Pither.com / Simonhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2019-09-03T21:38:48+00:00Development, systems administration, parenting and businessPodcasts I hear in 20182018-04-02T08:30:00+00:002019-09-03T21:38:48+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2018/04/02/podcasts-i-hear-in-2018<article>
<h1>Podcasts I hear in 2018</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2018-04-02T08:30:00+00:00">Mon 2nd Apr 2018</time>
(updated <time datetime="2019-09-03T21:38:48+00:00">Tue 3rd Sep 2019</time>)
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<p>It's been over three years since I <a href="https://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2014/11/26/podcasts-i-hear">last wrote</a> about the podcasts I listen to, so I think it's past time for a revisit.</p>
<p>Looking back at my list from 2014, I think the only ones I've stopped listening to are those that have stopped publishing content. I've certainly added a few more to my regular listening list though, especially getting more into property related podcasts (I couldn't find any three years ago!).</p>
<p>To help get through all this audio content I've been gradually increasing the speed at which I listen to the content. I currently listen to most at at 1.75x. Accidentally listening to normal speed recordings seems very odd now, like moving in slow motion!</p>
<p>I listen to all this content from my mobile but I don't use a specific podcast app, instead I download files from my RSS reader and listen using the excellent <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc">VLC for Android</a>.</p>
<p>Here's my full list of current, regularly listened podcasts. I mostly describe what each podcast is rather than saying how great they are - if they're on this list it's a given that I think they're great and well worth a listen.</p>
<h2>News / General Interest</h2>
<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/economist/audio_all">The Economist</a> - (Note the new link for this one.) With no time to read, the Economist podcast provides excellent, short snippets to keep you updated with general news, technology and the economy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd">BBC More or Less</a> - Statistically sound investigations into numbers from the news or just random entertaining things!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjnv">BBC Money Box</a> - Since my 2014 article the Money Box Live shows have got a little better but the Saturday ones are really what I'm recommending. Good general consumer finance news and investigations.</p>
<p><a href="https://audioboom.com/channel/nosuchthingasafish">No Such Thing As A Fish</a> - Great entertainment and educational too (although possibly not very useful education!).</p>
<p><a href="http://freakonomics.com/radio/">Freakonomics Radio</a> - They had a recent series on CEOs, complete with full interviews which I found fascinating. They specialise in alternative ways to look at all sorts of statistics and what they might mean. I listen to more of these than I did in 2014, although some are still a bit wordier than needed.</p>
<p><a href="https://cakewatch.fireside.fm/">Cakewatch</a> - Brexit discussions, especially including more technical discussions on related topics. Somehow light hearted enough to actually provide some laughter too.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.remainiacs.com/">Remainiacs</a> - Brexit news and chatter. As I don't watch/read general news, this is my main concession for staying up to date with the latest chaos from our government.</p>
<h2>Technology / Science</h2>
<p><a href="http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/">Ubuntu UK Podcast</a> - Fantastic, entertaining listen for news and technology chat, focused around Ubuntu and Linux in general.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036f7w2">BBC Inside Science</a> - Anything and everything science that's in the news.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01plr2p">BBC Tech Tent</a> - Wide ranging but still short and to the point view across technology news each week.</p>
<p><a href="https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly">FLOSS Weekly</a> - Each one is a deep dive into an open source project. A great way to discover new tools and systems or just to learn more about ones already known.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ff17c">The Infinite Monkey Cage</a> - Fantastic amusing and (mostly) scientific. Only published in short seasons though - I wish there were more. This is one I often save a copy of and pass onto my children to hear (although now and then they aren't appropriate!).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.badvoltage.org/">Bad Voltage</a> - Great if you're into Linux, open source and technology generally. They do cover news but this is much more about the opinions and entertainment.</p>
