OpenSource on General Ramblings

What if programming languages were designed for AI, not humans

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What if programming languages were designed for AI, not humans?

A few weeks ago I saw a post on social media -- someone asking whether it was time to create a programming language designed for consumption by code assistants. Not for humans to write, but for AI to generate and humans to verify.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Every programming language I use was designed for humans to write. Python optimizes for readability. Rust optimizes for safety. JavaScript optimizes for getting something on screen fast. They all assume a human is typing the code.

Better Late Than Never: Announcing Ramble, A Nomad Job & Pack Registry

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Back in 2021, I had an idea. What if there was a better way to share and discover Nomad job files and Nomad Packs? What if we could make it as easy to find a production-ready Nomad configuration as it is to find a Docker image? We needed a helm like repository for Nomad

That idea became Ramble -- Github Repo.

Today, after multiple restarts, countless refactorings, and a journey that taught me Go from the ground up, I'm finally ready to share it.

Setting up GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS for Terraform Cloud

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 19:48:32 +0000

The getting started guides for using Terraform with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) https://cloud.google.com/community/tutorials/getting-started-on-gcp-with-terraform

All suggest using code like this to provide credentials

1// Configure the Google Cloud provider
2provider "google" {
3 credentials = "${file("CREDENTIALS_FILE.json")}"
4 project     = "flask-app-211918"
5 region      = "us-west1"
6}

This works well when you are just learning Terraform. Once you start working with 2 or three other engineers this becomes more of a challenge because you need to keep the state file secure using a remote S3 backend etc.. but you still have the problem of the credential file that needs to be shared. However since the launch of Terraform Cloud at Hashiconf it is now possible to sign up for a free Terraform Cloud account and to use it as a remote backend for your plans.

Quest NDS Migrator LogFile Parser

Fri, 18 May 2012 22:16:52 +0000

I am currently helping a customer migrate from Novell to Microsoft and they are using the Quest migrator product to move their data to new DFS servers.

They currently have a large amount of data stored on a number of volumes. The sheer number of volumes and data have required that they deploy a large number of the copy engine servers.

The copy engine does not utilize a central logging facility, it stores the logfiles in a folder alongside the copy engine.

Bongo Admin UI Images

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:46:49 +0000

I have uploaded some images of the new UI so you can see what it looks like without installing it.

Please let me know what you think.

Images

Building the new Bongo Admin UI

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:10:09 +0000

A while ago Alex (so_solid_moo to the IRC channel) created a php binding for the Bongo API. He also created the start of the new UI that we are working towards.

We started with the admin ui for now as we have created a user interface with the roundcube project that Alex also integrated with.

I stared porting the current Dragonfly assets into the project and I tried to stick to the old design style as much as possible as I really loved it’s look and feel.

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD Part 2

Wed, 11 May 2011 22:23:00 +0000

This blog is a follow on from a blog post I wrote ages ago and have eventually got round to finishing it off In this part of the process we will create the disks and setup the DRBD devices First we need to connect to the Virtual Machines from a terminal session as it makes life much easier and quicker when you connect remotely. You will need to make sure that your servers have static IP addresses. For this document I will be using the following IP addresses for my servers.

Learning Ruby and rBongo with WeBongo

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:50:24 +0000

This post should have been written quite a while ago as I wanted to start documenting my efforts to learn to program using Ruby. As most of you know I have been trying for a while to teach myself to program.

I started my efforts with a course in c# at a company in London, the course was just great and the instructor was a fantastic guy. Unfortunately life meant I could not practice at all. I worked for a company for a year that gave me no opportunity to play during the day and having a newborn baby left my wife and I looking more like zombies that real people.

Bongo-Project.org Needs To Be Renamed

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 19:30:48 +0000

The Bongo-Project needs to be renamed

Now before you fall of your chair or swallow your phone while reading this let me explain why.

I have been wanting to create this post for sometime now and have been holding off as we are almost ready for our 1.0 release.

The problem I have is that even if we released a new version of the software and it was our 1.0 release I am not sure anyone will be able to find us. I have been doing some digging over the last few months about what actually we are and to be honest I am not convinced we are “Individual” enough. We as a project get lost in the Bongo Project mayhem that is People who play bongo’s as instruments.

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:00:11 +0000

Creating a Two Node Mysql Cluster On Ubuntu With DRBD To create this cluster you will need 2 ubuntu node servers installed as follows.

I am creating this cluster inside of vMware so I created 2 VM's with:

1GB RAM

1 10GB hdd for the root (/) partition.

1 20GB hdd for the database store.

I downloaded the ubuntu 9.10 server iso and presented this to the VM's and started the install.

