Roland Tritsch
Extreme Digital Nomad
Biography
Builder and runner of functional teams and functional systems. Explorer of extreme digital nomading and remote-first cultures.
My name is Roland Tritsch. I am a Software Craftsman. I am a Manager. I am a Husband and a Father. I like to make engineers grow and users smile. I like computer science. I believe that computers and software can help to make this planet a better place. When I am not building, running or fixing something (preferably using a functional programming language like Haskell or Scala), I am on a hike (somewhere).
You can find/follow me here.
Recent Posts
Huffman Trees/Codes - Why are they different?
2024-11-19 Software-Craftmanship Augmented-by-AI Functional-Programming Nerdy Scala
Right now I am solving the 99-scala-problems. Again!!! This time around I am using them to learn more about what it means to be an Augmented Software ... Read More
The Augmented Software Engineer - What is it?
2024-10-24 Management Software-Craftmanship Augmented-by-AI Innovation Machine-Learning Thoughts
Updated … 2024-11-08: Added section at the end on published and planned episodes 2024-11-19: Added episode 3-5 I can hear you loud and clear ... Read More
Mastodon and Emacs - The Restart
2024-07-05 Personal Emacs Nerdy TEDN Tips & Tricks
Ok … I admit it! I am using emacs! A lot! I am also using emacs to do my tooting. Means I am using mastodon.el. The other day I had to ... Read More
Note to myself - How to make ManxTelecom work
2024-07-04 Personal TEDN Tips & Tricks
Ok … it is not a secret: I have been to the Isle of Man (IOM) once or twice (for the the TT and the Manx Grand-Prix). And every 12 month I find ... Read More
IOM TT 2024 - History was made
2024-06-01 Personal Thoughts
Ok, here comes an odd one … This one is not about software-technologies or software-engineering or software-craftmanship or management or ... Read More
The Software Gardening Manifesto - A copy
2023-07-01 Software-Craftmanship Culture Thoughts
In case the Software Gardening Manifesto is down or otherwise not available, here is a copy of it … SOFTWARE GARDENING MANIFESTO Software ... Read More
Renault Zoe - STOP Electric Motor Failure
2023-04-09 Personal Environment Nerdy Tips & Tricks
I used to have a Nissan Leaf (for 6 years) and now I have a Renault Zoe (for 2 years). I was and I am very happy with these cars. I am very happy to ... Read More
Augmented Blogging - The Art of Prompting
2023-04-09 Personal Augmented-by-AI Innovation Machine-Learning Nerdy Thoughts
This is a landmark blog post. I just introduced a tag called Augmented-by-AI. And this post is tagged with it. This is going to be the new normal. Let ... Read More
The pillars of a sustainable energy future - A fireside chat
2023-03-12 Personal Augmented-by-AI Climate Environment Innovation Politics Thoughts
This blog post is interesting in more than one way, because … I am going to discuss a topic that is deer to my heart: What do we need to do to ... Read More
The Ideal Team Player - HHS vs. DAC
2023-02-10 Management Books Culture Remote Thoughts
Patrick Lencioni (obviously) wrote The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In that book we learn that the five dysfunctions you need to avoid are … ... Read More
Can we afford to be surprised? - "Hot, hot, hot"
2023-01-14 Personal Environment Politics Thoughts
6 years ago I wrote a blog post to express that my wife loves me for a lot of different reasons and that there is no reason to be surprised about the ... Read More
Happy new year - I am tooting now ...
2023-01-01 Personal Culture Nerdy Politics Privacy TEDN Thoughts Tips & Tricks
Happy new year to ya all!!! What a year it has been. Some of the highlights are … In February I spend a week with the European Community ... Read More
Emacs Pair Programming - Innovation-Week Q2/2022
2022-05-01 Software-Craftmanship Community Culture Emacs Innovation Lisp Nerdy Remote Tips & Tricks
We (at Community) just had another Innovation-Week. I was actually working on generating pact-files from frontend code and then generating openapi ... Read More
Reconnecting to RabbitMQ with AMQP in Elixir
2021-10-26 Software-Craftmanship AMQP Community Elixir Event-Sourcing Functional-Programming Micro-Services Tips & Tricks Web-Services
Updated (2022-01-01): Added stage. At Community we are building a platform that will allow you to have meaningful conversations with large audiences ... Read More
Good WiFi - More TEDN dark arts
2021-07-25 Personal Remote TEDN Tips & Tricks
Updated (2021-08-14): Added some test data (at the end; see below) As I said before … When you work from anywhere (or even from home) it is ... Read More
What is better than Remote-First 1.0? Remote-First 2.0!
2021-07-04 Management Culture Remote Thoughts
Two weeks ago I got my second jab. I am fully vaccinated now. I am now in Germany to see my parents for the first time in 12 month. Yes: It is finally ... Read More
The end of the pandemic - Social Media Edition
2021-06-10 Personal Thoughts
Now it is (almost) official: The pandemic is over (or is coming to an end fast/soon). In the next couple of days I am going to get my second shoot. ... Read More
Effective Programming with Scala(3)
2021-06-02 Software-Craftmanship Functional-Programming Scala
Just finished the brand new Effective Programming with Scala course on Coursera. It is a beginners course and it is excellent for beginners. Good ... Read More
Distances - Know them. Manage them.