<p><a href="https://changelog.com/">The Changelog</a> - (And several connected podcasts) - There's way more content here than I can manage to keep up with, but I do enjoy the in-depth technical discussions on all sorts of open source technology whenever I can.</p>
<h2>Business / Freelancing / Bootstrapping</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/">Startups For The Rest Of Us</a> - Still giving out great advice and sharing real experiences from starting and running their own businesses.</p>
<p><a href="https://zenfounder.com/">Zen Founder</a> - Mental health for entrepreneurs, insightful interviews and thought provoking topics. Plus some great behind the scenes insight into Sherry and Rob's own balancing of entrepreneurship and family life.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sz6t">BBC The Bottom Line</a> - Short discussions on all sorts of business topics, always an interesting listen.</p>
<p><a href="http://artofproductpodcast.com/">The Art of Product</a> - Two developers talking about business and technology (I was torn whether this belongs in this section or the one above) with a bit of general life thrown in. I think I mostly listen to this for the fly on the wall following of their journeys.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.beingfreelance.com/">Being Freelance</a> - Each episode is an interview with a freelancer. Not so much advice or guidance in this one but I really enjoy the real life stories with a lot to be inspired by and identify with.</p>
<p><a href="http://roguestartups.com/">Rogue Startups</a> - Another one that I mostly listen to for the stories, this time of the two presenters though. Not as funny as Bootstrapped With Kids used to be but still plenty of real life entertainment mixed with useful knowledge.</p>
<p><a href="http://giantrobots.fm/">Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots</a> - It's had a few different formats in the past but currently it's based around interviews intended to provide specific business insight or knowledge.</p>
<h2>Property Investment</h2>
<p><a href="http://thepropertyhub.net/podcast/">The Property Hub</a> - Rob and Rob are about as famous as it gets in the property podcasting world, and with good cause. I have no idea how it took me until 2017 to discover them but I haven't missed an episode since.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.insidepropertyinvesting.com/category/podcast/">Inside Property Investing</a> - Interviews with property investors talking about their own journey, future plans and tactics with all sorts of valuable insights along the way.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thepropertyvoice.net/category/podcast/">The Property Voice</a> - I've only recently discovered this one, starting with a couple of interesting episodes on smart home technology. It's gone straight in as a regular listen and I hope to work my way back through some of the older episodes at some point (although I'm not generally very good at that).</p>
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Podcasts I Hear2014-11-26T15:42:01+00:002014-11-26T15:42:06+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2014/11/26/podcasts-i-hear<article>
<h1>Podcasts I Hear</h1>
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Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2014-11-26T15:42:01+00:00">Wed 26th Nov 2014</time>
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<div>
<p>Once upon a time, a time that feels a very long time ago but I think was only a couple of years in the past, I spent some time regularly commuting to one of my clients.</p>
<p>Armed with a smart phone and headphones I discovered audio books and podcasts as an excellent way to make use of this time. I was often driving on this commute so activities like working, reading the web or even traditional books proved difficult.</p>
<p>Slightly more recently, although also a long while ago, I would spend time running fairly frequently. And in the last year I have been <a href="http://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2014/11/26/bottle-time">spending time with some bottles</a>. Both of these also double as excellent listening times.</p>
<p>Over these years I've collected a number of podcasts that I follow. Bellow is a copy of all those currently (others have been tried and lost over time) in my RSS reader with a few comments on what each is and why I listen.</p>
<h2>Technology / News / General Interest</h2>
