Lorenzo's Blog About me

Latest blog posts

How I get stuff done with Spoon Theory and Shortcuts

On: 2024-04-02 - Reading Time: 3 Minutes

I have always been a person that organizes his day and tasks, and I have grown, over the years, a little bit too much obsessed about scheduling and prioritizing things to do. Recently I was diagnosed as neurodivergent, and I have been introduced to the Spoon Theory, to manage energy level.

I have made a shortcut for iPhone/Mac/iPad that uses the Reminders app to get stuff done based on how much energy (spoons 🥄 ) I have at the moment, and I am sharing it with you! 😄

Continue reading...

Apple HomeKit and Linux SystemD

On: 2023-07-23 - Reading Time: 2 Minutes

If you’ve ever dreamt of controlling your Linux applications or running commands directly from your iPhone, I’ve got some exciting news for you. I’ve been tinkering around and have come up with a solution that bridges the gap between Apple HomeKit and SystemD services. Let me introduce you to my latest side-project: hk-svcs-bridge! The Inspiration Behind the Project The idea was born out of sheer convenience. Imagine this: you’re settling down for a movie night.

Continue reading...

Happy to give back, happy to pay

On: 2023-01-25 - Reading Time: 6 Minutes

I miss the days when I bought software on my Mac instead of using a subscription. More and more software and services are moving to subscription-based models. In this blog post, I want to share my thoughts on subscriptions, including those that I am grateful for paying for and those that I have stopped paying for. By working with open-source software I learned how important it is to give back and support the developers (and companies) that are providing services that we like, or not paying them if we don’t!

Continue reading...

Switching to Helix: My Experience and Tips

On: 2022-12-27 - Reading Time: 4 Minutes

I recently switched from Visual Studio Code (VS Code) to Helix as my primary text editor. I wanted a more efficient and powerful modal editor for working with Go, Terraform, YAML, and other languages and tools. I also appreciated the lightweight and efficient design of Helix. In this post, I will discuss my experience with the switch and the adjustments I made to make Helix a better fit for my daily work.

Continue reading...

Handling Secrets should not be complicated: Mozilla SOPS

On: 2022-11-30 - Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Managing secrets in Git repositories has been one of the biggest issues when I write code. I have used multiple solutions based on the complexity and how many things I have to do in case of leaks. I was looking for a solution that would work and be good enough for my simple Ansible Playbooks, and I stumbled upon the Mozilla SOPS: something that makes handling secrets not complicated when working alone on simple projects.

Continue reading...

For the past 10 years, I have been keeping a diary

On: 2022-10-16 - Reading Time: 4 Minutes

I have been writing down events of my life for the last 10 years. I want to celebrate this achievement. πŸŽ‰β˜ΊοΈ This diary helped me a lot in the past, and I wish to convince anyone who is on the fence about starting one to go for it. Those are my personal observation. I started writing a diary because I wanted to avoid cognitive biases and have a more objective memory for my future self.

Continue reading...

How to prevent your Mac from sleeping in a Makefile

On: 2022-08-12 - Reading Time: 1 Minutes

Often I find myself using third-party software like Caffeine or Amphetamine to keep my Mac awake while running some specific commands. Sometimes it is because I am running backups. Sometimes it is because I am compiling something. I found out that macOS comes pre-installed with caffeinete command… this post is about how to integrate it in your Makefile so that running any command there will prevent your Mac from sleeping!

Continue reading...

Steam Deck and Overlay FS

On: 2022-06-27 - Reading Time: 3 Minutes

A few months ago, I received my Steam Deck, the super powerful portable Linux gaming device made by Valve, the company behind Steam, and capable of playing Windows games without Windows. Taken by my irresistible desire to tinker with it, I noticed that it uses a read-only root and OverlayFS to guarantee the best experience for all the users. This is so Smart! So I have decided to do something similar on my Raspberry Pi running my NAS to test upgrades before actually upgrading.

Continue reading...

My journey to a new SRE team

On: 2022-05-26 - Reading Time: 4 Minutes

A few months ago, I became the Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) in Visma e-conomic. This new position is allowing me to work with brilliant people! In our industry, brilliant colleagues often have a hard time collaborating, and communication is very hard. In this post, I want to talk about the start of our journey from an Operational (Ops) team to embracing SRE using kindness and compassion as a way: Trust and forgiveness.

Continue reading...

My Hugo blog now is fast and light

On: 2022-01-31 - Reading Time: 5 Minutes

This blog post is about what I have changed in my blog and website to make it faster. Recently, I have traveled with a bad airplane company that delayed my luggage. In the hope of getting my belongings back with me, I tried to use their website and support pages, and I was frustrated every time. The primary source of frustration was the website speed. So I decided to spend most of the time without my luggage (around five days), trying to use best practices to improve my website and blog, making my Hugo blog faster and way lighter than before.

Continue reading...