2021-06-01 Management Culture Remote Thoughts
Building and managing remote-first organizations means that you also need to understand (and manage) distances! To develop your ability to understand ... Read More
Some more fun with Scala3
2021-05-15 Software-Craftmanship Advent-of-Code Functional-Programming Nerdy Scala
Scala3 is here. In my earlier post I saw some weird performance differences between Scala2 and Scala3 (RC3) and felt (obviously) compelled to run the ... Read More
(The Extreme) 100 Day Walking Challenge
2021-05-15 Personal Thoughts
In January I had a good call with my friend Braggy in Sydney. The insight was, that 2020 was different to what I/we expected, but with 20/20 ... Read More
More fun with Scala3
2021-05-01 Software-Craftmanship Advent-of-Code Functional-Programming Nerdy Scala
Note: Look here for 3.0 benchmark numbers The release of Scala3 is imminent. In April I ported/migrated nmesos from Scala2 to Scala3 and I just did a ... Read More
Scala 3 is ... gluten-free!!!
2021-02-21 Software-Craftmanship Functional-Programming Nerdy Scala
A couple of month ago I started to have stomach cramps. First it was only once week, but then it was more or less constant. Funny enough I had to find ... Read More
The first Summit/Hack-a-thon @ Community
2021-02-12 Management Community Culture Remote
As people know … I am big fan of building and maintain this balance between Product and Engineering where … Product makes sure we build ... Read More
Haskell + Beam = Hamler (III)
2021-02-01 Software-Engineering Advent-of-Code Functional-Programming Haskell Nerdy Elixir
Here comes part III of the Hamler blog post series … One of the observations was that for/on Day21 hamler ~6000 times slower than haskell, ... Read More
Haskell + Beam = Hamler (II)
2021-01-18 Software-Engineering Advent-of-Code Functional-Programming Haskell Nerdy Elixir
Here comes part II of the Hamler blog post series … For this year’s Advent-of-Code I wanted to take a look at Hamler. I just finished ... Read More
Haskell + Beam = Hamler (I)
2020-12-15 Software-Engineering Advent-of-Code Functional-Programming Haskell Nerdy Community Elixir
Hamler Blog Post Series … Hamler (I) - First week (this post) Hamler (II) - All solutions for part 1 (in Hamler and Haskell) Hamler (III) - ... Read More
Internet connections ... the life blood of The Extreme Digital Nomad
2020-09-11 Personal Software-Engineering TEDN Tips & Tricks Community
I am in Hidden Valley Holiday Park. Working on the career progression framework for Community. It is 5am and … I realized something. ... Read More
What's a Staff Director?
2020-08-31 Management Thoughts Culture
Community is growing fast. More business. More customers. More people. More money. More (necessary) complexity (software and people). The demand for ... Read More
TEDN.LIFE Podcast - Trutzbox
2020-08-23 Personal TEDN Podcast German
WARNING: This content is in German :) … Willkommen zum TEDN.LIFE Podcast. Ich wollte schon immer mal ausprobieren wie man so was ... Read More
The TEDN Van
2020-04-14 Personal TEDN Culture
Here we go again: There is good news and bad news!!! The good news is that the TEDN Mobile Office project is making good progress! By now we (means ... Read More
Roland ... what's in a name
2020-04-13 Personal Culture Thoughts
Updated: On Oct., 11th, 2020 Updated: On Apr., 12th, 2020 Updated: On Oct., 29th, 2016 A couple of years ago a colleague of mine pointed me to the new ... Read More
Emacs & Lisp ... a match made in heaven
2020-04-12 Software-Engineering Tips & Tricks Nerdy Emacs Lisp
At community (as everywhere these days) we are not using one programming language, we are using a set of programming languages, means for one week I ... Read More
Assessing the WLAN ... the dark arts of extreme digital nomading
2020-04-10 Personal TEDN Remote Tips & Tricks
When you work from anywhere (or even from home) it is YOUR(!!!) responsibility to ensure that you are connected!!! Statements like … ... Read More
Discussing Remote ... the book!!!
2020-04-07 Software-Engineering Management TEDN Remote Culture Books
These days people look for advice and insight into how to build and run a remote-first engineering organization. And want/need to learn fast!!! One ... Read More
TEDN - The most important tool ...
2020-04-06 Personal TEDN Environment
… is the laptop? No (but more on this later)! … is the mobile phone (with good 4G coverage)? No (and again … more on this later)! ... Read More
The Extreme Digital Nomad (TEDN)
2020-03-31 Software-Engineering Management TEDN Culture
In the last 25 years I have build and run multiple distributed software engineering organisations. My management style/philosophy is based on a couple ... Read More
The corona virus ... and it's consequences
2020-03-30 Personal Nerdy
The corona virus has a lot of weird side effects. You suddenly find time to do things that you couldn’t do (or wouldn’t do) for month!!! ... Read More
Code Elixir LDN 2019 - 3 languages in 3 minutes
2019-08-01 Software-Craftmanship Conferences Community Elixir Functional-Programming Haskell Nerdy Scala
Last week I was in London attending Code Elixir LDN 2019 delivering a lightening talk on 3 languages in 3 minutes … This was my first Elixir ... Read More
I love Haskell
2019-04-06 Software-Engineering Haskell
Over the last 2 years I did a fair bit of Haskell (after doing a fairer bit of Scala for 8 years). And I love Haskell. Don’t get me wrong: If ... Read More
Hub-First vs. Remote-First vs. Pod-First ... Skating to where the puck is going to be
2019-03-01 Software-Engineering Management Remote
Fig 1: Skating to where the puck ... Finding good and the right talent for an engineering organisation is as challenging as ever. And then you need to ... Read More
Advent of Code ... Final cut (... and First cut :))
2018-11-30 Software-Engineering Haskell Eta Scala Kotlin Advent-of-Code
Today Advent of Code 2018 started again (at 05:00am (GMT))!!! And … … just in time … … today I am also wrapping up Advent ... Read More
The vertical bar screen of death ... the story of an unexpected win-win
2018-09-21 Software-Engineering Nerdy Tips & Tricks
Last year I spend some time and money to “renovate” my old 17-inch Macbook Pro (remember the good old times … when Apple was ... Read More
Make Google Chrome show the Wifi login screen (best trick ever :))
2018-09-20 Personal Tips & Tricks
Not sure if this has ever happen to you, … … but once a month I am sitting in a hotel lobby or a coffee shop and I cannot (for the life ... Read More
Learn you a ... Haskell!