<p><a href="http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/">Ubuntu UK Podcast</a> - While focussed on Ubuntu they also talk about general technology news and events in topics that interest me. It's relaxed, casual and they use excellent music. This is one I never miss.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/podcast/itunes/All%20audio">The Economist</a> - If you have time to actually read, I highly recommend the Economist app for more in depth coverage of interesting subjects. However as a time challenged parent their podcast content, especially their Babbage, The Week Ahead and Money Talks weekly shows are each an excellent ten(ish) minute burst of interesting listening. The feed I've linked to includes all of these plus numerous other short audio shows published by The Economist, some of which are interesting but many of which I don't listen to.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd">BBC More or Less</a> - Investigations into dodgy sounding statistical claims of the media. This one is mostly for amusement but sometimes reveals interesting nuggets of truth and their misrepresentations.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01plr2p">BBC Tech Tent</a> - A fairly recent addition, I'm still deciding on whether it stays or not. They cover any and all tech news which widens what I hear but also duplicates some and it's a pretty long 30 minute investment of time each week.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjnv">BBC Money Box</a> - The weekend shows are an good listen for general consumer finance news. What ever you do, don't listen to the Money Box Live (call-in) shows though!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036f7w2">BBC Inside Science</a> - A very varied science news show. I do sometimes skip episodes or portions that really aren't for me but it's generally interesting and I'm sure I've learnt a lot listening to this one.</p>
<p><a href="http://freakonomics.com/radio/">Freakonomics Radio</a> - I actually read the first book in the traditional dead tree form! I really enjoyed the fresh, data driven and quirky take on topics. Their podcast mostly follows the same sort of plan, although I must admit this is lower on my list and I do skip less interesting sounding episodes. I also sometimes feel they could have said the same things in about half the time!</p>
<h2>Business / Freelancing / Bootstrapping</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.bootstrappedwithkids.com/">Bootstrapped With Kids</a> - This is an excellent weekly soap opera with a little bit of business and tech thrown in for good measure. That may be a little harsh - I've certainly gained valuable business knowledge and thought provoking ideas numerous times from this podcast. However it's definitely the fun style that keeps me coming back and probably makes it the podcast I look forward to most each week.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/">Startups For The Rest Of Us</a> - If you are or want to bootstrap a business (especially online) then you should be listening to this. They've had a few episodes that I've skipped as I didn't think they were relevant to me but that's pretty rare and they're mostly packed full of excellent insights and advice.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thefreelanceweb.com/">The Feelance Web</a> - I've been following this one since they started and I think they had an excellent start. If you're just starting out in freelance (or thinking about it) then I highly recommend listening to the first 10-20 episodes. They've also had some very good interviews and other excellent discussions along the way. That said, I also feel this one is a bit inconsistent and there have been periods when I consider dropping this one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006sz6t">BBC The Bottom Line</a> - I find this one fascinating. It's not really relevant to my own business work and development at the moment yet it's still one I always enjoy.</p>
<p><a href="http://podcast.thebusinessofwebdesign.co.uk/">The Business Of Web Design</a> - I think this was mostly created to promote the related conference and seems to have fallen silent since the conference took place, however it was interesting while it lasted. Freelancers and web businesses could do worse than listening to the old episodes.</p>
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New SupaJam Unsigned Band Contest2009-04-20T08:27:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:46+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2009/04/20/new-supajam-unsigned-band-contest<article>
<h1>New SupaJam Unsigned Band Contest</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2009-04-20T08:27:00+00:00">Mon 20th Apr 2009</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:46+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
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<p>Last year <a href="http://www.supajam.com/">SupaJam</a> ran a contest to offer an unsigned band the chance to play at a <a href="http://www.fiberfib.com/">huge music festival</a> in Spain. They got over a thousand entries and one lucky band got flown out to Spain for a few days and got to play live at the festival.</p>
<p>This year the <a href="http://www.supajam.com/">SupaJam site</a> has been revamped and the new <a href="http://www.supajam.com/fib-2009">FIB contest</a> has already been running for a couple of weeks. This year's contest looks set to be even bigger and better. They are already fast approaching the number of entries from last year and there are still a few weeks left to enter.</p>
