After a couple of days with the Pavoni, I was able to pull some nice shots on it. A capuccino:

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I started to drink coffee at a later age than most people do, mostly because I couldn’t stand the taste of it. I tasted my parents coffee, my classmate’s when we were on school excursions and many other variants, and at last I swore that I never would be able to drink that black fluid. But while I was in Italy with my ex-girlfriend, we found a very good coffee place where I tasted my first, good cup of coffee.

Ever since that time in italy, I’ve dreamt about getting my own espresso machine. But my ex owned an espresso machine so getting a machine of my own was a bit dumb. But when we went apart, I wanted to buy one, but didn’t have the money for a good quality machine.

In my searches for a machine that was within my budget, I stumbled across the Handpresso, and I was so thrilled with the good reviews and especially the price, that I got one about two and a half year ago. And I was really impressed by the quality of the shots that I pulled with it. Not in the same class as the ones pulled on a professional machine, but several classes better than a standard filterbrewed cup. I still have it and use it often, as it is very fast to pull a good quality shot. But I’m still in the search of the perfect espresso so time and again I’ve looked around for a machine in my price class.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a La Pavoni professional – a so called lever machine – in just the right price range. That particular model has been around since the 70’s, and hasn’t changed much in the design since it’s introduction. And it’s a machine that has been praised for it’s good quality shots, as long as you’ve got the feeling for the machine and know how to use it correctly. My ex had the same machine, although not the professional one (but they’re not that different – only the size and a missing gauge on the non-pro one).

The machine was 11-12 years old, but looked brand new. I took it home and tried to descale it. Although I got a lot of dirty things out of the boiler, a look with a flashlight told me that I hadn’t been able to descale it properly – far from it. My guess is that the machine hasn’t been descaled at all since the previous owner bought it. So I went on with one more descaling with citric acid, but it didn’t clean the machine completely either. So I had to soak the boiler in citric acid for a whole day, and then I had a clean boiler.

When I tried it the first time, it leaked heavily from the group. Apparently the previous owner hadn’t changed the gaskets during the time he had it. So I bought a new gasket set and changed it. When I took the group apart, I found that it needed a serious cleaning too. But when it was reassembled, I had a machine that was almost like a new one:

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Despite the economic recession here in greece, we haven't noticed any significant changes since last year. The prices has gone up a bit, but that's also due to the fact that it's a small island with no real competition between fx the supermarkets - there's only two small ones in this town.

I think it's time to hit the pool. ;-)

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The last couple of years, cloud computing has gained more and more ground. And the concept is wide and covers several different approaches to computing, but I only want to talk about two types of cloud computing here, namely IaaS and PaaS.

As an example of an IaaS cloud we have Amazons EC2 where you, as a user, work with the datacenter level of computing, in a virtualized manner; you can start a server (instance), and once it’s running attach IP addresses to it, firewall rules or even a block device (disk) that you then format and mount inside the instance. Pretty much the same things you did with a physical server and some networking gear, before IaaS saw the light of day. The biggest difference from the good old physical server days, is that with IaaS you can have your server running minutes after you “ordered” it, instead of several days with the physical servers, as long as your IaaS provider has excess capacity.

An example of PaaS is Heroku. As a user of PaaS you only have to deal with the decision of “how many workers do I need” and “which domain should I use” and then the Platform takes care of anything else. PaaS are often specialized for a particular programming language and environment – in the case of Heroku, it’s the Ruby programming language.

Which type of cloud to use is a matter of personal taste and needs. IaaS is more flexible, but needs more work to be usable for the user/developer, PaaS is easier to use and preferrable if you can find a PaaS provider that support your language and needs.

Now, as a server and hosting provider I’m very interested in those two types of cloud computing. Right now I deliver virtualized computing power to my customers, but only as a virtualized version of a dedicated (physical server) – we have no self-service features that enables our customers to order a new server, like they can if they used an IaaS cloud provider. So my goal is to build and deliver a cloud platform to my customers.

The last two years I’ve followed some of the activity in the world of cloudbuilding software – software that enables you to build your own cloud. Two years ago the solutions were few, and lacked on features, but during the last year several solutions has bubbled to the surface. I’ve tested a lot of them, and I would like to name two Open Source solutions, that seems to be very interesting for my company:

1. OpenNebula is a project that started as a research project back in 2005, but the first public release was in 2008, three years ago. I first encountered the project in 2009, where I put up a demo system and played with it for a while. But it never felt quite ready for production in our environment. I haven’t had time to play with the last version, but it seems to be really good, and the planned next release looks even more promising.

