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

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