Articles in category Information Technology, back to all.
  1. AzureException extends RuntimeException

    Azure updated many of its Java libraries. Not only the (Maven-) groupId com.azure is new. Also exceptions were redesigned. Their principle reminds me of my first tries with Java. More…

  2. Failed Metaphors

    Another presentation about Agile Methods and again the one with the slides compares with Waterfall. In the end Agile Methods succeed by turning a stroller into a car. Waterfall only came up with something that looks as if a 3-year-old had put together all kinds of parts of different sizes in odd numbers which doesn't drive at all. More…

  3. Man Pages as HTML is hard

    I really like to link to valuable sources in my articles. Man pages are a hard problem. There are sites out there delivering them as HTML but not very handy. More…

  4. Azure or Nothing Part 1

    VBScript was capable and incomplete. This tumor's creator surely went on to try pipelines. There are classic- and YAML-pipelines. And it wouldn't be Microsoft if the YAML standard is just someone else opinion and big M wouldn't ignore common sense. More…

  5. Upgrade Java Auto Modules

    Some Java libraries still have no modules-info.java. That is why they can not be packed with jlink into your projects. A simple script changes this. More…

  6. Hunting Ghosts

    For one task I need to start a group of services, provided through a docker-compose.yml. It worked yesterday and today I'll finish my task with a developer's test of the complete integration. But it needs seconds more than usual – I cultivated that feeling deep inside there's a delay thus there are going to be dragons ahead. More…

  7. Scanner with Tcl/Tk

    No Python, no compiler, a simple grid layout to call scanimage. An easy tool for my 8year old to turn workbooks, tests and home schooling results into digital copies. More…

  8. Power or Float-Exception

    As always nothing changed but nevertheless a common work process doesn't work anymore. Additionally it is a very simple task done in a few minutes. Pressure rises and no matter where you search for the solution it is always found where you look last. More…

  9. XFCE's ALSA Plugin on Arch

    XFCE has an ALSA plugin to control audio volume. It can be configured to use a certain device and works flawlessly. But it is not available through Arch's AUR (Arch User Repository) for aarch64. Raspberry Pi 3B and especially 4 support 64bit and therefore require compatible packages. The following sections guide you through the 15min process of compiling the plugin on the target system. More…

  10. Finding of the Week

    I really enjoy taking part in other developer's struggles. This includes playing developer's games. One of them is the so called Finding of the Week. The intention is to educate, relief from stress and to remember the early days of programming. A group of developers comes together online. And everyone presents a piece of code and a very (geek) entertaining discussion starts. Once this turned awkward for me and implicitely many others. More…

  11. Wegwerfadressen

    Eine interessante Studie ist noch eine Eingabe weit weg: E-Mail-Adresse. Jemand bietet etwas zum Download an, aber erst registrieren. Für einen Verkauf braucht man eine elektronische Kontaktmöglichkeit, am einfachsten ist E-Mail. Doch nur eine Adresse ist praktikabel. Was wäre, wenn die eine Adresse viele Gesichter haben kann? More…

  12. Ausdrucken nur über LyX

    Manchmal unterhalte ich mich anderen über die kleinen Ärgernisse der Informationstechnik. Das hat auch schonmal einen Briefumschlag als Auslöser. Meine Umschläge haben nämlich grundsätzlich ein Sichtfenster. Mein Gegenüber wollte wissen, wie ich die Adresse so genau aufs Papier bekomme, dass sie im Fenster sichtbar ist. More…

  13. Gentoo

    I've tried many Linux distributions, from early Mandrake to free SuSE and ran Gentoo for many years since its early days. Then I shifted my priorities from building packages to having a life. Recently I returned to Gentoo with a strategy and clear motivation: no clutter, no Canonical and no systemd. After half a year I'm up and running again. A big desktop machine works from time to time through the large tasks requiring processing power. For everyday work I use a laptop, Lenovo G505s and a mini-ITX platform hosts all the important services like a backup RAID, web server, file/ media server and databases (SQLite, PostGreSQL), Gentoo binary package host. The following paragraphs outline the foundation of my motivation, to invest a little more time again, now more efficiently. More…

  14. Make it a virtual problem

    It started two years ago when nearly everybody in my near surrounding working as an IT expert was burning for Docker, containers, virtualization, clustering and all that fancy stuff with Netflix-, Amazon or Google-cloud foundation. It was back in 2015 when I had first contact with IBM Bluemix Garage and the new craze Ionic and/ or AngularJS. Until then I was a heavy weight champion of JEE development with an application server running 50-100 servlets at once. Now I sat with two guys in my office and tried to port the important parts of a few servlets to the new platform – check if it works out and estimate transition cost. More…

  15. Share Credentials The Safe Way

    Companies sometimes need shared credentials. You need to access a customer's testing system, log in to a sample cloud instance or exchange work in progress from developer accounts. These systems are password protected and normally you have a shared document, a Wiki or a mailing list. It has never been a good idea to share passwords this way. Once you saved the credentials access is unlimited. More…

  16. Linux is an Alternative

    That's a pure hypothesis and includes Scientism (Asimov). Linux is not a clearly bounded object. First step of every scientific inquisition of Linux users is to ask, which distribution they use or more formal: who is your god? One could dive even deeper and is absolutely right when saying a distribution is not Linux but uses Linux. Some are real priests of open source software and were put together from patches of kernel code. More…

  17. Today's Software Bloat Part 1 – Hardware Abstraction

    I started coding software in 1993. It was QBasic on a KC85/3, top computer platform of GDR and available at my school. Until then I moved through various level of expertise and have always been involved with high scalability projects of BKA (German Federal Investigation Bureau), Deutsche Bahn/ Schenker (Railway/ Transportation) and energy markets as well as automotive backends. Non-IT People always ask me, why I don't make it much simpler and they even suggest a solution. This two-part-series explains, what separates experts from average people. More…