2. A real newcomer is OpenStack, a project announced last year as a joint venture between Rackspace and NASA. Since it’s announcement, several big companys has joined the venture, some contributing more than others, as well as independent developers from all over the world. And the project has gained ground and looks very promising.

As a provider it should now be easy to choose one of those fine projects, and use them as a building block for a cloud offering. But it’s not as easy as it looks. OpenNebula is clearly the project that has the most complete featureset (and some of the code is written in Ruby), but OpenStack is bursting ahead and is getting massive support from the big companies, latest with the announcement of Project Olympus from Citrix, and it’s hard to make a choice.

On the PaaS side a new Open Source project was announced by VMWare in april, named CloudFoundry. Now that is really interesting, as it is a platform that currently supports three programming languages (Java, Ruby and Javascript/Node.js), but aims to support a wide range of languages later on. I haven’t had the time to test it yet, but it seems really promising and could be a foundation for a PaaS offering at my company. You can see an example of a Ruby application that get deployed to CloudFoundry here.

So all in all, from a provider point of view: Even though it gets more and more “cloudy,” the “sun got a strong hold now,” in the business of cloud computing.

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A while ago I sprained my right wrist, while trying to learn to ride backwards on my unicycle. Last year while I was starting out on the uni, I smashed my shin with those, almost lethal, trials pedals that my bike came with. I got some deep holes in the flesh, and I catched some inflamation in them. So early this year, I bought some shin guards to protect me from that never happening again.

But I have never had a serious fall on the unicycle, and I apparently thought I was immortal or something like that, because I tried to ride backwards without protecting my wrists in any way. And I've felt the result for the last month now. I haven't been able to write that much, as the hand position for writing hurt too much, and I couldn't do it for long periods, without taking breaks very often.

But now my wrist is almost back to normal, so I can write some more again. And the next thing I'm going to buy for myself is wrist guards - that's for sure!

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It’s now been almost 3 weeks of me flirting and dating with Vim, and Imust say that I’m impressed by her, and the way she moves. She’s still too fast for me sometimes, and she still do things that confuses me. My memory is also way too bad to remember all the ways to please her – but I’m learning!

The discovery of plugins like NERD_tree, and key remappings in .vimrc has made the transition from TextMate toMacVim bearable. Also watching the Smash Into Vim screencasts has taught me some tricks, and the work ofCarl Lerche and Yehuda Katz, integrating a bunch of plugins to make it easier for newcomers to get started with Vim, really is worth mentioning – you can fetch the complete collection here (with an easy to use installer too!).

I still have to practice a lot to get where Gary Bernhardt is, regarding Vim experience. I have to go through his Play by Play screencast on PeepCode again, to extract some of the goodies that he shows.

This post is written in MacVim, just for the exercise – although I didn’t get to try some of all the shortcuts and commands that I’ve learned. I have to produce some code to do that…

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Maybe she’s not that fancy dressed, maybe she doesn’t have that modern look, but underneath that dull, 70’s look, lies a power that hard to control. I have known her for a decade, and flirted with her from time to time, but she never caught my interest long enough for me to get hooked.

It was so much easier to fall for TextMates nice and slim look, and for the power that lies ind CMD+t and the project drawer, but when you have lived with her for some time, you find that’s she’s a slow starter, never really reinvents herself, and can’t keep too many balls in the air at once. You try to indulge her by turning on the Cutting-Edge flag in the software update settings, but that only makes her cover up her weak spots with more makeup.

So a couple of days ago, I left Textmate at home and set out to take MacVim for ride. It was akward at first, but then again, so was my first dates with another mistress of mine, Puppet. You got to hang in and be brave, ‘cause she tricks you. Be careful with the keystrokes when she is in command (mode) and learn the undo key (u) early on (and the fact that she actually has three moods (modes)). If you grasp her moodyness, she will slowly loosen up, and hand over the full control of her hidden power. And then you can molden her into the editor you really want.

