blog on 't is Goud

Silence is foo

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Taking a screenshot, emptying the trashcan or other notification sounds can be very distracting during presentations, video calls or webinars. When you hear a notification sound from the presenting side FOMO kicks in. Did I miss something? Or if you are busy, emptying the trashcan, receiving new email or taking a screenshot these sounds are also heard on the other side. Time to disable these sound effects. There are two ways to disable the “System UI Sound Effects”:

Persistent NFS mount points on macOS

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

After finishing my blog post “Automount with launchd” I talked about it with my friend Herman. The launchd solution had a code-smell which usually is not a good sign. It works fine but it has too much dependencies. The launchd path and just running a script to mount the NFS shares seemed a better solution. At least no longer a workaround. I tried mounting NFS with the mount command but the results were somewhat unexpected.

Automount with launchd

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 23 October 2020 - Better solution described in Persistent NFS mount points on macOS. Intro In a previous blog post “Automount NFS on macOS” I wrote about how to mount NFS shares. Unfortunately the solution was not reboot proof. On each reboot the OS resets the auto_master to its default state. As a workaround I created a script to add the missing lines to the auto_master. The script needs to be run manually with sudo rights.

Multipass multi-node Kubernetes cluster

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Before running a multi-node Kubernetes cluster on my Raspberri Pi cluster I wanted to play around with the different deployments and possibilities. For that I was looking for an easy-to-use tool to spin-up a couple of virtual Linux machines as Kubernetes nodes. Multipass The easy-to-use tool I found was Canonical’s Multipass. Much easier to use than VirtualBox or VMware Fusion. Downloads are available for Windows, Mac and Linux and the installation is very straightforward.

Keyboard redefined - part 2

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is part 2 of my “Keyboard redefined” post. In part 1 I wrote about the tools and native ways I encountered to customize my keyboard. I bought this Qisan Magicforce 68 mechanical keyboard, with a PC layout. A nice compact PC keyboard with proper arrow-keys. The main goal was to swap the Window (❖)- and Alt- keys for the Command (⌘)- and Option (⌥) keys. The keyboard has only 5 rows, the main reason to combine three keys into one Escape key.

Keyboard redefined - part 1

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I bought a mechanical keyboard, the Qisan Magicforce 68. A nice compact keyboard with proper arrow-keys. Disadvantage, it has a PC layout and a combined Escape, grave accent and tilde key. The Window (❖)- and Command (⌘) key both send the same USB scancode. Same for the Option (⌥) key on an Apple keyboard and the Alt key on PC keyboards, both send the same USB scancode. Functionally everything is there but at the wrong place on the keyboard.

ConBee in Home Assistant on Proxmox

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I had deCONZ working in Home Assistant and everything was running fine until I rebooted the Proxmox host due to some kernel updates. After the reboot the deCONZ add-on was no longer working. deCONZ complained about not finding the device. It was some time ago since I installed de ConBee device so I had to refresh my memory on how the passthrough was configured in Proxmox. Like most ‘problems’ multiple things lead to the time-consuming ‘solving’ proces, in this case:

Xiaomi Dafang Hack

Sun, 03 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago I read about these cheap IP cameras that could be modified. Modified in a sense that the camera no longer connects to the Xiaomi servers and that we can hook it up to our own systems. In my case that would be Home Assistant. The camera can be bought at some Chines sites for around 20 euros. Just search for ‘xiaomi xiaofang 1s’ or ‘xiaomi dafang’ and you will find several suppliers.

Saving the Yak browser-trail

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Browsing the internet allways leads you from one site to the other, you’re not finished reading the first but you see this reference to another item and before you know it you are ‘shaving the Yak’. You go back to where you started but do not want to discard the trail of interesting articles you found so far… So you want to save all these open tabs to review them later, buth how?

From Publii to Hugo

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why leave Publii Yes, I again switched my blogging workflow. Although Publii was easy to use, created a good looking, fast and responsive site it still missed some features. Where it falls short: Machine independant workflow, I placed my Publii folder in Dropbox to have it synchronised across machines but generating the site from a Dropbox folder pushed my CPU’s well over 100% Creating posts with code blocks, writing a post in Publii and adding a piece of code is cumbersome and error prone.

Algolia and Gitlab CI/CD

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Still working on my blog workflow I was looking for a way where I can work on my blog from my laptop while I’m on the road, from my desktop at home and even from my iPad. The Hugo theme “Clean White” uses Algolia for searching the site. The documentation of the theme clearly explains how to build and upload the search-index but that would make my setup less portable.

Deploy to sFTP from Gitlab CI

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Using GitLab CI is a very convenient way to automate deployments of a website or blog. Most of the time it just works but sometimes it takes a bit more time to get things going. The challenge I faced was the automatic deployment from Gitlab to a webhoster that only supports sFTP. There are several workflows possible, I prefer to have just the source of the site in Gitlab and let the Gitlab CI take care of the rest: I came across an article by Savjee that used lftp to transfer the files with Gitlab CI to an sFTP host.

