It started a few years ago, when me and my friend Dries had an idea for a hosted e-commerce solution. At the time I was often looking for a solution to build out online stores for my clients, without having to go through the horror of customising Magento and the like. At the time, the only thing that came close to what we had in mind was Shopify, but even their software was overly complex for most of my clients and it didn't feel like the way we wanted to build stores. We decided to roll our own solution with only the features that were really needed and nothing else. We created …

If you're like me, you may have an old desktop computer sitting around your home office somewhere serving as a Linux machine. I use my old desktop as a Centos server acting as an exact copy of my production machine. That way I'm able to easily try out updates to web apps I'm creating before deploying them to an online production server. I don't have a UTP-connection where I work at the moment so I had to find a way to connect the Linux server to my Wifi network. There's a lot of information floating around the internet, but sometimes when it comes to Linux, it's hard to find that right …

I wanted to experiment with node.js , canvas and a whole bunch of other cool stuff for some time now but never really got to it. For the past four years or so, since I moved to Mechelen, we've had weekly meetups at my office or at a friend's place every thursday night. We hang out, talk about the latest tech or watch a movie. To make these evenings a bit more interesting I decided to hook up a projector and build a game that we could play from the couch with two players at the same time. For the controllers I've decided that it would be cool to use our phones. Here's a …

Yesterday I started a small experiment in preparation for a class I'm teaching about building simple web apps. Because I like to keep things stylish - you know me - I've created Loo Me! , a simple web app that will help you find a public toilet in Antwerp the day after visiting your not so favourite Indian restaurant or on any other day for that matter. Used resources If you're experimenting with something similar, here are a few of the resources I used to get the app up and running quickly. I hope they come in handy for some of you. Subtlepatterns for the backgroun…

For some reason, it's easier to write about what bothers you or what you would call a fail, than it is to write about wins! I've decided to look out for what delights me in the real world, but until then ;), here's what I found frustrating the other day. My girlfriend was driving the car and I wanted to put the radio volume up. After 30 years of crancking up the volume, my mind got tricked into thinking I just needed to look for a round centrally located knob. That's the volume-crancking-button on any other device right? Not on this radio it wasn't. Instead, you will be changing the GPS …

If you earn a living by working behind a computer most of the day, it's definitely important to keep in mind that you are prone to suffering from RSI. Wikipedia describes this modern side effect of working with computers as follows: "Repetitive strain injuries (RSIs) are injuries of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems that may be caused by repetitive tasks, forceful exertions, vibrations, mechanical compression (pressing against hard surfaces), or sustained or awkward positions" My definition would be something along the lines of: "A tingling sensation and sometimes even …

You need a backup strategy and you need one now. Not tomorrow. Now. My Backup Strategy Many of us have had their hard drives failing, operating systems crashing or even people stealing their computers and hard drives. Murphy wasn't lying when he said "Anything than can go wrong, will go wrong". Unfortunately for me, Mister Murphy proved to be right more than once already. The importance of a good backup strategy can't be stressed enough . Because every month or so, somebody asks me how they should back up their data, I've written down what I personally do to try to avoid …

Mobistar simply doesn't get it I've been a Mobistar business client for many years and never had any real problems with them. That is of course, not taking into account the fact that I didn't have an affordable mobile data plan and there was nobody to speak to when I had questions about their services. Sure, you could give the Mobistar call center a call, but let's not get into that, unless you want me to play a piano and radio hit compilation for the next 35 minutes or so. I don't think I'm asking for much either. I make the occasional phone call, send a few text messages a day and …

Home offices and co-working spaces are growing in numbers. To me, it comes as no surprise that large corporations are losing workers to the freelancing and startup lifestyle. More and more people realize that there's only one life to live . Yes, that includes a professional life as well. You have one career ahead of you and you better make it into something you really enjoy doing. Otherwise, why do it? With freelancing comes the responsibility of marketing yourself. Traditionally that includes printing business card and setting up a cool portfolio website. Okay, we should also be on …

Today I was trying to set up my iPad so that I can connect remotely to my Linux servers in case of emergency. My servers only allow password-less connections via SSH keys , so I needed to set up those key pairs on my iPad and servers. When trying to connect from the iPad through iSSH or Prompt , I always got the message "Server refused our key", while I was sure I put the correct key into ~/username/.ssh/authorized_keys. But of course, when we thing we're right, Linux shows us we are not. Whenever you are having problems setting up SSH keys, make sure you tail or view the log file …