Posts Archive

Setting up the integriy.st OpenVPN on NetworkManager is easier than the official docs describe. Instead of manually entering all the data, you can use the client.ovpn file included in the .zip downloaded.

When creating the OpenVPN connection, select “Import a saved OpenVPN configuration …”.

Then select the client.ovpn file. You probably want a better connection name than “client” so make one up and fill it in. Enter your username and password, save and connect.

My daily yaourt -Syua led me to realize that fig has been deprecated in favor of docker-compose. Switching however was just a straight renaming exercise. The fig.yml file is now docker-compose.yml, and the command is docker-compose instead of fig

I just released 0.3.0 of my static blogging tool Sinor.

Major new features in this release:

• Tags support
• Markdown can be used in archive pages
• Improved command line API

It can be installed either by pip install sinor or by downloading it directly from Github.

I started blogging back in 2002. At that time I was working at Lecando, where I was lucky enough to be doing Java development and experimenting with XP together with some ridiculously bright people like Jimmy, Johan, Jon, Håkan and Visar.

Back then, Java was where it was happening. All the new things happened in Javaland, and we did our best to try out the new things; TDD with JUnit, CI with CruiseControl.

I spent a lot of time then reading blogs. Most of the blogs I was interested in were hosted at FreeRoller, a platform run by Anthony Eden, today perhaps more famous for DNSimple.

Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote about how I had built my own blog frameworky thing. In that post I wrote that I was happy with the result. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

The problem was that the tool I had built did too much. It found all the markdown files, converted them to HTML using Mustache templates and wrote the result to other files. All paths etcetera were hardcoded, the code was tied to the content in a way I strongly diskliked. Each change required everything to be rebuilt. Come to think of it, the only thing I liked was the choices of templating technology I had picked - Markdown and Mustache.

Friday was my last day as a consultant at Valtech, and starting Monday I will join the team of developers at Qwaya.

This was the second time I was employed by Valtech. I originally joined them in 2005 after five years at Lecando. Back then, Valtech was one of only three companies in Stockholm actively promoting agile software development. (The other two was Agero and Citerus). I spent two years away from Valtech, first in product development at WeMind and after that trying to set up a Thoughtworks office in Stockholm. Neither of those two turned out the way I had hoped, so I was happy to return to Valtech in the fall of 2009.

Recently I was replying to a post on the Valtech intranet, and tried coming up with a word for what I do as an agile coach. The thing that popped up in my mind was agile smurfing, which I think nails it. As an agile coach I do everything between teaching TDD to solving organizational issues, and since you can exchange every word in the smurf language to “smurf” it just works.

I have slowly realized that Jekyll isn’t for me. After evaluting a few alternatives like Pelican I decided to write my own, and I have to say that I’m happy with the result.

Not that what I have written is better than Jekyll in any measurable way, but it just that it suits my needs. For example: I use Mustache templates which I strongly prefer over Liquid, and as the Python Markdown library supports metadata and Pygments code formatting out of the box, I find that the original post format is clearer.

I took the train home to Stockholm from Skövde yesterday. The train was to my very small surprise late, somehow Swedish trains have a hard time dealing with snow.

The more interesting thing was how Swedish train company SJ calculates when the late train will arrive at its destination. The train started in Gothenburg, and had continuously become more late as it approached Skövde. But according to SJ, from Skövde and on we would not only start going faster, we would actually be going faster than normal.

I got a new laptop at work the other day. It is a Lenovo X230 which replaces the best laptop I ever had, the Lenovo X200. I carried the X200 around wherever I went for three years, and in that time I had to replace the battery once. Which is really simple: you buy a new one, take the old one out (no screws) and put the new one in. Oh, I replaced the old hard disk with an SDD one too. That involved taking one (1) screw out, pull the old one out and push the new one in.