Fresh install of macOS

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Whatever the reason is for re-installing the applications and settings on your mac, it can be a lot of work. Over the years you get used to working in a certain way with specific tooling and settings. Installing everything from scratch is cumbersome at least. In this post I wrote down how I restore my configuration. It is based on a cleanly installed mac. Everything is installed from scratch only most of it is now automated.

Automount NFS on macOS

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Updated on 23 October 2020 - Better solution described in Persistent NFS mount points on macOS. Updated on 5 May 2020 - Updating the OS removes the added lines from the file ‘auto_master’ With each OS update the ‘auto_master’-file is reset to its default. The ‘auto_nfs’-file which mounts the NFS volume still exists in the /etc directory and is untouched. This is a quick-fix to add the missing line to the ‘auto_master’-file.

Multiple Git Accounts

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When you are working with multiple Git accounts across different git-providers it’s hard to manage access to all these repositories. When you search for a solution you will find different ways to solve this problem.

Basically it comes down to two SSH-based solutions;

Use named SSH configurations in the ~/.ssh/config file.
Use the git includeIf directive.

Open in VSCodium

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

First posted on 30-09-2019, updated with the new VSCodium logo.

I recently switched from Visual Studio Code (on Mac) to VSCodium and missed Sertaç Özercan’s OpenInCode toolbar app. With that tool you can select a file or folder and click on the toolbar icon to open the selection in Visual Studio Code.

This post describes what I did to “restore” the toolbar button functionality for VSCodium.

Make your Ansible playbooks flexible, maintainable, and scalable

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Jeff Geerling (geerlingguy) gave a presentation at AnsibleFest 2019 in Austin (TX). This post is an abstract of his presentation. Jeff’s presentation covers how he builds and maintains Ansible playbooks, roles, and gives tips for making them easy to expand and scale.

Switching to VSCodium

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Probably as many of you, I tried my share of code editors; TextMate, Sublime and Atom. A while ago I wrote a little app in Go(Lang) and someone pointed me to Visual Studio Code and Microsoft’s Go(Lang) plugin. I tried it and switched …

Until I read something about the FLOSS version of Visual Studio Code; VSCodium and switched again …

Netherlands' most beautifull railway station

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The railway station of Groningen has been chosen as the most beautifull railway station of the Netherlands in 2019. The old railway station is indeed very impressive. Not only the outside but also the inside is a must-see. The amount of authentic details is overwhelming. Original article on the NOS site.

Groningen: A Winning alternative to Amsterdam

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My hometown is mentioned on CNN travel as one of the 17 places to visit in a modern-day Grand Tour of Europe. “Young and hip, Groningen is a winning alternative to Amsterdam. The canals and classic Dutch buildings are all in evidence, but without the bustling hordes of tourists. The bike is king here, with the majority of journeys taken on two wheels. The routes are flat and easy, so hire one and head off for an explore.

Simultaneous green lights for bikes

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For outsiders cycling in Groningen leaves an impression of utter chaos. Groningen is a cycling city, 60% of all traffic movement is done on bike. For me growing up with bikes in Groningen it comes as second nature. The awareness of being chaotic to outsiders only arises when someone tries to explain the rules of this almost organic system. Below is one of the movies that tries to explain these rules.

MkDocs in a Docker container

Sun, 24 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For an internal presentation “Text-based tools, not just for nerds” (presentation is mostly in Dutch) I wanted to demo MkDocs with the material theme. The creator of the mkdocs-material theme already created the Docker image as an alternative way to try the theme. For the demo I wanted to run it with a minimal configuration. No errors, no extra’s and for that I created a bash script. Quick Setup or TL;DR version Download/copy and create the script ‘setup.

Creating a snapshot via the vRA API

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I describe the 6 steps needed to create a snapshot of a VM via the vRealize Automation API. It took me a while to figure out how to verify the state of the request. The short version is that the “state” can be checked via the URL that is send back in the POST response “Location” header. Checking the URL right after posting the request shows an “IN-PROGRES” state, the same result as in the vRA portal.

Publii

Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’m reviving my website after neglecting it for quite a while. Stepping away from Wordpress, failing Akismet upgrades and required updates almost each month. Looking at static site generators (StaticGen) and the large headless CMS collection (HeadlessCMS) I decided to try out Publii. Publii is an Open Source CMS for static websites. It generates it’s websites throug its built-in site generator. Publii publishes to AWS, Netlify, Github, GitLab or SFTP.

Kasikasima dag 8

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Om half zeven stond er een thermoskan met heet water voor ons klaar, rustig een kopje thee gedronken met de buurtjes en om acht uur ontbeten. De standaard routine. Om kwart over negen hebben we met Espa een wandeling door het dorp gemaakt, langs de school, het dorpshuis, de lokale bevolking die met Casave brood bezig was of het meel of het afbakken. Het eindpunt van de wandeling was de lokale souvenir-markt.

Kasikasima dag 7

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Vandaag opgestaan met het eerste zonlicht. Alles opgeruimd, ingepakt en in de boot gezet. Om zeven uur gingen we varen. Na een dik half uur stopten we bij een plek waar Sidderalen zouden zijn. Die zaten er! Jack had al vrij vlot bij de ingang van een kreetje een groot exemplaar gespot. De aal werd geraakt maar wist met pijl en al te ontsnappen. Even later kwam de pijl weer boven en Richard deed nog een verwoede poging om de Sidderaal ook mee naar boven te krijgen, helaas niet gelukt.

