Some time ago I really wanted to learn how Linux fits together better so I built a Linux-based PVR PC using MythTV. I used the excellent Gentoo as a base which has excellent documentation but forces you to build a system from scratch. Over the years, running and upgrading this system has taught me much about how a Linux systems hangs together and this has aided me numerous times at work since Linux is a primary platform. [Read more from MythTV...]

Myself and a few friends recently started playing Path Of Exile which is an Action RPG akin to the Diablo series. We started this shortly after the recent Diablo mobile announcement but for me it was unrelated - I wanted something new to play and probably would have started on PoE irrespective. I like PoE. It is well structured, and I think making skills ‘gems’ which randomly dropped then slotting them is a nice approach. [Read more from Path of Exile...]

I received a free gift of Destiny 2 late last year and over Christmas I’ve been playing through the content. I find the game to be enjoyable. For an MMO it does the story elements exceptionally well - the ‘adventures’ are more involving and don’t skimp on providing actual story. The voice acting is as good as you’d expect in a single player game. Loot has mostly been unexciting so far but it is early days yet. [Read more from Destiny 2...]

This new site uses the “Midnight” theme for Hugo which includes support for plugins. I decided I wished to embed a twitter feed in the side-bar but had some difficulty getting this to work. I defined the plugin widget file as follows: SITE_ROOT/layouts/partials/sidebar/twitterfeed/widget.html Then was trying to get it working with the following toml configuration: [params.sidebar.twitterfeed] [params.sidebar.twitterfeed.partial] path = "sidebar/twitterfeed/widget.html" cache = true This failed with an error that it was unable to find the widget. [Read more from Hugo Midnight Theme Plugin...]

So, after working on the OV web-site and seeing how dated my own was, I decided to give it a refresh. Hasn’t taken long to cobble something together using hugo and an off-the-shelf theme. Some of the older content is gone but it wasn’t really relevant any more.

Software Development I loved a statement from cppcon “Software development is programming over time”. This is very much “it” for me. As a senior software developer, helping others to understand what makes software maintainable and understandable is most of my time. Unfortunately, the best lesson for a junior developer is always time: writing code and coming back to it in 6 months and realising what you�ve forgotten. Junior developers learn best from being allowed to make mistakes. [Read more from Programming Over Time...]

The Octavian Vanguard web-site (the gaming clan I belong to) has been somewhat neglected of late. It was running an ancient version of wordpress and pbphp both of which had major security holes. So I volunteered to fix that. We’ve decided to migrate away from forums to usingDiscord, and wanted to simplify the site. It can be found here. I decided to use Hugo as a static site generator, picking up a good looking theme and reskinning it. [Read more from New OV Website...]