2018-08-11 Software-Engineering Haskell
In the last 6 month I have started to wonder. First of all … I am convinced that using the concepts of functional programming will give you ... Read More
Kotlin ... the better Java?
2018-08-11 Software-Engineering Functional-Programming Kotlin
Everybody is talking about Kotlin. Me too!!! Obviously the question is: Is Kotlin the next better thing? Is Kotlin going to replace Java? Is Kotlin ... Read More
Advent of Code 2017 ... Revolutions!!!
2018-08-11 Software-Engineering Functional-Programming Advent-of-Code Scala Kotlin
Let’s talk about the Advent of Code … again!!! Last time we talked about a/the Scala implementation. This time around I figured that I ... Read More
The cost of building a skateboard ... and a lot of PSs
2018-05-26 Software-Engineering Culture
The other day I was explaining again how to build an MVP and I was using the skateboard picture (again :)). In the middle of the discussion I realized ... Read More
Advent of Code 2017 ... Reloaded!!!
2018-05-24 Software-Engineering Advent-of-Code Scala Functional-Programming
OK … it took me a while, but … hopefully it was worth it!!! Last year at christmas I did the Advent of Code and … really liked ... Read More
Tenable new hire training ... and integrating sbt-release with sbt-github-release
2018-05-04 Software-Engineering Scala
The other day I was flying to the Tenable new hire training in Columbia/MD and that means … 8 hours of uninterrupted coding time!!! At the same ... Read More
Category Theory for Programmers ... Reviewing THE course!
2018-04-03 Software-Engineering Haskell Functional-Programming Conferences
A couple of weeks ago Angel pointed me to a very nice lecture: Category Theory for Programmers (from/by Bartosz Milewski). Bartosz Milewski is a ... Read More
Assembling a Gatling (gun) ... how hard can it be?
2018-03-07 Software-Engineering Scala
Back to the roots!!! I am writing Gatling tests (again :)). (Obviously) I used to do this (a lot :)), when I was with Gilt (for an obvious reason :)). ... Read More
The Digital Cookbook ... Insights into Digital Transformation and how to go about it!
2018-01-25 Personal Books
Nitro’s mission statement is … And right now … Digital Transformation is a very hot topic. For most of the Fortune 500 companies! ... Read More
GDSE @ edx.org (with TU Delft)
2018-01-24 Software-Engineering Management Conferences
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are massive!!! I did my first one 7 years ago (on Cousera; Martin Odersky’s course on Functional Programming ... Read More
The American election ... 1 year after
2018-01-21 Personal Politics Thoughts
The dust has settled. All opinions have been voiced. All articles have been written. Not quite … here is another one :). I am struggling with ... Read More
About being a (software development) manager ... and managing energy!!!
2018-01-20 Software-Engineering Management Culture
A lot has been written and said about what you need to do as a manager or more specifically as a manager of a software development ... Read More
Hackweeks @ Nitro ... The Why, The What, The How
2017-07-29 Software-Engineering Management Culture
As already discussed: I am obsessed with building cars!!! Not in the sense that I want/need to build cars, but in the sense that Henry Ford famously ... Read More
How to make your options in the future suck less!!!
2017-06-26 Software-Engineering Scala Functional-Programming
If you are here for some advise on how to invest your money (using options), you are in the wrong place. This is about how to use Scala Options in ... Read More
Productive Friction and Diversity ... the pillars of innovation ... or: How to NOT build faster horses!
2017-06-12 Software-Engineering Management Culture
In the week of Jul., 10th we are going to do our next Hackweek. The concept is not new. A lot of companies do it. The question is: Why is it valuable? ... Read More
Leadership at Amazon ... Productive Friction 2.0
2017-06-12 Software-Engineering Management Culture
The other day I was reading the letter that Jeff Bezo’s is writing to shareholders every year. The obsession with fast, good decision making was ... Read More
The myth of ... getting it right the first time
2017-06-06 Software-Engineering Books Culture
I am reading it again: Clean Code. This time I am reading it differently. The first time around (6 years ago), I was reading it and learned a lot ... Read More
Thoughts on Operational Excellence
2017-04-30 Management Culture
Sometimes for me discussions about Operational Excellence sound like discussions about teenager sex: Everybody is talking about it, nobody … ... Read More
Do the right thing ... how hard can it be?