<p>As I don't think many of the (2 or 3) people who read this blog actually play in a band...</p>
<p>Last year <a href="http://www.seoss.co.uk/">SEOSS</a> was looking after the servers running the site and we had some limited involvement in keeping an eye on the development of the site. The actual development was outsourced to an Indian company who chose to base it on Typo3. By the time they had finished, there wasn't really very much of Typo3 actually visible, pretty much all of the site was custom extensions.</p>
<p>This year I have taken on a far more active role. <a href="http://www.seoss.co.uk/">SEOSS</a> is still looking after the servers involved, however now I am personally managing the development (done by a small outsourced team and myself). This time around I have based the site on <a href="http://socialwebcms.com/">Social Web CMS</a>, although there is still an awful lot of custom code involved.</p>
<p>We've still got a lot of exciting features in the development plan, plus a few rough edges to sort out. But the site is live and running well.</p>
<p>On that point, a slight aside - last year serving the homepage (which at that time was far simpler with less dynamic news content) to the local machine took approximately 1 second. This time around, the homepage takes just 0.1 seconds to serve to the local machine!</p>
<p>Both systems use PHP. The hardware, operating system and database have not changed. In theory the new system pays less attention to caching (we haven't optimised much yet) and it includes more dynamic content on the homepage. So my conclusion is not really a recommendation for SWCMS, but instead a <a href="http://typo3.com/">warning to avoid Typo3</a>!</p>
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Extracting a subdirectory from git as a new git repository2009-02-04T00:00:00+00:002013-07-29T14:00:02+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2009/02/04/extracting-a-subdirectory-from-git-as-a-new-git-repository<article>
<h1>Extracting a subdirectory from git as a new git repository</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2009-02-04T00:00:00+00:00">Wed 4th Feb 2009</time>
(updated <time datetime="2013-07-29T14:00:02+00:00">Mon 29th Jul 2013</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>Some time ago (about 2 years according to the file timestamps) I created a git repository to house all of my random personal files (letters, tax returns, random notes, etc).</p>
<p>Unfortunately at some point in the last two years I started to add in assorted other bits that really didn't belong, just because I needed somewhere to put them. To the extent that I now have at least two complete application code bases held in this repository!</p>
<p>Today I finally got around to extracting them out into their own repositories. Unfortunately taking just a subdirectory from within a git repository (complete with history) doesn't seem to be quite as easy as I'd hoped.</p>
<p>I decided that I wanted my final repository to be hosted by <a href="http://eagain.net/gitweb/?p=gitosis.git;a=blob_plain;f=README.rst;hb=HEAD">gitosis</a>, which someone has <a href="http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and-secure-way">expanded on a bit</a> and is <a href="http://packages.debian.org/gitosis">available in Debian</a>.</p>
<p>Once gitosis was installed and I'd given myself write access to my new target repository, the process to extract the git subdirectory turned out to be...</p>
<pre><code>$ cd big-old-repo
$ git branch to-extract
$ git filter-branch --subdirectory-filter path/to/extract to-extract
$ cd ..
$ mkdir tmp-new-repo
$ cd tmp-new-repo
$ git init
$ git pull ../big-old-repo to-extract
$ git remote add real-new-repo gitosis@my-server:real-new-repo.git
$ git push real-new-repo master
$ cd ..
$ git clone gitosis@my-server:real-new-repo.git
</code></pre>
<p>After all of that I now have a server hosted (and a local clone) repository that has it's top level at "path/to/extract" (and that's all it contains) from my old repository, complete with all history.</p>
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Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex released today2008-10-30T00:00:00+00:002013-07-29T14:00:25+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2008/10/30/ubuntu-intrepid-ibex-released-today<article>
<h1>Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex released today</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2008-10-30T00:00:00+00:00">Thu 30th Oct 2008</time>
(updated <time datetime="2013-07-29T14:00:25+00:00">Mon 29th Jul 2013</time>)
