Writing — 47 posts

All posts

Self-written, for good or for worse

all 47 Programming 47 Technology-Review 33 Tutorial 22 Productivity 16 Technology 14 MacOS 12 Python 11 Automation 10 LLM 9 Ai 8

Matthew Rocklin on using LLM-powered coding

This post is so great, I want to frame it If you’re an engineer opposed to AI coding—or if you haven’t started yet—read …

LLMprogrammingpython
Jan 2026
1 min

Add tags automatically to this blog

When starting this blog, I didn’t think about adding tags. As time passed, I wondered about adding them, but …

LLMautomationprogramming
Dec 2025
1 min

LLM-powered coding mass-produces technical debt

The promise of AI for engineers is getting rid of engineers. Tools like GitHub’s Copilot write code, specs, review, and …

ai/mlcode automationdeveloper productivitygithub copilotprogrammingtechnical debt
Dec 2025
1 min

On Agentic AI and reusing passwords

However, whenever a customer went beyond the rigid scripts, the chat had to be routed to a person, only to reset the …

aiopinionpassword securityprogrammingtechnology
Dec 2025
1 min

Hey Claude, delete my home folder

Use agents, they said. You will save time, they said. Tools like Anthropic Claude CLI, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, etc. …

ai agentsanthropic claude cligemini cliopenai codexprogrammingtechnology review
Dec 2025
1 min

Most Popular LinkedIn Post

I just written what has been, to date, my most popular LinkedIn post. I did not expect it when writing it–it is …

linkedinpersonal thoughtsprogrammingtechnology
Nov 2025
1 min

Flash the Firmware of the Preonic from Keyboardio

I recently bought the Preonic keyboard, as my two Model 01 were not really portable. The Preonic is a superb keyboard …

chrysaliscustomizationfirmwarekeyboardiopreonicprogramming
Aug 2025
2 min

Customizing the Binepad BNK9 firmware

Last year, I blogged about the Binepad BNK8, a macropad by Binepad. This week, I received the larger brother, the …

binepad bnk9firmware customizationmacropadprogrammingqmktutorial
Feb 2025
2 min

Markdown List Continuation in Helix

One of the gripes I have with Helix is not having automatic list continuation when writing Markdown. Until last week, …

helixmarkdownproductivityprogrammingtechnology reviewtoml
Feb 2025
1 min

Trust local caddy certificates on macOS

Up to today, I’ve been bothered by having local https websites served by Caddy, whose certificates were not …

caddycertificatesdockermacosprogrammingtechnology
Jun 2024
1 min

A culture of brutal honesty

Insightful linked post from John Gruber on why the AI pin flopped. This bit stood out to me as particularly insightful: …

aipersonal thoughtsproductivityprogrammingtechnology review
Jun 2024
1 min

Start using ddclient

For more than 10 years, I’ve been a happy client of Tweak (how long will that link work?). One of the many …

ddclientdnsdockerhome serverporkbunprogramming
Mar 2024
2 min

Bitten by timezones and Docker

I am building a Telegram chatbot to remind me to take out the trash. I’m overengineering it, so of course it has …

chatbotdockerprogrammingsqlitetechnical issuetelegram
Mar 2024
1 min

Automatically add images for Open Graph in Hugo

While using a static site generator is a low-maintenance endeavor, it also means that complex requirements need to be …

automationcodinghugoopen graphprogrammingstatic site generator
Mar 2024
1 min

Decode your URLs

Today, I read Terence Eden’s article about the abundance of Microsoft’s safelinks systems. One example he …

javascriptmicrosoftproductivity toolsprogrammingsafelinkstypinator
Feb 2024
1 min

Use the Grammarly language server with helix

Lately, I’ve been playing around with helix, a relatively new modal editor. One of the things I was missing was an …

configurationgrammarlyhelixlanguage servermarkdownprogramming
Nov 2023
1 min

Fish 3.6.0

Amazing new release of fish adding Control - R to open the command history in the pager. It’s fully searchable and …

command historyfishshellprogrammingsyntax-highlightingtechnology review
Jan 2023
1 min

OpenAI Whisper

OpenAI has just open sourced Whisper, an automatic speech recognition. I just tried it out and I’m blown away. …

data analyticsopenaiprogrammingspeech recognitiontechnology reviewtranscription
Sep 2022
2 min

Explainable AI and fraud

Algorithms can have serious consequences on the lives of people around you. The Dutch tax office used the second …

aialgorithmexplainable aifraud detectionmachine learningprogramming
Apr 2022
2 min

Algorithms to drive engagement

Brent Simmons doesn’t mince words when he talks about algorithms to drive engagement, honed and …

algorithmsengagementopinionprogrammingsocial mediatechnology criticism
Jul 2019
1 min

Get started with miniflux

This is another post that is totally a note for my future self. I don’t write on this blog often. But what I do, a …

dockergcpminifluxprogrammingrssruby
Jun 2019
8 min

Git patch workflow

This is totally a note for my future self. Sometimes when working with git I find myself having to create a patch, …

gitpatchprogrammingtechnologytutorialversion control
Jun 2018
1 min

Use tab to cycle through Visual Studio Code completion

Sometimes, instead of using NeoVim, I do like to use Visual Studio Code (with Vim keybindings). Visual Studio Code is a …

keybindingsneovimproductivityprogrammingpythontutorial
Oct 2016
1 min

Make jupyter notebook work in WSL

In case you are playing around with the Windows Subsystem for Linux and jupyter, you might have notice this error: …

jupyter notebooklinuxprogrammingpythontechnology tutorialwindows subsystem for linux
Aug 2016
1 min