2017-03-19 Personal Environment
I am driving an electric car. It is a great experience. Not to a small part, because the Irish government is trying very hard to make it a good ... Read More
Can Micro-Services Systems be simple?
2017-01-20 Software-Engineering Micro-Services
Architecting and designing large (distributed) systems makes you think about complexity. A lot!!! The first question that you want to ask yourself is ... Read More
LOL ... printers suck!!!
2017-01-19 Management Culture
Last year we visited some of our customers in EMEA to get some video footage about their Nitro Experience. While we had our Creative Director in town ... Read More
I am a lucky guy :) ...
2017-01-18 Software-Engineering Conferences Thoughts
Sometimes it takes a while to get to it … Last year I was opening Data-by-the-Bay and was welcoming/addressing the attendees. Wanted to turn it ... Read More
Spotify Light ... Nitro Engineering 2017
2016-12-09 Software-Engineering Management Culture
Finding a good and maybe even the right org structure for an engineering organization is something of a dark art. Initially everything is so easy. ... Read More
Why do I work for Nitro ... connecting the dots!
2016-11-11 Management Culture
We are redoing our engineering website and our blog (stay tuned). In parallel we have worked on the Nitro Mission Statement (for 2017 and beyond) and ... Read More
Ooohhh boy ... twitterfeed is no more
2016-10-31 Personal Tips & Tricks
The other day I got and email that twitterfeed is no more (they recommend to use buffer or dlvr.it instead). My social media setup was to post to ... Read More
Visit the Powerscourt Gardens ... the Home of Software Gardening
2016-10-28 Software-Engineering Management Culture
Clearly … and obviously … the idea of Software Gardening is not mine. But as I have already mentioned once or twice … I like it a ... Read More
Zero-to-Hero ... in a day
2016-10-22 Management Culture
Yesterday I had a good day in the office! Nitro (like a lot of other startups) is going through growing pains. In the last 2 years we have hired a lot ... Read More
Penny ... everything is better with ... blockchain :)
2016-10-17 Software-Engineering Blockchain
In terms of technologies right now I am very much focused on Functional Programming and Machine Learning and Software Engineering for Mobile Devices ... Read More
Deep Learning ... and beyond - RRRs from the Deep Learning Summit 2016 in London
2016-09-23 Software-Engineering Machine-Learning Conferences
I am just back from the Deep Learning (DL) Summit in London, where I had very interesting 2 days with a lot of good presentations and a lot of time to ... Read More
Happy 4th of July!!! Or ... how to take advantage of an opportunity!
2016-07-10 Personal TEDN Nerdy
A long weekend in San Francisco (Jul., 4th - Independence Day), great weather and nothing to do? I smell an opportunity! An opportunity to do ... Read More
Why are we surprised? - "Hot, hot, hot"
2016-02-08 Personal Environment
Christina loves me. For a lot of reasons. One of them is that I have this habit of putting stuff into the microwave, heat it for 10 mins (I am ... Read More
New Job, New Site, ...
2015-08-14 Personal Culture
Yep … I got a new job and yep … I got a new website. In reverse order, first: (Given that I am a VP Infrastructure Engineering) I am ... Read More
According to the Sunday Independent ... 50 years ago ... the outlook was ... mainly dry
2015-07-11 Personal Culture
Nuclear power plant offered to usReports are current in political circles that the Government has received an offer from a German industrialist to ... Read More
Range anxiety? What range anxiety! (My first road trip with the BADMobile :))
2015-05-20 Personal Environment
In case you are wondering ... this is the BADMobile ... (ask me, if you want :)) ... My friend Klaus and myself have spend more time and more miles ... Read More
Functional Programming on iOS and Android - Making the impossible ... possible?!?!
2015-04-25 Software-Engineering Functional-Programming Mobile
Beginning of the year we had one of our Microsoft Senior Architects from the GDC (Global Delivery Center) in India with us. Over a couple of pints the ... Read More
Scala on Android - Gradle, Ensime and the Android UI samples
2015-01-27 Software-Engineering Scala Functional-Programming Mobile
Besides getting my first companion app done for my Pebble, I also spend some time on X-Mas to start porting the Android UI samples to Scala. The ... Read More
X-Mas Project 3: Install Source Code Pro (again) - And make Emacs use it (again)
2014-12-29 Software-Engineering Nerdy Tips & Tricks
It is not a secret ... I like Source Code Pro! A couple of weeks ago I got myself a new MacBook Air (and resisted the temptation to get the 13-inch ... Read More
X-Mas Project 2: Building a "FlieWaTuet" - Using Mignon :)
2014-12-29 Personal Nerdy
Warning!!! This has nothing to do with Scala or Software Engineering in general. Read at your own risk :). Ok, I admit it: This post is a little bit ... Read More
X-Mas Project 1: Pebble Hello World 2.0 - The companion edition (with Android, Scala, Macroid)
2014-12-29 Software-Engineering Nerdy Scala Mobile
I love Christmas!!! My wife turns the house into the home of all homes, I get to see my all (or at least most of) my friends and ... I get to work on ... Read More
Scala, Android and BLE, because ...
2014-07-27 Software-Engineering Mobile Scala Nerdy
... everything is better with bluetooth :). Originally I was thinking to do a presentation, but Martin convinced me to turn my talk for the Scala ... Read More
HTC One Mini ... does it make Sense?
