Happy 2015!

I wish you all an exciting 2015 in good health, with a lot of fun and big achievements in your projects! Good luck and joy to all my friends who are expecting a child this year!

Reviewing 2014

Well, 2014 was quite busy. Looking at my plans for 2014 a lot more happened than I expected : I learned Python when I started a new project, visited 7 capital cities and 3 continents, did a few climbing trips and got to visit San Francisco and Yosemite again :

• celebrated New Year in Cebu, Philipines
• visited Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Melakka, ...), Singapore and Hong Kong
• bought a Google Nexus 5
• attended FOSDEM 2014
• resigned as a phpMyAdmin team member, creating some more time for other projects
• finished a first blue route at Bleau
• coorganised an info session about Google Summer of Code at Ghent University
• started working on a tool to generate a trend graph of a build process, my first Python experience
• attended Newline 0x04 and talked about reducing iptables configuration complexity
• attended LinuxTag 2014 and talked about 'Reducing iptables configuration complexity' (presentation slides)
• Finished a 10km race (Gentse stadsloop) in less than 55 minutes
• Visited Maker Faire Paris : A lot of interesting stuff, mainly 3D printers, but some with a twist : pancake maker, an industrial welding robot mounted with an extruder, lots of hinges, bearings and other stuff printed ready to be used : no need to assemble
• First time to visit Paris, I finally got to see the Eifel tower, Avenue des Champs Elysées, Arc de triomphe, Le Louvre (outside), Notre Dame, La Seine, Musée d'Orsay, Musée Rodin, Montmartre and Sacré Coeur
• Released version 0.3 of Get Back GPS
• Participated in a climbing training in L'Argentière-La Bessée and received a certificate for lead-climbing  and multi-pitch climbing (KVB3), had a lot of fun : climbing a lot and sending several 5b's and 5c's lead-climbing, some of them on sight.
• Visited Amsterdam, the 6th capital city I went to this year
• performed a lead-climber's fall at Klimax II
• did a 55km cycling trip around Ghent
• Donated blood for the first time
• Released the first version of Buildtime Trend, a tool to create visual trends of  a software build process, written in Python and JavaScript
• GetBack GPS had more than 10 contributors during 1 month, most of them are translating the app
• Ran 16km/10mi for the first time
• Spent a weekend in Fontainebleau with Maxime, Seba and Wolf, opening some routes.
• Went to San Francisco to attend the GSoC 10th Anniversary Reunion and spent a few days in San Francisco and did a trip to Yosemite with Madhura Jayaratne. Shared a few beers with Justin and Josh of Keen.io, talking about Open Source commit streaks and Buildtime Trend.
• Released GetBack GPS 0.4, introducing 7 more languages.
• Spent a long weekend climbing in Fontainebleau with Peter, Dorinne, Cécile, Stef, Aline, Senne, Nik, Chris, Andreas, Luke and Barbara, climbing several yellow and blue routes.
• and a second blood donation
• finished a red climbing route
• traveled to Lisbon.

Things to do in 2015:

• Continue working on Buildtime Trend : offer it as a service (SaaS), add more stats, support more CI environments, ... 
• Climb as much as possible, both indoor and outdoor, with trips to France during the Easter and summer holidays, and weekend trips to Fontainebleau or one of the climbing areas in the south of Belgium.
• Visit Open Source and related conferences : FOSDEM, LinuxTag, EuroPython, DebConf and KeenCon.

I'm looking forward to where 2015 will bring me. Looking back at 2014 it is bound to be an exciting year again.

This was 2013 and plans for 2014!

It's this time of the year again, reviewing the cool things that happened, learning from the stuff that didn't go as planned and adjusting the goals of last year accordingly.

2013 was busy, here are some achievements :

• visited FOSDEM 2013 and did a talk on phpMyAdmin
• visited Newline 0x03
• co-organised a GSoC info session at UGent
• first Wagner experience : Parsifal, long but musically beautiful
• phpMyAdmin is accepted as a mentoring organisation for GSoC 2013 and has 6 students. I'll be a co-mentor and co-org admin this year
• got promoted to a higher pay grade
• did a citytrip to Berlin, visited LinuxTag 2013 and moderated a few sessions. I've also got some ideas for my Android app while attending the Android session.
• finished a few yellow routes at Bleau.
• did some outdoor rock climbing in Fontainebleau.
• did a presentation introducing Latex to my colleagues.
• visited Debconf13 held in Vaumarcus, Switzerland, were phpMyAdmin had a team meeting and did a phpMyAdmin tutorial.
• went to GSoC Mentor Summit 2013 at Google Headquarters, Mountain View, California, organised a Key Signing Party and  a session on international acceptance of Open Source licenses.
• did some climbing in Yosemite National Park
• released GetBack GPS, my first Android app
• prepared sabayon for the first time.
• made more than 2000 contributions (commits and created issues) in one year on github.
• travelled to the Philipines.

Check out my plans for 2014 :

• Android app development : After releasing an Android app this year for the first time, I plan to explore this path a bit more. Improving the GetBack GPS app a bit more, I still have some ideas as you can see on the roadmap, getting some more experience on automated testing, test driven development (TDD), Java and object oriented programming along the way.
  Another Android project for this year will use Bluetooth communication, in a small project I will work on with a friend.
• Bouldering/climbing : Last year I started climbing in the gym and I did some outdoor climbing as well. I utterly enjoy this, so I definitely want to spend some more time on it. Hopefully with some outdoor climbing trips during the upcoming year.
• Visit FOSDEM and LinuxTag.

I'm looking forward to an exciting year.
I wish you and your family the same, with good health and successful projects.