I’m still struggling with her moodyness. I find myself fingering for the arrow keys everytime I have to move around in a file. I find myself reaching for the safety belt I have in my mouse. But I’m also patient, because I know that in the end it will pay off. Just as with Puppet. And Linux. And all the other mistresses I keep.

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I've signed up for this years Startup Weekend Copenhagen. Some of you who knows me, would probably ask: Why? You have your own company. Are you changing horses in the middlie of the stream? To that question I must answer:
No. I'm not.

I just see a lot of potential, meeting up with a lot of smart people for an intense weekend of pitching product ideas, choosing the best ones, designing them and build them. I know that I can provide knowledge in the areas of how to build the infrastructure to support a new, webbased product. And I hope that I can learn a lot from the processes we have to go through that weekend, to get some results in that short, but intense period of time. Some experience that I can take home and use in my own team.

But then again - it could be interesting to be part of a new startup... :-)

In the week after, I'll post about the event and the outcome of it.

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As long as we're not in a club of unicyclists, we have to rely on the weather to be good enough to ride in. When we (hopefully soon) get a club started in our hometown, we can ride indoors and ignore the weather outside. But until then, we have to ride outside.

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I've followed and listened to Merlin Mann in the past, and he's always been very interesting and inspiring. I came to know Dan Benjamin from The Ruby Show podcast, where he appeared last summer. After a while I checked out 5by5.tv, and found many interesting podcasts on that side. He's also an interesting guy to follow.

Well, back to the said podcast, Back to Work. I subscribed, synced it to my iPhone and took a late night walk, listening to the thing. And I must say that it was inspiring, even though both of fthem said that this first episode would just be the two rambling along. When Merlin Mann stated what his idea behind the podcast is, he told a story with a punchline that was quite an epiphany for me. Without spoiling you with all the details (go take a listen - it's inspiring), I must say, that he is so right in stating the fact, that there is nothing that hinders you in doing something, building something, creating something, but yourself. There's rarely a barrier that you can't overcome by yourself. Most of the times, it's your own excuses and fears that hinders you in doing great things. And that will be an important thing that I'll have to work with myself.

Long story short - go take a listen to that first episode. I think it looks promising.

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I've always been addicted to good storys, and those radiotheater episodes really caught me. I was glued to the chair, with either the volume cranked up on my parents loudspeakers, or a pair of headphones on. And I really miss them, after DR discontinued them.

Shortly after the podcasting wave rolled in all over the Internet, I jumped on the bandwaggon, and have listened to podcasts ever since. I rarely listen to the radio anymore. A couple of years ago, I discovered that some podcasters had used the platform to put out - tada! - audiodramas, the equivalent to the radiotheater I used to know and love.

After some searching I found a really awsome one, that I highly recommend. The Leviathan Chronicles (http://theleviathanchronicles.com/). It's so professionally performed and edited, and the storyline is awsome. And as a bonus, the storyteller has this really sexy voice! :-)

The author of The Leviathan Chronicles is Christof Laputka (awsome name), a man who is really devoted to the project. Apart from the episodes of the story itself, I've enjoyed the soapboxes that they've released between episodes, almost as much as the story itself. And the kickass music is performed by Daniel Jakubovic.

Anyways, I highly recommend you to check it out. Season 1 is out in it's full length, (25 episodes), so you can listen to it in a more coherent way than I did, as I had to wait (sometimes in a very long time) between episodes. The next season will come out in a much more coherent way too, as they will only release it, when all episodes has gone through postproduction and are ready to release. So if you like audiodramas (or as I, radiotheater) and Sci-Fi, head over to the website and subscribe to the podcast!

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So this is some of the things I've had in mind for the new year:

1. Write more

With this I don't just mean on my blogs, but in a more general sense. To help me commit to this goal, I've signed up for Project52.info, so some of the writing I'll do, has to be on this blog.

But I'll also be doing some technical documentation stuff, and just writing to reflect my thoughts down on paper, something that helps me a lot getting an understanding of my life, and to get ideas of how to improve. I've done that a lot in the past, but not so much lately, so I have to pick up on that.

2. Be more productive

For the last 5 years or so, I've worked with the way I organize myself and the work I do. I've worked hard on implementing the GTD system in my life, as it really fits my way of thinking. It's been a struggle, and I'm not there yet, but the method is more a part of me, than it was 2 years ago. During the 5 years, I've tried out several tools to help me use GTD more effectively, most of them digital. And I've found that for me, OmniFocus from omnigroup.com works best for me. But I must admit that I'm still not satisfied with the way I use the program in my daily life - it still needs improvement.