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<p>Ubuntu <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-8.10-desktop">released Intrepid Ibex</a> earlier this afternoon, just as scheduled. It comes with <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810overview">lots of new features</a>. While new versions of all the key software is certainly good, a convenient encrypted directory is handy and the VM builder is very convenient, it's actually a couple of very small additions that I'm enjoying the most.</p>
<h2><a href="http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/">Hamster</a></h2>
<p>Until I switched to Intrepid and discovered this excellent application about a month ago I had been tracking my time with GnoTime. This worked, but it has lots of options that I really don't need, the interface is clunky and the provided reports just don't provide what I want.</p>
<p>So for the last month I've been tracking my time with Hamster, and it's been a very welcome change. It lives quietly in a panel at the side of my desktop, I can jump to it with a hot key and quickly type a new description and there I am, tracked. Hamster has a lovely report screen with plenty of information and even graphs. Which aren't actually very useful! However there is also a "Generate Report" button which creates a simple HTML table document with all the viewed data in it. Nice and easy to copy/paste/convert to a spreadsheet and process.</p>
<h2><a href="http://live.gnome.org/Tasque">Tasque</a></h2>
<p>This is following the same theme of a small, dedicated application that just does one thing in a very simple way. In this case it's managing to-do lists.</p>
<p>Tasque in Intrepid does install and does work and provides a number of storage locations for your to-do data. However the one that I chose to use - Evolution (due to a vaguely recent to-do listing attempt already being based there), is <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution-sharp/+bug/287332">not currently working</a>!</p>
<p>Thankfully it didn't take much to rebuild evolution-sharp with a later version and then update the requirements in tasque and rebuild that too.</p>
<p>So now I'm happily tracking the time I'm spending filling up my to-do list!</p>
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Supajam competition launch2008-05-19T07:29:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:36+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2008/05/19/supajam-competition-launch<article>
<h1>Supajam competition launch</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2008-05-19T07:29:00+00:00">Mon 19th May 2008</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:36+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>One of my customers today launches their latest <a href="http://www.supajam.com/contests/fasttrack/home.html">competition</a>. This contest is looking for unsigned bands to upload their best track and after a few rounds and filtering and a public vote the winner will get to perform live in Spain in front of thousands of people!</p>
<p>Certainly not my idea of fun, but I'm sure many will disagree with me there! As for my fun, I shall be making another post about the development of their site. For now though, feel free to spread the word about the contest and good luck to anyone entering.</p>
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Not a week to plan2007-10-28T20:29:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:33+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2007/10/28/not-a-week-to-plan<article>
<h1>Not a week to plan</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2007-10-28T20:29:00+00:00">Sun 28th Oct 2007</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:33+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
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<div>
<p>This week really hasn't gone to plan, in any way for any one.</p>
<p>Monday started out innocently enough. I had some out of hours work to get done during the evening, but it wasn't anything major.</p>
<p>When I went to bed at 4am on Tuesday morning, I was of a different opinion. Monday was a disaster! The work was at least all done and finally working but had taken far, far longer than expected (I personally blame the syncrepl system in <a href="http://www.openldap.org/">OpenLDAP</a> 2.3.27).</p>
<p>Tuesday started at the normal early time and progressed in a generally normal and pleasant way. I even managed to get today's out of hours work done early in the evening, leaving time for a little <a href="http://www.52ndstreetjump.co.uk/">dancing</a>.</p>
<p>However it was again all a terrible trick! This time it was Edward's turn to break. This was his worst night ever (so far) for sleeplessness. After an initial series of 30-60 minute naps up until around 1am, he just wouldn't go to sleep at all. In fact he spent most of the night not only awake but screaming about it.</p>
<p>On any night this would be rather unpleasant for us all. But on this night I had just packed a bag ready for a two day business trip to Guernsey. For which I had to leave at 6am to drive to Southampton for a flight.</p>
