Some things I found on the internet in the last week or so.

Sysadmin

• https://github.com/jvoorhis/vagrant-serverspec Building and testing servers using vagrant. Write a set of test for how you want the server to look then make them look that way. Not sure how practical it is but I like the concept and have been having some success with basic rspec on the puppet configs.

• http://fractio.nl/2014/02/12/data-driven-alerting-with-flapjack-puppet-hiera/ Data driven alerting with puppet, hira and flapjack. Lot of interesting stuff in there about tying together a lot of the tools and automating all the things.

• https://blog.serverdensity.com/how-do-you-document-your-ops-infrastructure/ Documentation is always a mixture but it’s needed. Getting the balance right is important. Long theoretical stuff should go in the code with test but short help and guides need to be found in the wiki or the like quickly.

General

• http://road.cc/content/news/110661-uks-first-dutch-style-roundabout-gets-underway-bedford Could this be the start of something wonderful? I really want to see some of proper infrastructure in the UK.

• http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ Sign up and make it happen…

• http://smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/john-yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar-20140212-32h03.html He told us sugar was bad but the evil corporations shut him up. or something like that.

• http://wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/06/tim-berners-lee-reclaim-the-web Tim Berners Lee gets it. We are about to see the end of the internet as we know it. Soon people will work out the best way to keep us down and a tool that has brought about some genuine freedom of thought will be put back into it’s box so the control can be returned to the few.

• http://blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-spotify A really interesting post about how spotify try to keep their teams working together. I don’t like all the names that they give things but the concepts are good so maybe it helps reinforce this. You have to split people out into teams to work on stuff but you must keep people talking and sharing across those teams to keep the place sane.

Getting Things Done

• http://davidseah.com/productivity-tools/ Never let it be said that I had not at least read about every productivity tool if not tried them.

Comedy

• https://plus.google.com/+JoeThunderboltSmith/posts/P62Wowg5U3z Goats on a tin roof. The reason the animated GIF was invented.

Radio

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vthkv Death of a Spiv, from Radio 4. All about the rise and fall of the spiv.

DIY

• http://tinyhousebuild.com/ Given how much rubbish I horde at home I can’t ever see myself living like this but I do find these tiny houses really attractive. Time to buy a field I think.

• http://www.treklightgear.com/treklife/hammock-brainwashed/ And of course once you have a tiny house you need somewhere to sleep so a hammock is the natural choice.

• http://blog.chewxy.com/2014/02/13/you-should-double-roast-your-coffee-and-opencv-tricks/ I still think that roasting my own coffee is a step to far but when I do I too will use OpenCV and a camera to analyse the roast.

Music

These have mostly been found on 6Music but I miss a lot becasue the playlister thing never updates the track in time.

• http://www.deezer.com/track/1582222 Older Guys, The Flying Burrito Brothers

• http://www.deezer.com/track/73025546 Oana, Otto A Totland

• http://www.deezer.com/track/9896749 You Can Take My Glowstick but Don’t Touch the White Glove, The Hold ( I just found this one while searching for something else)

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/records/nnzm5q Touch The Leather, Fat White Family

• http://www.deezer.com/playlist/794319331 The rest in a deezer playlist…

The internet is big but I WILL read it all…

General

• http://www.finisterreuk.com/shop/mens/p/new-just-in/bowmont-fairisle-natural.html Just a really nice jumper. I think they are my favorite clothing company of the moment.
• http://www.peteseeger.net/HUAC.htm “House Un-American Activities Committee, August 1955 Seeger resisting a wasteful machine. today with different witches” via @iphigenie
• https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser Find lost rivers and streams in Sheffield. I love a map and especially an old one. This is a real treat. No wonder we have floods.

Techy

• https://twitter.com/fowkc/status/427116519269883904/photo/1 Pen testing, do you see what they did there? ( Note: Quite a techy joke )
• http://thequickword.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/on-the-origin-of-the-modern-neckbeard-hacker/ What is a neckbeard anyway?
• http://getpocket.com/a/read/409781464 Another persons opinion on how to use git.

Design

• http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/floorplan_light_swit.html Why not make the light switches look like the floorplan?

Devopsy

• http://www.reviewboard.org/ It’s what twitter use to manage their code reviews for puppet.

• http://blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-spotify Does your company need tribes, guilds and chapters? Probably not but you don’t have to call them that. Just the idea of teams focused on products and services and then the people in those teams getting together to share knowledge is a sound one I think. Keep the teams small but also keep a focus on sharing the knowledge.