One of the things I like to do in the first month or two of this year, is to help someone getting started with GTD by presenting the system and the tools I use for some diverse audiences. I'll start with my coworkers, and I already have made the commitment of presenting it to one of my customers. I started the work on the presentation late last year, but didn't finish it. So this will be some of the focus points for January.

3. Play more music

I've played music almost all my life, but the last 10 years have been more or less without playing. 1 year ago, I got together with my old band and started playing again, and I really want to do more of that. I also like my son to get interested in playing, but I can't expect him to be that, if I don't play myself.

4. Start a Unicycle club in my new hometown

Last year I started learning how to ride a unicycle. I'm now at the stage where I can get up on it and ride, and get off again gracefully. But I want to be better at it, and I want my son to be better at it (we started together). After attending to days of training in another club, I realized that it boosted my sons and my learning considerably, to be riding with other unicyclists at different experience levels. So my goal is now to start a club in my hometown, so me and my son can get together with others and learn from each other.

5. Start drawing again

Just after New Year, I saw a demo of Sketchbook Pro for iPad. I must say, that I haven't found a good enough use case to get me an iPad, but after watching this demo (and several others afterwards), I've now found a very good one indeed. That program is awsome! And that made me want to draw again, like I did a lot while I was younger.

I'll try hard to make these goals this year. I already have an appointment next monday with Lars Lottrup who has started a lot of unicycle clubs here in Denmark. He's also behind unisalg.dk, the danish pendant to unicycle.com.

Until next time: Stay tuned!

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Last week 37signals had a big outage in their Campfire product, and yesterday they posted on their blog (http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2010/12/campfire-outage-explanation..., the explanation of the root causes of the trouble, sincerely apologized and gave every customer of this particular product one month free usage.

Kudos to 37signals - it's this kind of gestures that builds up the trust in your customers hearts!

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As a professional user of computers, I personally would hate to loose the OS interaction I have today, as many other professionals would. So this change, or refinement if you will, has to be on consumer-directed OS's.

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I have nothing to add.

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Som nummer to roman valgte jeg "Odd Thomas" af Dean Koontz, en forfatter jeg har haft på min ønske-læse-liste længe, men som jeg endnu ikke har fået læst noget af. Jeg fandt at han skriver i et meget ligefremt sprog, benytter gode metaforer som ikke er fortærskede og ofte (i hvert fald i de 2 romaner jeg har læst indtil videre) skriver uden at hoppe i tid (andet end når han fortæller baggrundshistorier der understøtter selve historien) og med en god portion humor.

Så da Odd Thomas var overstået, strøg jeg straks ud og købte endnu en Koontz roman, Deadline. Igen en roman der var spændende, skrevet i et godt, flydende sprog, handlingsmæssigt strakte sig over meget kort tid og blev fortalt uden spring i tiden. Og med en god portion humor.

Nu er jeg i gang med en tredje Koontz roman, "Odd for evigt" fortsættelsen af Odd Thomas. Det er en serie på flere bøger og jeg har "Broder Odd" liggende til når Odd for evigt er læst færdigt - hvilket nok er om et par dage. :-)

Jeg kan helt klart anbefale Dean Koontz, hvis man er til gys og spænding!

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Selvom jeg arbejder med IT til daglig, har det været lidt af en øjenåbner for mig at blive stillet i rollen som forælder til et skolebarn, få adgang til ForældreIntra og se hvor godt det fungerer. Hver dag kan jeg logge ind og se en kort fortælling om hvordan hans dag har været, og være forberedt til at stille de rigtige spørgsmål ved middagsbordet, så jeg kan "hjælpe" min søn til at huske noget fra skoledagen, og fortælle lidt mere detaljeret om hvordan det har været for ham. ForældreIntra bruges også til at sende beskeder mellem hjem og skole, en funktion som vi allerede har gjort brug af, da han allerede blev syg efter en uges skolegang. Og så kan læreren lægge både dokumenter med info samt billeder fra skoledagen eller af deres projekter op, så vi som forædre kan læse dem og se billeder.

Så helt klart en tommel op herfra, for ForældreIntra i skolerne!

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