Standing up and being counted.

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:04:26 +0000

I have for some time now been wondering how many people actually use Bongo.

The reason for this is that we have had images available for a while and I am still non the wiser as to how many people actually use them.

I faithfully spend hours and hours building packages and getting them out the door but have no markers to see if they are being used.

While reading the docs for the ESVA appliance (http://www.global-domination.org/esva) I noticed that they have a cronjob that downloads a file and immediately deletes it. This allows for roughly seeing who is using their appliance .

vMware workstation 6.5.3 on openSUSE 11.2

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:18:39 +0000

I have just upgraded to 11.2 from ubuntu 9.10 on my IBM / Lenovo T61 laptop. ( I will post a better blog about that later)

What I wanted to mention here is that the current vMware workstation 6.5.3 does not want to run on my system.

I have found this post http://k-----k.blogspot.com/2009/09/install-vmware-workstation-653-on.html

Which has steps for compiling the modules yourself but by the look of things is based on 32bit openSUSE.

Great News About rPath Images

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:27:47 +0000

I have great news about the images on the rPath system.

I have been able to get Bongo 0.6.1 to build on the rPath system with a json patch from Alex.

I have promoted it to the QA and RELEASE repo's so it should be available for you guys.

Please test and let me know if you have any issues.

You can find the images here

Bongo rPath Images

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:43:46 +0000

I have been trying to get the latest 0.6.1 release of Bongo onto the rPath images. This unfortunately has not been possible due to our reliance on a newer version of Python than what is available on the rPath system.

This is a sad moment as I have been doing that for quite some time now and will not be able to continue.

So for those that have images which contain Bongo on a rPath system please use either the Fedora, Suse or Gentoo packages that we have created.

Images for Bongo 0.6.0

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:40:39 +0000

I have been working on the images in the Suse Studio environment as I mentioned in my blog post here.

I started the investigations to find that our RPM repository was in need of a bit of work. I wanted to create a new repository in my own name that would allow me to build these RPMs for the project.

Thinking about the delivery of the RPM’s I thought it best to open a repository with a generic name namely “bongo-project”. This would allow more than one person to work on the repository, but for the repository to keep its identity.

HTC Hero owner

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:38:31 +0000

Over the weekend I was able to have my mobile contract changed and part of the deal is that I get an HTC Hero.

This has made me quite happy as I have been forced to run windows mobile on my old phone for far to long and it is refreshing that I have an android phone.

The first thing I noticed was that the box was really small, I wondered if they had actually just given me the charger by mistake.

Results of the OS poll

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:45:57 +0000

You will be able to see from the poll archive that the following OS versions seem to be more popular

Ubutnu 9.04 (53.0%, 19 Votes)
Debian 5 (39.0%, 14 Votes)
CENTOS 5 (28.0%, 10 Votes)
openSuse 11.1 (22.0%, 8 Votes)
Fedora 11 (19.0%, 7 Votes)

I will now start to work on the packages for these OS's.

From the outset I see that we have quite a few Debian based users and this is a problem for me as I have no idea how to package for Debian. Not that I know much about packaging at all.

Packaging Adventure

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:29:02 +0000

I am about to embark on the epic journey which is Bongo packaging on the OpenSUSE Build Service.

Now that I have succumbed to this task I wanted to establish a few things.

In the Build service there are many many distributions available for build. Most of the distributions are very old.

This leaves me with a choice as to were to focus my efforts, as most of you know I have been creating the Bongo images on the rPath rbuild system so my knowledge of RPM and Deb packaging is quite limited.

The Bongo Images will no longer be built on the rPath environment

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:02:38 +0000

For quite some time now we have been using the rPath rBuilder system to create images for the project. I have also used it for a few other projects.

Things have been going quite well until someone at rPath decided that they needed to reinvent their web interface.

Now I don't mind change and innovation as long as the changes are well thought through and well tested.

I have experienced some major issues with the new UI and it has overwritten my group recipe on more than one occasion.

Bongo 0.5.2 Package Released on rPath

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:21:24 +0000

The new Bongo package has been compiled, packaged and promoted so it should now be available to those running the images.

This version has a number of fixes that were highlighted by the change to the cmake compiler.

Thanks to the hard work of Alex and Patrick we are now in a position to say the the mail store is now stable. I can't wait for the changes that we will now be implementing on the web front.

Mono Goings On

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:38:24 +0000

I too have been watching the Mono debate with some interest as I am in the process of creating a Mono API for the Bongo Store.

This interests me as I do not want to spend time working on something that will stop any distribution from running such a great app like Bongo.

