Category: Uncategorized

Μια γκοφρέτα

Φέτος ο Άγιος Βασίλης μου έφερε ανάμεσα στα άλλα ένα dotPad. “Γράφεις με πένα”, είπε ο φίλος, “πάρε χαρτί να έχεις”. Το χάρηκα πολύ κι ας είναι κατηγορία stuff white people like.

Όμως ο φίλος με την κίνηση του μου θύμισε το πιο συγκινητικό δώρο που ξέρω: Το οποίο ούτε το έδωσα, ούτε το έλαβα. Το δώρο πήγε σε ένα φίλο που μέσω μιας ΜΚΟ δίνει κάποια λεφτά σε ένα παιδάκι στην Βοσνία. Και το παιδάκι αυτό του έστειλε κάποτε μία γκοφρέτα. Θυμάμαι που συζητάγαμε τι κόπο μπορεί να έκρυβε από πίσω της η αγορά της και μόνο.

Η δικιά μας γκοφρέτα είναι που περπατάς φίλε.

Livescribe, is it worth it?

/* What follows is a revision of a comment I left on Facebook when a friend asked me whether Livescribe is worth the trouble. My friend is a graphics artist with a world best seller under his belt.*/

– Is it worth it?

I have the Sky WiFi model (2G). Yes and no. WiFi connectivity at home has been problematic and so far I have changed WiFi channels twice and “forgotten” the network once to make it work.

The pen is longer and fatter than what I am used to (hell, I’ve cut my Rotring Art Pen 4cm shorter). But this does not seem to cause any difficulties in handling it because to me the pen seems properly balanced.

If I were you, I would try to have one. I suppose that you make rough sketches and drafts all the time and the ability to have them converted to PDF automatically is handy. Integration with Evernote is something cool and I do not think I would use Evernote if not for the Sky WiFi.

However keep in mind that it needs its own paper (google Anoto pattern) and so far any paper that I have seen is ruled, including paper that you can print on your own. A cool feature of Anoto printed paper is that the pen recognises both the notebook and the page number of the notebook when you see it listed on Evernote. Helpful when you want to track something from the PDF back to the physical.

Ink is also another thing. You have two color choices: black and blue ballpoints of medium size. It is quite possible that refills for the Faber Castell Trio multifunction pen match but I have not checked yet. And I think they are also black and blue only.

It is not what I imagined it to be for me, but I think I will not use a sketch / paint program for drawings that I need to do for presentations and / or documentation for the next year or two.

The fact that you can record audio while you scribe is really cool for presentations. You can also play, pause, stop and even replay from a certain point of your notes and downward.

/* I am posting this right after sharing a sketch with two coworkers who are away from me */

nagios: “CRITICAL – Unable to find host ‘” + host + “‘ in replica set.”

You may find yourself in the situation where when configuring nagios to monitor a MongoDB, it will complain that:

"CRITICAL - Unable to find host XXXXXXXX in replica set."

And you know for a fact that the replica set is fine. What has gone wrong then?

You have told nagios to monitor the IP address of the host in question, where in the replica set the host is found by its DNS name. Currently nagios-plugin-mongodb does not take this into account.

Nick Drake

Δεν γράφω για την μουσική που ακούω εδώ και καιρό (δεν είμαι και κανένας ειδήμονας άλλωστε). Τα 30 τελευταία CD του Jazz & Tzaz δεν τα έχω ακούσει καν. Όμως χτες άκουσα αυτό το επεισόδιο στο 99 percent invisible για τον Nick Drake και ένα έχω να πω:

Ευτυχώς που υπάρχει η δισκογραφία του (η περισσότερη τέλος πάντων) στο Spotify.

A sure way to get into a spam blacklist

Well here is one: Trying to deceive me. No I do not believe the error message returned from your remove.php:

There was an error processing your request; please manually send an email to with Unsubscribe as its subject

And you know why is that I do not believe you? Because I never subscribed via this email address.  In your newsletter you say you want to disrupt the industry (which industry you leave it vague). So far you’re only annoying.

Remote: Office Not Required

I finished “Remote: Office Not Required“. It took me a bit longer than I expected, but I have more than three books open at the moment. I really liked the book. While one can find a rehash of ideas that exist also in “Getting Real” and “Rework“, I find it stronger. Especially now that I employ a quasi remote way of work. The most powerful message in the book is this:

For the remote worker, all that matters is work delivered.

So I guess, if you have ever felt as your work not being recognized, you have to try remote working. The book is about how to employ people working remote for you (and not blowing it up and therefore blame it on remote work) and for people that want to work remotely in order not to get lost because of distance. I spotted a few things that I do wrong; habbits that I have to change. Because this is what remote work is about: Installing proper habbits and corporate culture that can make it work. Working remotely and acting locally is a recipe for failure, so you need to read this book prior to starting any remote work program, or starting working remotely as a contractor or an employee.