2014-04-01 Personal Mobile Nerdy
Update 2004-04-02: The first nightlies for M4 got released on CyanogenMod. Testing now ... --- The short answer is: NO! At least not in my case ... Read More
Scala on the Pebble - Exploring SDK 2.0 ...
2014-02-06 Software-Engineering Scala Embedded Mobile
... just kidding :). Reality is ... triggered by the release of the Pebble SDK 2.0 on Feb., 3rd (iOS only, more on this later) and after more than 20 ... Read More
Scala on Android - A start ...
2014-01-28 Software-Engineering Mobile Scala Functional-Programming
I don't know what your experience is, but ... ... in my case, when I look at a new technology, one of the main (or first) hurdles is, that it takes ... Read More
Scala on a Chromebook? Yes, we can!!!
2014-01-22 Software-Engineering Scala
A couple of weeks ago I got myself an Acer Chromebook and so far I am very happy with it. I use it as a tablet with a keyboard and carry it around ... Read More
Talking about the value of immutability ... for deployment platforms and innovation
2013-11-12 Software-Engineering Management Culture Conferences
I am just back from presenting a talk at FutureStack in SFO. Very interesting trip. Got very positive feedback on what we are doing. Did meet a lot of ... Read More
To become or not to become ... a Sunday with Scala and Actors
2013-10-07 Software-Engineering Functional-Programming Scala
It is Sunday, the sun is shining ... in Ireland!!! What do you do? Right: You get your laptop and finally start to get your head around the actor ... Read More
FlightFest @ Gilt ... Location, Location, Location ...
2013-09-27 Personal Nerdy
Psssttt ... don't tell anybody, but ... at Gilt it is not always about work and writing great code. Sometimes we like to party. Especially when ... Read More
Gilt CIO talks ... about innovation
2013-09-24 Management Innovation
From an interview with Steve. Too good not to turn it into a blog post ... "When people talk about innovation they are often talking about the ... Read More
Getting GTD done - Thoughts and Tools
2013-08-19 Personal Management Tips & Tricks Thoughts
We all have a lot to do. Effective time/task management is essential. I’ve been using GTD (Getting Things Done) for a while now (a long while :)) and ... Read More
Charting some KPIs ... how hard can it be?
2013-05-10 Software-Engineering Management Culture Nerdy
In the last couple of weeks I was working on an initiative to make all the Gilt Tech KPIs available in one place. There are lots of dashboard ... Read More
About broken windows and software gardening ... - Thoughts from The Pragmatic Programmer
2013-02-16 Software-Engineering Books Culture Thoughts
These days I am writing more source code again (mostly Scala) and decided to (re)read a couple of books to refresh some thoughts and ideas and ... Read More
Teaching Scala @ TCD ... back to the roots
2012-11-10 Software-Engineering Conferences Scala Functional-Programming
20 years ago I used to teach object-oriented programming (based on Eiffel) at my old university in Germany. This week I got the chance to experience a ... Read More
Sometimes small things make a big difference ... using Source Code Pro with Emacs
2012-11-10 Software-Engineering Nerdy
<outing alarm>I love my emacs.</outing alarm> Sometimes small things can make a big difference. Like a dot. You can put it at the end of ... Read More
A starting point for ... Apache Felix, OSGi, Scala, Sbt
2012-09-16 Software-Engineering OSGi Scala Functional-Programming
It is not a secret ... I like OSGi and Scala ... and therefore it was only a question of time until I started to wonder, if there is anything that ... Read More
Machine Learning at Gilt - "Maven-izing" a/the Apache Mahout tutorial
2011-12-11 Software-Engineering Machine-Learning
If you work for Gilt Tech than you WILL (sooner or later ... somehow) get involved in our Machine Learning and Recommendation efforts. Our ... Read More
Dublin Innovation Festival - Talking about Innovation, Gilt and Ireland ... and Evolution and Darwinism
2011-11-24 Management Innovation Culture
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to talk about three things I care about: Innovation, Gilt and Ireland. The occasion was the Dublin Chamber of ... Read More
(Small) change to my social networking ...
2011-06-26 Personal Culture
First of all ... apologies!!! In the last 2 weeks my (private) tweeds (almost) completely died away. I was just madly busy with work :(. Going ... Read More
Cloud Computing - A practical guide for the common user
2011-05-01 Software-Engineering Cloud-Computing Thoughts
These days (and especially after the Amazon EC2 outage :)) everybody is talking about cloud computing. It seems you cannot be sexy, if you do not ... Read More
Adventure 2.0 - Building the Gilt Software Development Center in Dublin
2011-04-19 Personal Culture Innovation
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the Gilt Groupe in NYC and they asked, if I would be interested in joining Gilt Groupe to build a software ... Read More
Maven, Flex/Air and Android - Trinity or Bermuda Triangle
2010-12-19 Software-Engineering Mobile
Partially for professional reasons, partially out of plain, naked, old-fashioned curiosity (and also triggered by the Adobe announcement that Adobe ... Read More
AquaEmacs and JDEE and Method Completion - Cannot find JDK's tools jar file (or equivalent)
2010-11-24 Software-Engineering Nerdy Tips & Tricks
Hhhmmm ... nerd alert: If you do not like AquaEmacs, JDEE and Method Completion ... don't read this :). Otherwise ... good news: Not sure, if you have ... Read More
Cinema Screening in Aid of Haiti - Watching "The Commitments" (for a good cause)
2010-08-31 Personal Culture
Sometimes it is possible to combine something that is fun with something that is useful. I am happy to present such an opportunity, since my colleague ... Read More
Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose - ... or ... how to unleash creativity.