What worries me more is the character assassination and blatant lie telling that has been going on to in some way justify what is being said by the Mono haters. I wholly agree with Alex's take on the subject you can find here. I think that this will have an affect on the community but I am not sure what affect it will be.

Bongo Images and the 0.5 release

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:19:44 +0000

Bongo Images and the 0.5 release

I have been working on the images for the 0.5 release of Bongo and I have now completed them.

They can be found here http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/bongo/latestRelease

There is a change however in how we will be implementing the images from now on.

I have decided that to make it easier on you guys and also to limit the number of hours I have to work on them I will create a version 1.0 of the images which I will not change for the foreseeable future.

Bongo Images for 0.4.0 have been fixed

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:14:33 +0000

I have been able to rework the Bongo images to make them work.

I would appreciate any testing that could be done as I do not have all the vm technologies to test.

So I hope you have fun .

Here is a link to the downloads

Bongo Images for 0.4.0 Broken

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Due to a server error where the images get built an error has crept in that make the images useless.

This error has been prevalent for some time and so it has caused the images to break.

I have therefore pulled the images and will try to fix the problem as soon as I can.

I will post again when things get better

Update on the Bongo API

Sun, 10 May 2009 14:14:22 +0000

Quite some time ago I blogged about my efforts to create a mono API for the bongo store protocol, I have unfortunately been quite busy with my personal life and also at work so this has been neglected.

I have again been working on this and at the moment I am stuck trying to get the COLLECTIONS command to work.

Alex sent me his php API code that he was working on to help me out but unfortunately I am just not experienced enough to work this one out. I really want to get this working as I think it will be a great boost to the project as it will open the project to other coders and perhaps we could see some interesting work.

Bongo 0.4 Development Images

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:08:43 +0000

Bongo 0.4 Development Images.

As promised I have published the Bongo 0.4 development images. To the rPath site.

This release will be quite a big step as we are upgrading the images to the rPath Linux 2 version.

These are the development branch of the 0.4 bongo source I have included Spamassassin and clamav in this build so these option should now work in bongo as well.

Could you please test them and let me know if there are any issues. So we can fix them.

Work on the Bongo 0.4 appliances

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:03:55 +0000

For some time now I have been asked why I have not released the Bongo 0.4.0 packages to the Bongo rPath repo.

The reason I have given is that the webUI bits for Bongo have been broken in Bongo after some major work was done on the store area of the project. The other agents we have e.g. SMTP, IMAP, POP, ANTISPAM and ANTIVIRUS are all still performing very well and I use the code on a server at home running about 4 domains.

Monsoon 0.20 Packaged

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:35:57 +0000

Monsoon 0.20 packaged.

I have eventually packaged the new version of monsoon for Foresight Linux. My apologies to Alan for taking so long. Life has a habit of taking over sometimes.

Well I have added the new meta tags that zodman's new packagekit needs so it should have a short description about it.

Please test this version for me as I would love for it to become Foresight Linux's default torrent client.

Bongo Appliance Users – new Bongo Experimental Packages in the rPath repo

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:55:39 +0000

I have been working on getting the svn build of Bongo into the rPath repo for users to try.

I have now completed that and the newest build of bongo is available in the 0.40-devel repository.

Please be aware that this version has only been tested on rPath 2 and so cannot be used on rPath 1 systems.

Please also remember that the webmail UI and admin side of things is currently broken so if you are not comfy running command line tools with Bongo please don’t upgrade.

Bongo Experimental Packages In rPath Repo

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:30:17 +0000

Well,

I remember I said to myself this year I will get the svn build for Bongo into the bongo repo on rPath. It has taken a awhile but I now have the 0.4 svn version available in the repository. I will also be creating a few VM's of the experimental new rPath 2 version of the Bongo appliance.

WARNING!!!!!!

The Web UI is no longer working so if you use that do NOT update to this version.

Foresight Linux Product Definitions

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:35:43 +0000

I have been working on the product definitions for Foresight Linux repositories which will help the different versions have a common set of details.

I will try to blog as much as possible about this so that everyone knows where I am at.

I am currently setting up a test definition on my playground repo so that I can test my changes and clarify with everyone that they are what is needed.

Linux Live

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:56:13 +0000

On Friday and Saturday I was lucky enough to have gone to Linux Live in Olympia London UK and work the stand with Alex. As Alex has blogged the show was very quiet and it seems the .org village was an afterthought to the organisers.

As Alex said in his blog http://www.alexhudson.com I think that there was not enough advertising and the show we were paired with was the wrong one as the two user groups had completely different interests and priorities. I saw many a creative user swagger confidently into the area and you can see how his facial expression changes from complete confidence to utter fear step by step as he walks further. When he can’t take it anymore a swift about turn on the heel and almost sprinting he leaves and sighs a huge sigh of relief when he finds himself amongst the apple logos.