Hugola

Approximately a month ago I fell for the new Dell XPS 15. It had the right price/spec combination (I went for the …

hugojekyllpelicanprogrammingpythontechnology review
Dec 2015
3 min

A functional count in Python

Today I was sifting through the documentation for itertools.count Return a count object whose .next() method returns …

functional programmingitertoolsprogrammingpythontutorial
Jul 2015
1 min

Normal mode in Vim

I consider myself an advanced Vim user. But I always found annoying the multiple cursors support that Vim has (through …

productivityprogrammingsqltechnology-reviewtext-editingvim
Jun 2015
1 min

My @NoSQLmatters Barcelona talk

It seems like, right now, I only write in this blog when a get a new child or when I speak at some public event. Not …

conferencedata-driven applicationsnosqlprogrammingpublic speakingsql
Nov 2014
1 min

Web Excursions for July 26, 2014

Lot of bookmarks this time: postman A command-line utility written in Go for batch-sending email. Ma (negative space) …

angular.jsgohaskellmacprogrammingterminal
Jul 2014
2 min

The basis of all Haskell love-hate relationships

Depends on what you think about this snippet of code:1 let square y = y * y; limit = 100 in [(x, y, z) | y <- …

code snippethaskellmathematicsprogrammingtutorial
Apr 2014
1 min

Web Excursions for April 01, 2014

git-prune-merged Prune all those pesky branches that you have already merged, both locally and from remotes. On GitHub. …

asciicoffeescriptgitipythonjavascriptprogramming
Apr 2014
1 min

Github Pull Request Triage

Here’s an interesting project by Peter Bengtsson of Mozilla to get an overview of the pull requests for a given …

githubmozillaprogrammingpull requesttechnology reviewtriage
Mar 2014
1 min

Bootstrappified

I’ve finally bit it and started using Twitter bootstrap for my website and the blog. It was a bit of work …

personal blogprogrammingtechnology reviewtwitter bootstrapweb development
Mar 2014
1 min

A handful of GoDataDriven posts

In the past few weeks I’ve written a couple of blog posts at the GoDataDriven blog: Convert chararray user …

ai/mldata processingmahoutnumpypigprogramming
Mar 2014
1 min

App.net Comments Widget

The other day I set up the App.net Comments widget on this blog. Comments require an App.net or Facebook account, as the …

app.netfacebookprogrammingtech reviewwidget
Feb 2014
1 min

Export to BibTeX from Papers (2)

If you always wanted to automate the tedious process of exporting your collection of papers in Papers to BibTeX …

applescriptautomationbibtexpapers appprogrammingtechnology
May 2012
1 min

What would you buy first?

Ben Brooks asks: if you would have to rebuy all of your software, which would be the order of buying? Here’s mine …

dropboxemacsmathematicaproductivity toolsprogrammingsoftware
May 2011
1 min

Growl.log and Perl

I really like Growl. It’s the kind of thing that ‘just works’, and they do it nicely. It tells me when …

bashgrowlnotificationsperlproductivityprogramming
Apr 2011
2 min

Encrypted backups with Time Machine

If you wish to keep an offsite Time Machine backup in a place which you don’t consider safe (for me it’s my …

encrypted backupsproductivityprogrammingtechnology reviewtime machinetutorial
Mar 2011
1 min

LaTeX style tips

Check this out if you use LaTeX. A lot of insightful tips.

latexproductivityprogrammingtips
Dec 2010
1 min

Illustrator and psfrag

If you have problems with Illustrator and PSfrag, that’s probably because you can’t have psfrag replace tags …

cs5epsillustratorprogrammingpsfragtechnology
Nov 2010
1 min

Convert a searchable pdf in djvu

Well, why would I wanto to do that? Because in general djvu’s take up less space. Anyway, if you have a Mac with …

bashdjvumacportspdf conversionprogrammingtutorial
Oct 2010
1 min

Background color with Skim

Today I stumbled upon a Lifehacker article which explained how to change the background color in Adobe Reader, when …

adobe readerapplescriptos xpdfprogrammingskim
Feb 2010
1 min

Add Copy as PDF Shortcut in Mathematica

To add a shortcut for the Menu Item Copy as PDF you have to do the following (with a Mac) go to …

macmathematicapdfprogrammingshortcuttutorial
Aug 2009
1 min

Web of Science, Papers and Leiden University

To use Leiden ezproxy with Leiden university you have to do the following. Open with Textedit.app the file …

ezproxyleiden universitypapers appprogrammingtechnologytutorial
Jul 2009
1 min

X11 and System Fonts in Mac Os X

If you also have experienced some problem accessing fonts presents in /System/Library/Fonts with X11 applications (like …

inkscapemac osprogrammingsystem fontstechnologythe gimp
Jul 2009
1 min

Adding dynamic syntax highlighting based on the system theme

One of the issues I still had with this blog was that the syntax highlighting for code blocks was static and generated …

programmingsyntax highlightingsystem themetutorialweb development
Jan 0001
1 min