• http://word.bitly.com/post/74839060954/ten-things-to-monitor A couple of things there that you may want to monitor now so they are there when you need them.

Don’t seem to have captured many goodies in the last week or two. Also have quite a lot stacked up in pocket for reading! I will share more once I have picked out the good ones.

As I wander lonley as a cloud across the series of tubes that is the internet this week I found some of this stuff interesting….

General

http://drinks.nwalsh.com/ A neat mobile friendly site for cocktail recipies.

http://www.asciiflow.com/ For all your ascii art flow chart drawing needs.

Bikes

http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/amsterdam-announces-plan-to-create.html Amsterdam is taking the long term view on planning cycling as a fully supported part of the transport system. I wonder what York City Councils 20 year plan looks like.

Makers

http://blog.somakeit.org.uk/2014/01/20/a-place-of-our-own/ Southampton hacker space have a new space and now call themselves So Make It.

http://www.scrapstuff.co.uk/ Scrap Stuff. A Leeds art collective recycling your stuff for the enterainment and education of your children.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/makezineonline/~3/EdDaR-sftLo/ A really tiny and detailed model of a bike workshop. So much effort has gone into this.

http://dangerousprototypes.com/2014/01/23/bus-pirate-probe-cable-prototypes/ Cables for the bus pirate that have the names on the pins on the end. So useful.

Devopsy

http://docs.saltstack.com/topics/tutorials/walkthrough.html Saltstack looks like an interesting alternative to Puppet. Not sure it’s worth us changing right now but if I was looking for a new configuration management tool it would be worth a look I think. There are so many of them about now though. It would be nice if they could have some common parts.

Progamming

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8845186/what-exactly-is-apache-camel Apache camel messaging broker and translator type thing. Read the post for a better discription. Maybe it should go in the Devopsy list above, who knows.

A lot of people create these little summaries of things that they have found during the week on the internet. I quite like reading some of the good ones. I also read quite a lot of stuff from around the web and most of it goes in one eye and out the other. So I thought it might be good to try and summerise what I have found. Maybe I will do it weekly but I doubt it. Here goes….

General

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/i-wont-ditch-software-on-a-whim/ I think I fall into the trap of the new and shiney. Maybe it’s time to focus on a few.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/design-milk/~3/ITVWsJzT7aI/ A really nice design for a plant pot where it rains on the plants. Not sure how effective it is but looks nice.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TinyHouseDesign/~3/fa3X5ceW11Q/ Another beautiful tiny house design. I would love one of these. So simple. (I might need a large basement room to keep all my “stuff” in but that is another story)

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-people-hearken-o-earth/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0&_r=1& People beleive things written in Baskerville font. Very sad war letter in the middle of this artical.

http://blog.sandglaz.com/zeigarnik-effect-scientific-key-to-better-work/ We all know the 8 hour working day is broken but lets not rock the boat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyl-V0mrEio Casio Calculator watch unboxing. It’s a calculator that works on your wrist. Made in 1 to 1 scale.

Bikes

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/01/100-cargo-bikes-in-boulogne-bilancourt.html Everybody needs a cargo bike.

http://road.cc/content/news/105335-chris-boardman-says-planners-must-cater-60-cent-people-who-want-cycle-are-too I think it is still going to take a long time before people realise just how scary it is to ride with city traffic and how much better cities would be if there where better routes for the less brave.

Sysadmin

http://obfuscurity.com/2014/01/Graphite-Tip-Working-with-Carbonate A tool for migrating grapite databases about which looks usefull for updates etc.

3D Printing

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:218155 A nicely thought out clamp for laces like you get on snowboard boots. It’s great to see little things like this as they are shared it makes them really useful.

http://www.shapedo.com/ and http://cubehero.com/ Yet another 3D object sharing site.

https://plus.google.com/communities/112691591186958693265 An idea to implement a common standard for things sharing across 3D object sites like the above and thingiverse.

Cameras

http://www.andbethere.com/2013/02/the-ultimate-guide-to-sunny-16-rule.html Mum gave me an old Olympus SLR film camera with a broken light meter. Lets see how well this works! Finished the first slide film that was in the camera and sent it off for development. I assume it’s going to come back covered in stickers telling me how wrong my estimations where. (I did use a light meter for some so I might have one or two)