<p>I eventually took myself downstairs, removed the gate from the lounge doorway, closed the door, curled up on the sofa (it's not long enough to do anything else) and tried my best to ignore the screams from upstairs.</p>
<p>Edward eventually settled for another short nap about an hour before I had to get up and I managed to doze off fairly soon after the screams stopped. Then my alarm went.</p>
<p>The trip to Guernsey was pleasant enough, I quite like flying on such a small plane (9 passenger seats). The work was busy, with a slightly late finish on the Wednesday but at least there was a nice hotel afterwards.</p>
<p>Liz and Edward had a significantly worse day of it though. After a morning of Edward mainly screaming and not seeming to want to do anything else, Liz took him to the doctors. He was diagnosed with an ear and throat infection and prescribed antibiotics (which came with the added excitement that he might be allergic as Liz is). Liz was warned not to expect any sleep that night!</p>
<p>As expected neither of them got much sleep.</p>
<p>Thursday I worked while Edward developed a rash and returned to the doctors. They couldn't identify or find a cause for the rash though so just told Liz to keep an eye on it.</p>
<p>I left Guernsey on time and caught my flight back (descending from 6,000 feet to 1,000 feet completely surrounded by thick clouds is really quite strange).</p>
<p>Sadly there was still a strange PHP/OpenLDAP problem outstanding that was causing PHP to segfault on exit if a <a href="http://php.net/ldap_set_rebind_proc">referral rebind callback</a> had been setup. But hopefully it's just a PHP/OpenLDAP version mismatch that can be easily fixed (I shall post again when I know the answer).</p>
<p>Anyway, I got home to a very tired family. Edward did seem to be quite significantly on the mend though. He was actually smiling occasionally and starting to try and crawl and play around again.</p>
<p>He even managed to go to sleep (admittedly very late at around 11pm) and slept most of the night with only a couple of fairly short disturbances.</p>
<p>With Edward's rash spreading from his bottom and legs up his back and stomach we returned to the doctors on Friday afternoon. He got another check and it was confirmed that his ear/throat infection was getting better, although the cause of the rash was still unknown. The doctor didn't seem too concerned though and said that if it's still there Wednesday next week to bring him back again.</p>
<p>Saturday and Sunday have been gradually returning to normal and while we haven't managed a good night of sleep, they have certainly been better than earlier in the week.</p>
<p>We sadly had to miss a party on Saturday night, but it really wouldn't have been fair on anybody to leave Edward with babysitters. While he was clearly getting better, he was still very tired, rather grumpy and had to be manhandled to practically force feed him his antibiotics!</p>
<p>While still tired, today he has certainly been showing us that he's feeling better. He has been playing, walking and most notably climbing (pulling himself half way up the side of his play pen).</p>
<p>As for my biphasic sleeping plan, let's just start again from tomorrow.</p>
</div>
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Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=liz">liz</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=edward">edward</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=sleep">sleep</a>
</div>
</div>
</article>
PNG compression2007-05-03T00:00:00+00:002019-04-11T09:14:41+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2007/05/03/png-compression<article>
<h1>PNG compression</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2007-05-03T00:00:00+00:00">Thu 3rd May 2007</time>
(updated <time datetime="2019-04-11T09:14:41+00:00">Thu 11th Apr 2019</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>Having failed to find the option in <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">the GIMP</a> to create colour mapped PNG files, I have just had to discover a couple of handy commands...</p>
<ul>
<li>pngnq - tool for optimizing PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images</li>
<li>pngcrush - optimizes PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files</li>
</ul>
<p>The first of these takes a RGB PNG and gives back a colour mapped (by default, 256 colours) image.</p>
<p>The second takes those images (or RGB format ones too) and crushes them by about 20% (on the images I have been using today).</p>
<p>So the 22k file that GIMP created is now about 9k!</p>
</div>
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Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=graphics">graphics</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=png">png</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=technology">technology</a>
</div>
</div>
</article>
Freelance2007-01-28T10:00:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:23+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2007/01/28/freelance<article>