Over 7000 Downloads

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:56:50 +0000

This evening Stu Gott dropped a bombshell on me, not literally but it had a similar impact. The people at rPath have run a report on our little project and I was shocked to say the least when I found out that the Bongo appliance has been downloaded 0ver 7000 times. I seem to remember thinking this is a nice small project for me to help the Bongo-Project with, it will never take off as much as the packages that Andrew and the others are creating but will allow me to do my part.

Busy Bees

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:44:18 +0000

Well it has been a while since the Bongo team has released a version and there is good reason for this.

Over the last few months since the release of 0.3.0 the developers have been rewriting a large proportion of the store code. Alex realised that the old one was not as efficient as it could be when there were large volumes of mail stored in the system. This actually started when it was discovered that when using IMAP and connecting to your mail account if you tried to move large volumes of mail around it would error out or worse. The store is now almost done and the branch and trunk should be merged soon.

Mypaint added

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:16:07 +0000

Mypaint has now been added to FL:2-devel.

from their website

MyPaint is a fast and easy painting application. It lets you focus on the art instead of the program.

It comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate natural painting. Other features are:

support for pressure sensitive graphic tablets
unlimited canvas (you never have to resize)
undo
fast
no layers (work in progress)
using pygtk with C extensions

If you want to look deeper, MyPaint is built around a highly configurable brush engine. This allows you to experiment with your own brushes and with not-quite-natural painting.

Monsoon updated

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:36:58 +0000

Monsoon 0.15 has been committed to FL:2-devel. This is a bugfix version.

LibVirt updated

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:35:17 +0000

LIbvirt has been updated to 4.3 in the fl:2-devel.

New video config tool for Foresight Linux

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:34:55 +0000

I am investigating video config (x config) for Foresight linux as the current config tool is a bit hit and miss.

I have been investigation who does what and how but it seems quite difficult to get any information about this stuff from the different distributions and also what works and what does not.

I would appreciate any comments on the above.

virt-manager 0.5.4 for Foresight Linux

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:25:38 +0000

After some head scratching and help from doniphon we now have a working virt-manager, virt-viewer, virtinst and libvirtd on Foresight Linux 2-qa so hopefully soon it will be released into the main repo sometime soon.

Please create issues on https://issues.foresightlinux.org for any problems

Monsoon on Foresight Linux

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:35:15 +0000

I have packaged Monsoon for foresight 2, it has been passed though qa and is now in the main repo.

I am glad that it has worked so easily

New Laptop

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:01:44 +0000

I have eventually been able to get a 64bit laptop.

Which means I will be able to package for Foresight Linux, rPath and the Bongo Project again.

I feel I have been neglecting all my projects somewhat, hopefully when it arrives I will be able to package some great apps.

New Bongo Live CD forum

Mon, 19 May 2008 21:48:37 +0000

We have now created a forum for the LiveCd so you can use that the IRC channel or the bongo-users mailing list for getting help with it.

The Forum can be found here http://forum.bongo-project.org

Live CD Wiki Page

Sat, 17 May 2008 10:34:21 +0000

I have finished the Live CD wiki page and I thought I would put it out there for you guys to have a look at and comment on.

You can find a direct link here

http://www.bongo-project.org/Live_CD

I have added images and some help text. This page is aimed at a person who just wants to look at what we are doing without actually installing the software.

I would welcome any comments or ideas on the page so please let me know I have also started on the other pages that can be found here

Vmware Workstation on Foresight 2

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:24:34 +0000

Well I have been able to get vmware running on Foresight 2 it was a bit of a mission as since Vmware have opensourced their vmware tools the foresight developers have built the tools into the kernel by default. The problem is that when you try to install vmware workstation or vmware player they would complain about the modules already installed and fail.

After manually deleting these module files I was able to install and run vmware on the workstation.

So I migrated my Desktop

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:39:42 +0000

So I migrated my desktop to Foresight Linux v 2

It has been a bit of a bumpy ride mainly due to me being a newbie and the fact that FL:2 is still very new to market.

I will see how things go and keep you updated.

Bongo Appliance 0.3.0 Release

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:47:10 +0000

The much awaited release of Bongo M3 has arrived. Bongo Appliance Virtual Machines and install ISO's can be downloaded from the RBuilder Website

If you already have an appliance running all you have to do is run your system updates through the web interface on your appliance

https://applianceIPorName:8003 then restart the appliance

Bongo Appliance 0.2.94 Release

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:46:13 +0000

The new release of the Bongo Appliance Virtual Machines and install ISO's can be downloaded from the RBuilder Website

If you already have an appliance running all you have to do is run your system updates through the web interface on your appliance https://applianceIPorName:8003 then restart the appliance

Bongo Appliance Release

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:45:05 +0000

Well in keeping with Alex’s resolution to release more this year, a new version 0.2.94 has been released. To make things more clear as to the process that is taken to produce a new release for the appliance I thought I would set out a typical process.