2010-06-08 Management Culture
This is going to be a short blog post. A Facebook post by Brian Kelly made me revisit the stuff that Dan Pink did and is doing. The main idea behind ... Read More
Managing complexity with OSGi - In bundles and between bundles
2010-04-22 Software-Engineering OSGi Thoughts
Right now the Brandvis SelectPortal system is based on Microsoft .NET and we constantly improve it and add features. While we do this we also ... Read More
International Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization in Central Europe (MCP-CE 2010)
2010-04-07 Software-Engineering Conferences Mass-Customization
Good news :). My talk on ... About the importance of templates and platforms for "managed customization" in the garment industry The garment industry ... Read More
Bierdeckel Economics vs. Armchair Economics - ... and what it got to do with Greece and Ireland
2010-04-04 Personal Thoughts Politics
As most of you know, I am married to a greek woman and life in Ireland. Therefore the current economic crisis is omnipresent in my life. A couple of ... Read More
Greek Vacation - Food for thought
2010-02-17 Personal Culture Innovation
It is happening again :). I am in Greece ... on vacation. My wife has this unbelievable ability to find wonderful places for us to explore and ... Read More
Link of the Month - The best Zoom feature ever
2009-12-16 Personal LOTM
The frontend for many mass-customization, product-configurators is based on Adobe Flash/Flex, but as we all know, a fool with a tool is still a ... ... Read More
Mass-customization delivered - Back to the roots ...
2009-12-15 Personal Innovation Mass-Customization
20 years ago I started my career as a Technical Project Manager/Lead Architect for EDS and was working on Bill-of-Material solutions for the ... Read More
Effective Android - Using Apache CXF to access SOAP services
2009-09-21 Software-Engineering Mobile Web-Services SOAP SOA
A year ago I developed a small set of demos to show how to access SOAP services from the iPhone. To do this I used a very interesting feature of ... Read More
Social Networking - Updating your status: all or nothing?
2009-09-17 Personal Culture Tips & Tricks
Yesterday I was stumbling over a Facebook status update from Oisin Hurley ... Oisin Hurley is starting to get a bit irritated with people that ... Read More
Effective Mac - Using TimeMachine Part II or Why Restore was greyed out?
2009-09-12 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
It happened again!!! Another HD crash. A year ago I lost my original 160GB drive and replaced it with a 250GB drive. Now this one failed only 12 month ... Read More
ACCU 2009 - Slides are available
2009-06-20 Software-Engineering Conferences OSGi SOA
A couple of weeks ago I attended ACCU 2009 to deliver a talk on "RESTful Services and Distributed OSGi - Friends or Foes" and "AJAX for Mobile Devices ... Read More
Street Performance World Championship - a non-technical blog post
2009-06-19 Personal Conferences
Sorry - this is a non-technical blog post. If you are not interested in having a good time, stop reading now. Otherwise ... I am on the LUAS on the ... Read More
TEDx Dublin - Reviewing a very nice friday evening
2009-06-18 Personal Conferences
Last friday (means already almost a week ago) I had the chance to attend the first TEDx event in Dublin at the Science Gallery. To make a long story ... Read More
Smart Energy - let's bring Smart Meters, Smart Grid, Micro Grid and the software behind it together
2009-06-18 Software-Engineering Environment
A year ago I had a couple of pints with Dan Salt (Chief Software Architect at GE Energy) and we discussed the current state of affairs with respect to ... Read More
Reading books - Steve Jobs, Raising Boys and The Complete Robot
2009-06-18 Personal Books
A month ago I decided to use some of my time during the summer and work my way through the pile of books that I always wanted to read and never really ... Read More
FUSEforge Lightsaber/Lightsabre - Research on Asynchronous Distributed OSGi (for Jedi's :))
2009-06-09 Software-Engineering OSGi SOA Innovation
The Distributed OSGi spec (RFC 119) is coming along nicely, means now might be a good time to raise the head and start to think about what might come ... Read More
Skills, Innovation and the future of Ireland - Bermuda Triangle or Trinity
2009-06-07 Management Personal Culture Innovation
Ireland (like any other country in the world right now) needs to reinvent itself. The Celtic Tiger (1.0) is over. Question is: What's next? Do we want ... Read More
Effective Android - Getting Started Guide for the Android Dev Phone 1
2009-05-28 Software-Engineering Mobile Android
This week I spend a day to get my new Android Phone up and running. At the end I figured it might make sense to write up a cookbook on what to do when ... Read More
Effective Andriod - a new category
2009-05-27 Personal Android
Last year I introduced categories like "Link of the Month" and "Effective Mac" to my blogging". Heads up ... there is a new category coming: Effective ... Read More
Need a new phone - iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. Android
2009-05-18 Personal Mobile Tips & Tricks
Last year I went hill-walking with Andrew and Adrian in Kerry. By now everybody knows the story: I drowned my iPhone in Adrian's backpack. The ... Read More
Effective Mac - Make the Mac listen ...