Kasikasima dag 6

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Uitgeslapen voor zover dat kan hier. Je gaat slapen wanneer het donker wordt en je wordt wakker als het weer licht wordt. ’s Avonds klets je meestal wel wat na tot een uur of acht maar de zon is al weer op voor zeven uur, lange nachten dus. De laatste dag in dit kamp, de tijd staat stil hier, het was een fantastische ervaring om hier te zijn midden in het “bos”.

Kasikasima dag 5

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Relaxte dag vandaag, stukje door het bos gewandeld en uitleg gekregen over de verschillende planten en hoe ze te gebruiken zijn. Knoflook liaan voor in het eten of tegen nachtmerries, bast dun en sterk waar draagbanden van gemaakt worden. Sap van een andere bast werkt ontsmettend en weer een andere bast wordt gebruikt als vloeibare pleister. Palmbladeren worden gebruikt om mandjes en in ons geval een rugzak van te maken.

Kasikasima dag 4

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We hebben het gehaald! Vandaag zijn we de Kasikasima berg opgeklommen. In twee uur en drie kwartier naar de top. Vier flinke heuvels op en af en dan nog de klim vanaf de voet naar één van de twaalf toppen. Door de warmte en vochtigheid was de tocht super zwaar. Op de top aangekomen krijg je direct weer energie door het fantastische uitzicht en de wind die daar waait. Op de top hebben we een uurtje gerust, water drinken en beetje eten.

Kasikasima dag 3

Sun, 27 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Geslapen in een hangmat samen met een groep mosquitos. Lekgeprikt maar gelukkig weinig last van. Voor het slapen gaan gisteravond nog geluisterd naar de brulapen. Tjonge wat een herrie kunnen die maken. Ook noemenswaardig is de sterrenhemel, geen strooilicht dus je ziet alles. Ik dwaal af, we zitten nu op een bankje met een kopje thee te genieten van het uitzicht in kamp Sawaniboto. Mooie plek maar het had niet veel gescheeld of we waren hier niet geweest.

Kasikasima dag 2

Sat, 26 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Om gelijk maar te beginnen het eindpunt van vandaag. We zijn nu op tussenkamp Kamakabari, een klein eilandje stroomopwaarts. Vanmorgen vroeg opgestaan, tegen half zeven, even wachten op het beloofde warm water maar uiteindelijk tegen half acht hadden we water voor de thee. Tegen achten ontbeten, tegen tienen vertrek maar dan wel op z’n Surinaams. Om elf uur gingen we op pad, nu echt de rivier op het bos in.

Kasikasima dag 1

Fri, 25 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Vanochtend vroeg heerlijk relaxed ontbeten in het Greenheart Hotel. Een prachtig hotel in authentieke stijl gerestaureerd door Yuyu en “hippie” met zakelijk inzicht. Met de taxi naar vliegveld Zorg en Hoop gereden onderweg nog even door de drive-through bank gereden. In de vertrekhal hebben we onze mede-reisgenoten Astrid en Richard voor het eerst ontmoet. Het klikte gelijk. Even na elven vertrokken we richting het “bos”. De vlucht was een belevenis op zich.

Synology Download Station: add search modules

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The Synology Download Station is a great application for downloading torrents but sometimes it’s unable to find the things you are looking for. It happened to me and as I was looking through the settings for a way to add a search engine I found out it has to be a .dlm file. I don’t know when this was changed but I remember that I could just add a URL but ala.

From idea to product, no need to think small

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We all heard about the possibilities the internet gives us. Power to the people, right? Well the story of the Glif is a perfect example of this. Two guys, Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost came up with an idea for an iPhone 4 tripod mount. The final result does a little bit more that just being a tripod mount but you can judge that for yourself. The basic thing that struck me was how they used the means at hand to it’s full capacity.

How to survive password hell

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Keeping track of your passwords can be a real pain. Passwords for your email, your account at work or for that website where you want to leave a comment. Unless you can use one password for all of these different accounts you have to keep a list of passwords. Some store them in their head resulting in the obvious password restore options after a long holiday other store them on paper.

WalletCards on my iPhone

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I read a post on slimming down your wallet (via Lifehacker). As many of you I had my wallet filed with membership and other reward cards from the local hardware store the grocery shop and the rest of it. Some cards used regularly some used only once a year. As mentioned in the post from the unclutterer most of the companies only need the number from the card. The magnetic strips are hardly used and the barcode is just a store for the number.

Silence is FOO!

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Coding foo Everybody who has read codesamples in whatever language will encounter the famous words “Foo”, “Bar” and “Foobar”. Did your mind wander of on trying to find the meaning of these words? I remember it confused me as I was looking for a deeper meaning. Well last monday my colleague Michiel send me this link to the Etymology of “Foo”. I first couldn’t believe it. There is an actual RFC document on these words.