<h1>Freelance</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2007-01-28T10:00:00+00:00">Sun 28th Jan 2007</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:23+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>I am now officially trying the freelance approach to employment (complete with my first project, thanks to <a href="http://buttersideup.com/">Tim Small</a>)</p>
<p>I have my own limited company, lots of highly marketable skills (Linux (high availability and clustering), Java, Perl, etc) and lots of real life experience making a <a href="http://www.digitalbrain.com">large web application</a> work better, faster and stay alive longer.</p>
<p>Things I am particularly interested in (and have strong experience of) working on at the moment are:-
* large web application deployments
* Java debugging, profiling and optimization
* Server automation, eg <a href="http://reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/">Puppet</a>
* <a href="http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/">Shibboleth</a> consultancy and support</p>
<p>I am happy to provide advice, consultancy and planning services as well as to get involved in parts of or complete larger projects. Tim and I also have a strong working relationship and we are able to offer joint services where extra man power or speed of delivery are required.</p>
<p>Please <a href="mailto:simon@pither.com">let me know</a> if you're interested or would like further information.</p>
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Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
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</article>
Digitalbrain departure2006-12-18T18:00:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:18+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2006/12/18/digitalbrain-departure<article>
<h1>Digitalbrain departure</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2006-12-18T18:00:00+00:00">Mon 18th Dec 2006</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:18+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>Last week I officially (and finally, having stayed on from my initial leaving date in August) parted from <a href="http://www.digitalbrain.com">Digitalbrain</a>, where I have been working for over five years.</p>
<p>I decided to leave partly due to having been there five years and it being time for a change and partly due to the fact that my life is changing, with the imminent arrival of my first child.</p>
<p>Now away from Digitalbrain I have a little over a month before the baby is due. I intend to use this time for a mixture of relaxing and my own projects.</p>
<p>Since it's creation approximately six years ago, <a href="http://www.allsecuredomains.com">All Secure Domains</a> has gone from being a three strong partnership that offered consultancy as well as Domain/Web hosting to now being a sole tradership supported only by myself. The website needs modernising, a few bugs fixing and the customer services sorting out.</p>
<p>Myself and some of my past colleagues are in the process of releasing a curses based keepalived configuration manager and monitor <a href="http://lvsadmin.sourceforge.net">lvsadmin</a>. This was originally written by Chris before being hacked on by Huw, Simon and myself. I intend to have the source code tidy enough for it's initial SF commit soon.</p>
<p>I will also be looking for consultancy and freelance work, both in small doses now and in larger ones a month or two after the baby has arrived. Please check my <a href="/pages/cv_simon_pither">CV</a> and contact me if you wish to discuss any possibilities.</p>
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<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
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How to not get a sysadmin job2006-09-15T12:44:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:17+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2006/09/15/how-to-not-get-a-sysadmin-job<article>
<h1>How to not get a sysadmin job</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2006-09-15T12:44:00+00:00">Fri 15th Sep 2006</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:17+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>Following on from the last post, here is my favourite failing answer (so far)...</p>
<pre>
Details of how I formatted test.csv
Highlight I1 -> Insert Function -> Proper -> Text A1 -> Highlight Col I -> filldown
Highlight J1 -> Insert Function -> Proper -> Text B1 -> Highlight Col J ->filldown
Copy and Paste Special Col I into I using values
Copy and Paste Special Col I into J using values
Sanitise manually and then provided with an empty Col H
Copy and paste Col D into H
Copy and paste Col E,F and G to Col L & M
Delete columns D-G
Don't know how to do the last comparison
</pre>
<p>Apart from the "fixed" CSV they attached that was the complete response!</p>
<p>What's wrong with this answer...