2009-05-18 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
This morning I was using my new JawBone Bluetooth headset to make a Skype call. The quality was bad and therefore I decided to switch to my headset. ... Read More
Orchestrating the orchestration - EIP vs. BPEL vs. BPML
2009-01-23 Software-Engineering SOA
Occasionally (and in any case not often enough) I am having diner or lunch (or any another excuse) to meet my dear friend Klaus Grieger. He is a ... Read More
Commercial Open Source for Apache Projects - Survival of the fittest
2009-01-22 Management Open-Source
Just found another company offering commercial support for Apache ServiceMix and Apache ActiveMQ (like we do :)). For me this is good news. It shows ... Read More
Effective Mac - Sleeping on the plane
2009-01-10 Software-Engineering Mac Tips & Tricks
About a year ago, I "borrowed" the battery from Christina's MacBook to extend my "life", while I am on the plane. The Mac (being the Mac) has a nice ... Read More
Effective Mac - Using OpenOffice, NeoOffice and/or iWorks08
2009-01-04 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
Finally! OpenOffice is now available for the Mac. In the last two month I used OpenOffice 3.0, NeoOffice 2.2.5 and iWorks08 in parallel (with a ... Read More
Conference Update - Apache Con, Java Days and ACCU
2009-01-04 Software-Engineering Conferences
It seems over Christmas a lot of people did what I did: Clean up the Todos, catch up on EMail and get ready for 2009. As a side effect my colleagues ... Read More
Link of the Month - TwitterFeed
2008-12-28 Personal LOTM
In the last two month I have put some work into my online presence (website, blog, twitter, linked-in, ...). Obviously I try to minimize the ... Read More
Apache CXF vs. Axis 2 - The current state of affairs or The missing book
2008-12-07 Software-Engineering Open-Source Web-Services SOAP SOA
(Blogging from the plane again. This time on my way to the Progress Sales Kickoff in Miami.)The other day I stumbled over a good presentation from ... Read More
FUSE on the german autobahn - listing to a CAOS podcast
2008-11-25 Software-Engineering Open-Source
For private reasons I had/have to spend some time in Germany these days. The house of my parents is about 45 mins away from the office, means I get to ... Read More
FUSE Quickstart - a sneak preview
2008-11-14 Software-Engineering Books
Yes, we are busy to add new content to FUSEsource :). First we published a/the first set of FUSE TV videos and next we are going to publish a set of ... Read More
Open Source Marketing - and what it got to do with the Michelin brothers
2008-11-11 Management Open-Source
Open Core Licensing and the business model behind it is not (really) new. When you look at it from a history/marketing point of view there are lots of ... Read More
Open Core Licensing - moving from "bait-and-switch" to "suggest-and-complement"
2008-11-11 Software-Engineering Open-Source
The Open Core Licensing discussion is really refreshing! Lots of good ideas and lots of good energy. Obviously the "earlier" versions of the model ... Read More
Social Networking - Del.icio.us rediscovered! or Do we need the Open Social API?
2008-10-28 Personal Tips & Tricks
(Blogging from a plane en-route from DUB to BOS using the email interface of blogger.com :))The other day I updated my website with the details of my ... Read More
AMQP for dummies - A guide for managers
2008-10-28 Software-Engineering AMQP
(I start to like this "plane blogging" thing :))Adrian blogged about Microsoft embracing AMQP. Just from a technical point of view this is good news ... Read More
Link of the Month - FUSE TV
2008-10-22 Personal LOTM
Great new content. Check out FUSEsource.com! 4 weeks ago we huddled in our "new" HQ in Bedford for Managment Meetings (and other fun :)). Debbie had ... Read More
Link of the Month - FUSE is moving on ...
2008-10-18 Personal LOTM
... to FUSEsource.com. As part of the Progress acquisition we decided to change the host/domain name of the FUSE community website from open.iona.com ... Read More
The iPhone screen - Is it a problem or a solution?
