Colophon: Tools, Tech & Work Setup

About This Site

This site is my digital garden where I share thoughts, learnings, and experiences. I also write about my personal projects, books I write and everything else. It's built with Nikola, deployed via Cloudflare Pages, and version-controlled using git on GitLab.

(Previously I build this site in Drupal, then WordPress, and I tried 11ty, hugo, pelican and many others. I've stayed with Nikola for the last few years. It just works, and I can extend it using Python. And it supports AsciiDoc, Markdown, reST, Jupyter Notebooks and more. It just fits my workflow 😁.)

The social images are made-on-build by a nikola plugin I put together. I haven't released it because it just to specific for my use case.

Development Environment

Hardware Setup

  • Desktop:
    • AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
    • 96GB RAM
    • 16TB Seagate Exos HDD + 2TB NVMe SSD
    • Running Linux Mint with KDE Plasma
  • Laptop: Lenovo ThinkPad T480s (24GB RAM) running KDE Neon
  • Phone: Moto Edge 30 Neo mostly with open-source apps via Droidify

Software & Tools

Development Tools

  • IDEs: VSCode and PyCharm/ PHPStorm/ Android Studio for development
  • Containerization: Docker for local development and server deployment
  • Framework: Django for personal projects
  • Database: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, MariaDB
  • Version Control: GitLab (private repos), GitHub (public repos)
  • Programming Languages: Python, PHP, Javascript, some Kotlin, HTML, CSS and so on. I am not picky, but I use mostly Python.

Productivity Suite

  • Text Expansion: espanso with my own Android companion app
  • Note-Taking: Obsidian
  • Password Management: KeepassXC, synced with Nextcloud or Syncthing.
  • Document Management: DocSpell for archiving
  • File Synchronization:
  • Nextcloud (hosted on Hetzner Storage)
  • Syncthing for P2P sync

Infrastructure

  • Cloud Providers: Hetzner (VPSs and a Dedicated Server with Proxmox 8) and Linode
  • Local Server: HP MicroServer Gen8 running Proxmox and OpenMediaVault for NAS, and docker for other services.

Work Environment & Flow

Workspace

I alternate between my home office and Unperfekthaus) in Essen, Germany. UPH's atmosphere helps with focus and deep work sessions, especially when paired with coffee and the right music.

Getting Around

My trusty (and sometimes frustrating) Decathlon R500E e-bike is my main transportation in Essen. We have a complex relationship - it's fantastic when everything works, and challenging when it doesn't (mostly because it takes weeks for Decathlon to fix anything), but it gets me where I need to be.

Focus Setup

Content Creation

I write using three formats depending on the content:

  • Markdown for quick posts and documentation
  • AsciiDoc for longer-form content and books
  • reStructuredText when specific features are needed (this is really integrated into Nikola SSG)

Privacy & Analytics

The site uses Matomo and GoatCounter for privacy-respecting analytics. No personal data is collected without consent (AFAIK). And I just use this to know what happens here.

Connect & Updates

Follow my updates via:

To connect, I prefer you use LinkedIn.

License

Unless otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.