* it doesn't tell us what application to start clicking around
* it (by self confession) doesn't answer the entire question
* "sanitise manually" may work wonderfully for our small sample file, but we sepecifically state it's a sample from a larger file - I'd like to see someone manually sanitise a 6 million line logfile
* we don't specifically ask, but do hint at wanting a script to solve this task (that is infact it's entire point, to test the candidates scripting abilities), even if we hadn't though, surely the fact that you're applying for a Linux sysadmin role should strongly suggest a scripted answer over a point and click one?</p>
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<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
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Recruitment homework question2006-09-14T18:00:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:16+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2006/09/14/recruitment-homework-question<article>
<h1>Recruitment homework question</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2006-09-14T18:00:00+00:00">Thu 14th Sep 2006</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:16+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>This is one of the homework questions that Digitalbrain has recently been giving out to prospective candidates for a Linux system administrator role.</p>
<p>Working with a large, complex application with many thousands of users, we very often have to manipulate significant amounts of textual data. Perhaps as part of a process to create new student accounts within a school, or to feed to one of our management tools to delete or relocate a collection of user files, or maybe to collate data from one of the many log files.</p>
<p>So this question is based on the kind of work that is a core (if not very interesting) part of the role. I would have expected it to be a core part of any Linux sysadmins knowledge too.</p>
<p><em>The question:</em></p>
<p>Attached is a CSV file (a sample from a much larger file). This file needs cleaning and altering in the following ways:-
* capitalise the first letter of the two name fields
* sanitise the formatting
* move the username column to the beginning of each line
* the phone number is missing the area code - look up the city in the following table, and add it to the beginning of the phone number column</p>
<table>
<tr><th>City</th><th>Area Code</th></tr>
<tr><td>London</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Brighton</td><td>6</td></tr>
<tr><td>Manchester</td><td>7</td></tr>
</table>
<p>Please detail what you did, how, any scripts involved and provide the corrected CSV.</p>
<p><em><a href="/files/db-test.csv">The CSV file</a></em></p>
<p>Our recent experience seems to suggest that being able to answer this is a rare skill, even for people who advertise themselves as experienced Linux system administrators (and are applying for such a job)!</p>
<p>Are we being unfair?</p>
<p>Are we expecting too much?</p>
</div>
<div class="tags-panel panel panel-default">
<div class="panel-body">
Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=sysadmin">sysadmin</a>
</div>
</div>
</article>
Where are all the SysAdmins?2006-09-03T21:46:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:16+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2006/09/03/where-are-all-the-sysadmins<article>
<h1>Where are all the SysAdmins?</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2006-09-03T21:46:00+00:00">Sun 3rd Sep 2006</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:16+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>Digitalbrain has been looking for new systems administrators for it's main platform services (Linux based) since the first of the old team resigned in April. During this time we've hired two new people. Ie it seems to take over two months to find each sysadmin!</p>
<p>Digitalbrain is still looking at least one more systems administrator.</p>
<p>So where are all the Linux sysadmins?</p>
<p>Digitalbrain is based in the lovely city of Brighton, commutable from London and anywhere in between. The salary being offerred is reasonable and we have enlisted the help of several recruitment agencies.</p>
<p>Yet we get few CVs. Fewer still get to start our interviewing process (which is initially two simple 'homework' questions). Practically no one seems to make it beyond that, only about 5 in the last four months.</p>
<p>I can't see that we're doing anything wrong. So perhaps the IT skills shortage that I keep reading about is real?</p>
<p>Or are our standards too high?</p>
<p>I shall be publishing one of our 'homework' questions in my next post and will then also publish a few (nameless) submissions that we've had, so you can judge for yourselves.</p>
<p>One other result of this recruiting difficulty is that I will now be staying on at Digitalbrain until Christmas!</p>
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Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
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For a new job2006-06-18T21:36:00+00:002009-10-15T15:52:12+00:00Simon Pitherhttps://www.pither.com/simon/blog/2006/06/18/for-a-new-job<article>
<h1>For a new job</h1>
<div class="article-meta">
Posted
by <span>Simon Pither</span>
on <time datetime="2006-06-18T21:36:00+00:00">Sun 18th Jun 2006</time>
(updated <time datetime="2009-10-15T15:52:12+00:00">Thu 15th Oct 2009</time>)
</div>
<div>
<p>August will be the fifth anniversary of my employment with <a href="http://www.digitalbrain.com/">Digitalbrain</a>. While I have enjoyed much of my time there a great deal and learnt a lot, it is now time for me to move to a new challenge.</p>
<p>Along with this change I am wanting to move from systems administration into development (probably perl or java, although ruby is also fun) and from permanent employment to contracting.</p>
<p>So ideally, I am looking for a programming contract that will start around the end of August. For anyone who would like to help me with this, I have an <a href="/pages/cv_simon_pither">online CV</a>.</p>
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Tags:
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=work">work</a>
<a rel="tag" href="/simon/blog/?tag=contracting">contracting</a>
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</div>
</article>