2008-10-05 Software-Engineering SOA
Lot's of interesting exciting stuff is going to happen with FUSE over the next couple of month. Especially on the tooling side. The other day I was ... Read More
Complex Event Processing - An exiting (new) frontier
2008-10-05 Software-Engineering CEP SOA
Through the merger (:)) with Progress, I got exposed to the new exciting field of (Real-Time) Complex Event Processing (CEP). There are a couple of ... Read More
Effective Mac - Using Time Maschine
2008-09-30 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
On Saturday at 08:00am it happend to me. I move/dragged an email into a folder on my Mac and the machine froze. Diagnosis: Catastrophic harddisk ... Read More
Effective Mac - Open-Source Mac
2008-09-10 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
Was looking for an opensource search engine for the Mac and found this interesting website. I am already using half of the apps, but will take a look ... Read More
Effective Mac - Growl back to work
2008-09-07 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
Stumbled over James's blog entry about useful software for the Mac and added Growl to my list of software that you need have/use to be effective, but ... Read More
Open Source Business Models - Open-Core Licensing
2008-09-02 Management Open-Source
OH NO, please!!! YABOOSBM!!! Yet another blog entry on open-source business models :). Ok, let's make it as short and as sweet as possible :). This ... Read More
Solid State Disks - Level 5 cache
2008-08-25 Software-Engineering Innovation
Last month I had the pleasure to spend 2 hours in the car with Klaus Grieger. Klaus and myself know each other from ObjectDesign and Versant. Right ... Read More
Open Source Innovation - Fact or Fiction
2008-08-25 Software-Engineering Open-Source Innovation
Is Open Source Innovation an oxymoron? Is Open-source fostering innovation or killing it? There are two school of thoughts out there: First, there are ... Read More
Embedded Software Engineering - Can we avoid another software crisis
2008-08-12 Software-Engineering Embedded SOA OSGi
The term "software crisis" was coined 1968 by F.L. Bauer during the first NATO Software Engineering Conference in Garmisch, Germany and was used by ... Read More
Randy Pausch - about elephants, walls, rooms and TVs
2008-08-04 Management Culture
Last week Randy Pausch died. With all the hype around his cancer and "the last lecture", it was/is kind of hard to see who he was or what he was. ... Read More
RESTful Services - Dana Gardner, Adrian Trenaman, Roland Tritsch - wrapping it up
2008-07-16 Software-Engineering Conferences REST
The Webinar went very well. I think we had over 50 poeple that showed up. The archived webinar and the source code will be available on ... Read More
Effective Mac - call me slow
2008-07-12 Personal Mac Tips & Tricks
You can call me slow, but it took me only a year to find the RSS reader that everybody else is using. David Greco finally pointed me to NetNewsWire. ... Read More
Link of the month - Google Twitter (GTwit)
2008-07-07 Personal LOTM
Micro-blogging (Twitter, Pounce, Facebook, ...) just go a little bit easier. Check out GTwit. It is a light-weight Google App, that allows you to ... Read More
The iPhone - and what you can learn from thinking about it
2008-07-05 Software-Engineering Mobile Innovation
On Sunday I went to the driving range and while Alexandros was working on my early retirement plan (aka. he making lots of money with golf and I am ... Read More
Mobile Payment - what is needed
2008-07-04 Software-Engineering Mobile Innovation
in the last 4 weeks, i was talking to sailesh panchal (Enterprise Architect - Payments at Lloyds TSB) and hermann sauer (EDS - Integration Engineering ... Read More
Effective Mac - the beginning of a journey
2008-07-04 Personal Tips & Tricks Mac
yesterday i finally finished my upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). overall it went well. i did an erase and install (as a 20 year windows user i feel ... Read More
Software Engineering Radio - talking about OSGi, Rest, Opensource, ...
2008-06-23 Software-Engineering Books OSGi Open-Source
In the last four weeks a lot of people asked me about this "show" I am listening to on my way to work. It is called Software Engineering Radio and ... Read More
2008 OSGi Community Event - talking about trains
2008-06-23 Software-Engineering OSGi Conferences
Two weeks ago I attended the OSGi Community Event in Berlin. One of the presentations was from Deutsche Bahn about their new Mobile Integration ... Read More
RESTful Services - Dana Gardner, Adrian Trenaman, Roland Tritsch
2008-06-17 Software-Engineering Mobile Conferences REST
Everybody is talking about REST. We do too :). Join us on July, 15th for this existing Webinar on REST and RESTful Services. Will include a live demo ... Read More
Innovation on Innovation - How to make elephants dance
2008-06-05 Software-Engineering Management Innovation
Yesterday I went out and had a pint with Sailesh Panchal. He is an Enterprise Architect with the payments division of Lloyds TSB in London. Part of ... Read More
FUSE Master Class Series - Hidden Gem
2008-05-23 Software-Engineering Books SOA SOAP Web-Services
A couple of weeks ago, I published the first 3 videos of the FUSE Master Class Series on the open.iona.com wiki. Sooner or later we might link to it ... Read More
The sensoric revolution - iPhone/Chumby integration
2008-05-21 Software-Engineering Mobile Innovation
The embedded/mobile software market is growing faster than the rest of the industry. From my point of view this just the tip of the iceberg, because ... Read More
Mobile Monday in Belfast - WebServices to foster innovation
2008-05-21 Software-Engineering Mobile Conferences Innovation
Monday evening I spent in Belfast at the Mobile Monday, presenting on "How to access WebServices from the iPhone" (pictures are available upon request ... Read More
Link of the month - TwitterFone
2008-05-21 Personal LOTM
Just updated the Link of the Month. It now points to TwitterFone (by Dial2Do). Cool stuff. Traffic in Dublin is a nightmare. Means I am walking a ... Read More
Complexity explained simple - Ciaran McHale talks about security
2008-05-20 Software-Engineering Security Books
Just finished a/the review of a great presentation on security and security concepts published by Ciaran McHale on www.ciaranmchale.com. His claim is ... Read More
Quantum Leap
2008-05-18 Personal Culture Art Innovation
Today we went to a local art (flee) market. We were looking for some paintings for our new house. At the end we could not agree on anything, but I was ... Read More
Mobile Monday
2008-05-13 Software-Engineering Conferences
Got invited to talk at the Mobile Monday Series in Belfast.Looks interesting/promising. Will publish a post lateronnext week. Read More
The Colossus of Rhodes
2008-04-20 Management Innovation
Now. Lets get things started. Lets talk about innovation. for a well-known reason (at least) once a year i am in greece. this year we also went to ... Read More
Apache-CXF generates client-side SOAP stack for the iPhone
2008-04-13 Software-Engineering Mobile Web-Services SOAP SOA
Yep. It was inevitable. Sooner or later we need to talk about the iPhone. And there is a lot to talk about ... the innovative hardwarethe business ... Read More