New version of Bongo is released
A frenzy of packaging takes place
Sorting out any requirements that the new release bring with it
Building and commiting the release to the rbuilder repository
Building a test iso or vm to see if everything still works
the main group is then built and promoted to the release repository
The different appliance builds are started
once all the builds are complete a release is created and published

So as you can see it is quite involved but it is rewarding to see tat just after you release people start downloading the files.

rPath Appliance development release for Version 0.2.90

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:43:54 +0000

**Well I have been so quiet lately that you probably thought I was missing.**I was in a way but I am now back.

In my absence the rpath appliance development has leaped forward in huge amounts.Thanks to Stu Gott who is far more familiar with rPath than I am we have

our first development release of Bongo on the RPath platform. This new

release can be found here

http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/bongo/latestRelease

To install from a CD created from an ISO use this link

Bongo Appliance hits the big time

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:41:06 +0000

Well this must be a sign. With the large portion of help that Stu Gott has given, we have been able to get the appliance ready for some serious testing. This means that rpath Marketing have put the Bongo appliance on the appliance spotlight section of the rPath Rbuilder website.

What this means is that when you connect to the rbuilder website http://www.rpath.com/rbuilder you will see a familiar graphic with the Bongo logo. When this is clicked on it will take you directly to the Bongo project page and give you the option of downloading the appliance.

Migrating Accounts to Bongo

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:39:44 +0000

I have recently been preparing to migrate my accounts running on other mail systems to Bongo as soon as we have Bongo 1.

The movement of mail from any system to Bongo was my biggest worry as my account alone had 3700+ emails in 350+ folders.

I decided after a lengthy web search to use IMAP to migrate the mail.

I will detail the steps I used here so others can expand and use them.

rPath packaging joy

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:38:28 +0000

Ok.. So I have not blogged for some time and there is a valid reason for this, actually there are two reasons. The first is that I am a new dad and this comes with quite a few challenges and tasks which has taken me away from doing my Bongo stuff.

The second is that I have not had anything to report on. I have been trying to get Bongo to compile on the rpath distribution and this has been a challenge not only for me but for Alex and the other developers. rPath has some quirks that make it a challenge to get Bongo working.

rPath Path

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:32:02 +0000

Well I have eventually started down the rpath route.

The documentation is very difficult to pick up and I have had a hard time working things out. The #conary irc channel has been a great help to me on my path as it were. I have been able to get bongo to compile on the rpath platform but I am having trouble with the bongo-setup script and slapd.

I am hoping to get this worked out soon and then run a script during group-build to run the bongo-setup script with all the arguments filled in for a user.

VMware heaven

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:30:16 +0000

I have fixed the broken VM

Thank you to all those who have downloaded the vm and are seeding it. I must apologize to you as the VM that I sent out was borked. I have successfully rebuilt the vm and it no longer has the version name in the vm name as I thought that once it has been downloaded all the people have to do is update bongo and continue. The updated torrent file can be found here Bongo torrent page on haigmail. I am in the process of building a debian from scratch VM which should enable me to install a vm with the absolute minimum install needed for bongo to run. I have stumbled across a how to and I am busy working through it. Once that is complete I will will add it to the torrent page for you to try out. It should hopefully bring the download size down considerably. Please if you can download the torrent and keep it seeded.

Vmware image complete

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:28:18 +0000

The Bongo-Project Vmware image is now complete

I have been able to create an image that will allow Bongo to be evaluated and tested.

I have put the torrent file on my web server the address is http://torrent.haigmail.com As I create new files or downloads I will add them to the list on this server.

Please download the file and keep it seeding

Bongo Demo VM

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:21:28 +0000

I have now created the Bongo demo virtual machine. I was going to use an rpath installation but that has proved to much for me to take on board at the moment.

I will look into that at a later date. I have also created a torrent file and website for the Bongo demo server, I just need Alex to approve the site and also someone on the team who knows css to help me brand the page.

First of many

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:18:08 +0000

I thought I would start by explaining how I came to be using Bongo

I started using Bongo when it was still called NIMS and was part of the beta test on that one. When it was released I bought a red box version and installed it on a server that I was hosting on my broadband at home. I only had a 5 user license then and created accounts for my family to use the server.