Ambitions 2013

After having reached some goals and having done some cool things in 2012, I set some ambitions and goals for 2013 (basically an updated version of the ones I set for 2012) :

• pick up Java and/or C++
• improve knowledge of OOP and design patterns
• finish writing a first Android app
• do a presentation/talk at a conference (FOSDEM, ...)
• Improve pace and distance in running, after I recover from a knee injury. Next goal : 10 miles by April.
• Improve swimming (technique, speed, stamina and style) : Build up stamina doing a slow front crawl. Next goal : 250m without a break
• In 2012 I started wall climbing (bouldering), so I hope to improve my technique and muscular strength, as a preparation for some outdoor rock climbing.
• Repeat the Car Free Day action, but this time on faculty level

This was 2012!

2012 was great, here are some cool things I did :

• went to FOSDEM, attended the phpMyAdmin team meeting, and showed two friends around in Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges
• got into the top 3 of most active contributors on ohloh.net
• successfully suggested a commission at my university to make their reports available sooner
• improved my OOP skills, implementing composite and singleton design patterns and further abstracting my Open Source framework
• participated in TransitieUGent, a platform for setting goals and actions for UGent to become more sustainable by 2020/2050.
• had a lot of fun building a piñata-like moose as a present for my sister's wedding
• participated in an assessment test at work and passed
• achieved swimming 2 km in less than an hour
• created a document in LaTeX
• holiday in Greece with some friends
• released a first beta version of my web development framework, which is 100% compliant with PEAR coding style
• started running and did 10 km in about an hour by the end of the summer  
• made a linux server work as a TimeMachine storage device.
• mentored Rouslan Placella for GSoC project : 'Removal of frames in phpMyAdmin'
• subscribed for a weekly organic fruit package of De Wassende Maan
• did a triathlon, doing swimming (2km), cycling (26km) and running (5km) on the same day
• motivated his colleagues to come to work without a car, by pledging to run 100 meters for everyone that did, and eventually ran 4 km.
• organised a trip for some friends to the opera 'La Damnation de Faust' by Berlioz, directed by Terry Gilliam. The opera was great, BTW.
• attended Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2012 at Google HQ in Mountain View, California.
• visited Yosemite National park again (organising the trip for some fellow Mentor Summit attendees)
• started climbing (bouldering)
• baked an apple cake for the first time and perfected it after a few tries.
• got an award for 'motivating colleagues to come to work without a car'
• released a first version of a lab instrument reservation tool at work
• took on Android development, first creating a 'Hello World!' app and then starting to work on a small but a bit more complicated app, while exploring the possibilities of the Android framework
• swam in a 50 meter swimming pool

And some other things that happened :

• wedding of my sister
• funeral of Wim
• wedding of my steph brother
• my other sister graduated as a teacher
• mother moving to Hasselt
• Brecht defended his PhD
• wedding of Tho and Tine

What a year

2011 has been amazing. There were a lot of firsts and a few big changes in my life :

I bought a house. One of my resolutions for 2011 was to find a new place to live and I managed to do this. This time last year I had no idea I would now be sitting in the living room of my own house, writing this post.
It all went rather quick, first looking for a new apartment/house to rent, then deciding to buy one, followed by the search, finding one, and then all the administration and negotiating with the bank and finally, moving in and doing small construction works.

In the mean time I was a first time mentor for phpMyAdmin in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. My student made phpMyAdmin compliant with Drizzle database, a MySQL fork.


Because of this mentoring, I was invited by Google to attend the GSoC Mentor Summit, which was a great experience, meeting a lot of interesting people and discussing FOSS and GSoC related issues at Google Headquarters.

This also meant I got to travel to the US, another first, and visit San Francisco and a part of California. This was an amazing experience.


For 2012 I have some goals and resolutions :

• continue contributing to Open Source
• be a GSoC mentor again
• write an extensive article/blogpost about good passwords practices, or set up a website/wiki dedicated to it.
• build a homemade transistor using ice (solid water), or write about the theoretical possibility
• start reading again and keep a steady reading pace. I didn't manage to keep up reading in 2011.
• further improve my house

Happy 2011!

Happy New Year!

May 2011 be a year of friendship, love, joy and happiness, good health and prosperity!

2010

A lot of things happened in 2010. I'm not going to write an exhaustive list, but will just mention things that spring to mind.
On a technological level : I got my new server and installed linux on it, I learned to use vim and git, and started contributing to the Open Source community by joining the phpMyAdmin development team. I visited FOSDEM for the first time and will certainly do so this year.
On a professional level : I created a new website for my department using Drupal, and installed a new backup server.

One of my resolutions for 2010 was to read more, and I achieved this. If possible I read a chapter every evening, and I hope to continue doing this in the new year.
I also spent quite some time playing games, watching films and series and (re)discovered some music. Some of the highlights of the year : Assissin's Creed II, the best game I played in years; Isbells and Mumford & Sons, the latter doing some great gigs; and 1984, classic by George Orwell. :)

And I met a lot of interesting people, made new friends and got to know some people better.

Resolutions 2011

Bit a more of the same of last year. I made some progress, but there is always room for improvement :

• Smile (even) more!
• Enjoy more and worry less
• Continue reading
• Be more confident
• Look for a new place to live

Happy New Year!

First and foremost : A happy 2010!
May your wishes come true, may you be prosperous in your endeavors and have good health!

For me 2009 was a year with some fruitful events, like getting a new job, but there was some disappointment and misfortune - my grandfather passed away - as well. Hopefully I will learn from all that occurred and keep a fond memory of the nice things that happened.

And now for the resolutions! Last year I had one big resolution : smile more. And I must say I managed to do that! There is still room for improvement, but it went well.
So this year's resolutions are :

• smile (even) more!
• Be happier, enjoy more and worry less
• Read more
• Find a goal, something to believe in
• procrastinate less