "MVP" approach to running an instance.

The origin of this work is NOT what you think.

Sure, I have DevOps chops and even managed SRE/DevOps teams, but that is all part of my career. I have also written many SaaS apps (more than I care to admit 😜).

The root of this work is embedded devices and touch screens, most notably (but not limited to) Raspberry Pi, where I needed to have my application boot on start-up reliably and without fail.

My passion has been, and always will be, microcomputers, dedicated devices, and software+hardware appliances. The above tutorial is the product of months of work building electrical monitoring devices for FPV (first-person view) drone battery charging, aka "battery voltage logs."

Designing the analog-to-digital converters, logging the data, designing the application, learning Python's GUI packages, and getting a touch screen to operate were collectively less than the challenge to get that *^#$% to boot correctly on the Raspberry Pi.

American Cloud via Ubuntu was much easier.

About American Cloud

I met Aron, the CEO, in late 2023 and spent time with him at a conference in early 2024. More so than other companies and 3rd party providers, I was impressed with his dedication, focus, and mission. Since then, I have seen American Cloud grow and have been fortunate to meet more of the staff.

One of the biggest hurdles to adopting new technology, especially a new cloud provider, is a frictionless way to get somewhere fast. Since the AC team is running at full speed, this work is provided to give tinkerers and operations people the ability to try out the service and evaluate it for their needs.

It's great to see alternatives to the "biggies" thriving in the marketplace. Each month, I see more features added to the AC platform. They already cover the needs of 90% of the projects I have launched over the past 10 years. The unfettered access allows users to configure and deploy anything they want.

About me

I am a software industry dog. I officially "changed my day job" in 2003 to write software. Since then, I have been a Project Manager, CTO, architect, senior developer, Product Manager, team lead, Scrum Master (PSM), and Product Owner.

I have delivered over 10 million lines of code to production, and I still write code prolifically for various projects. However, I focus exclusively on building teams and helping SMEs get the most out of software and their development efforts.

If you want to increase your capacity, a ship that features on time and within budget, or finally decide you need some help mentoring your team to reach the next level, let's talk.