2025 review of the year
2025 was a mixed bag in comparison with 2024 from a freelance perspective. I had a noticeable drop off in enquiries, but my income was stable. I moved to being…
The GNU Make Book by John Graham-Cumming
This review was originally printed in the UKUUG newsletter, which is now defunct. Authors: John Graham-CummingPublisher: No Starch PressIBSN: 9781593276492Pages: 236Published: 2015 GNU Make is an important piece of infrastructure…
Have you tried using AI / LLM coding tools?
Freelance question via Mastodon: have you tried using an LLM coding tool to see how good/bad the code it generates is? I have tried using AI / LLM coding tools…
Why AI won’t magically fix the NHS (or anything else)
Our health secretary seems to be convinced that AI will help fix the NHS, and the UK government is also talking about AI in public services as if it's some…
Why I make my resources available for free
I produce a variety of resources which I make available for free, such as my freelance questions + answers, blog posts and open source software. This is for a number…
Hugo and Simple.css
I'm working on several writing projects at the moment which will be published online. A CMS like WordPress or Drupal would be overkill, as the content is static and there…
Forcing static binaries with glibc and Go on Linux
go build dynamically links against glibc on Linux by default, resulting in errors like this when you run the binary: ./db2xlsx: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by ./db2xlsx) ./db2xlsx:…
Automating Nextcloud app updates
Like all good system administrators, I am lazy. If something can be automated, I will do my best to ensure that it is. Things I already automate include: Installation of…
What I like and dislike about C
Although I primarily write PHP, I do also use C. There are lots of things I like and dislike about the language. Size C is a very small language -…
New email notifications from NeoMutt
Although I use Thunderbird for work emails, due to its ability to manage HTML and accept meeting invitations, my personal email client of choice is NeoMutt. I wanted to be…