16 March 2022

Why I left Rackspace

In which I explain the many and varied reasons why I decided that my life would be happier not working for Rackspace

Read more ...


15 April 2016

Why I left GDS

In which I explain the many and varied reasons why I decided that my life would be happier outside of the Government Digital Service after 3+ years service.

Read more ...


16 November 2015

Managing your problems

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I’d come back to 16th November 2013 and as today happens to be the 2-year anniversary, I thought now might be about the right time.

Read more ...


21 September 2015

I am not qualified!

There is nothing like being a new-starter in an organisation when it comes to reinforcing your own weaknesses. My colleague Major spoke recently about Imposter Syndrome which has been something on my mind recently.

Read more ...


20 September 2015

So, you think you don't drink too much?

I started this post in September 2015, but at the time some events in Paris took over and I didn’t think that the world needed more noise on the internet, so I didn’t hit publish. I’m doing that now.

Read more ...


28 March 2014

Migrating GOV.UK to new infrastructure

On Tuesday night, we moved GOV.UK from one set of servers to another - with any luck, nobody noticed.

Read more ...


13 November 2013

One Chat to Rule Them All

If like me, you are a child of the internet generation, you’ve probably found that you have multiple types of “chat” or social media on which people regularly interact with you. This article talks about how you may be able to reduce this to manageable number, using ZNC and Bitlbee.

Read more ...


2 June 2013

Software Diversity on GOV.UK

After a talk by Jordan and Tom at the OpenTech 2013 Conference conference recently, I was asked if the number of technologies we use scares us. I thought this was an excellent question which leads to lots of interesting points about diversity which I would like to explore here.

Read more ...


22 January 2006

Some Things You Never Forget

It turns out that while my memory is fading with age (short-term memory at least) I can still remember things I was taught before the age of 18. I recently discovered that I know many many military subjects well enough to teach Cadets, despite not being taught or practised in them for 7 years.

Read more ...


31 December 2005

Nothing To See Here

It seems a long while since I’ve posted anything on here as to be honest there hasn’t been much incentive. Things are bimbling along quite nicely and I’ve had a lot to do to keep myself occupied. I’m off-work until the 10th of January, which has given me some time to do some of the things on my todo list. Item 1 was upgrade this blog to Wordpress 2.0 which was suprisingly easy. I was on 1.2 which required a complicated 1.2->1.5->2.0 upgrade path then a conversion of my existing template to the new theme system, but thanks to the guys that wrote this software I got it all done in under 1 hour. Go Me!

Read more ...


25 August 2005

The keyboards are breeding!

On my work desktop I have three machines. “Why three machines” I hear you ask?

Read more ...


5 June 2005

Keeping It Together

Adam has some interesting things to say about keeping config files in synch across multiple hosts. The solution he presents of using a version control repository to keep configs files which can be checked in and checked out across hosts is an interesting one.

Read more ...


25 February 2005

They Work For Us

Following on from this post on Adam’s weblog (incidently, sort out your line endings man!), where he quotes from Brian Sedgemore MP on the Terrorism Bill currently proposed by the Government:

Read more ...


17 February 2005

Regrettable Actions

I was asked by a friend recently about whether it was technically possible to fix an election result, given complete access to the server and database on which the voting system is hosted. I replied that while it was technically possible, no-one would bother. Well, I wouldn’t normally bother.

Read more ...


22 January 2005

Big Brother, ICT Style

There’s a big push here at work to maintain central records of all our machines. The fact we have umpteen thousand, mostly purchased individually to a variety of specifications from a variety of grants by a plethora of Academics, makes it very hard indeed

Read more ...


21 January 2005

GimpDarwin 2.2.2

All the twos, twenty two…

Read more ...


23 December 2004

Open Source Contributions

One of the major principles of Open Source software is that users are free to suggest modifications and fixes. On particular project I use pretty often is the DarwinPorts collection.

Read more ...


22 December 2004

Mine, all mine

I’m surprised that neither Andy or Adam have got round to posting about Software Patents yet, but what the hell, it is the slow season.

Read more ...


6 December 2004

Pretty Website

First of all, those of you using Internet Explorer won’t appreciate this, because you browser has appalling support for transparent PNG images and is generally shite anyway. I have two recommendations for you:

Read more ...