Blog
In 2007, I started this website so I could share my MSc thesis easily. I started blogging random thoughts that were on my mind, mostly related to theology, culture, and humour. I moved part of this to Tumblr, and a dedicated culture review site in 2010 (it no longer exists), but when I joined Automattic in 2015, I revamped my blog. These days, it’s mostly a space where I share photography and thoughts on leadership and tech. The latter is what you’ll find on this page.
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1–2 minutes
WordPress Customisation for Dummies (Like Me): Workshop WordCamp Cape Town 2016
A lot of beginners encounter all sort of tutorials on how to add some custom code to the functions.php file or even more basic: change the layout beyond what the customizer allows. Aspects In this workshop, I introduce WordPress beginners to some good standards in terms of customisation. Choosing a plugin that allows custom CSS
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3–4 minutes
Routers Scare Me (So Here’s a Tutorial for Myself)
I work for a web company, and because of that a lot of my friends and family expect me to know everything about the Internet. Well, I don’t. I’ve just learnt to use Google efficiently. And for that very reason, routers scare me. Because when I’m trying to configure the connection to the Internet, I
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6–9 minutes
My Biggest Problem with Creationists (and Evolutionists)
My biggest problem with “Creationists” and “Evolutionist” is how much they simplify reality.
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4–6 minutes
From (Too) Long Talk to Workshop That Works
To Really Work Very often, when conferences list workshops, what is offered is not an actual “workshop” but just a long talk. There are several reasons why you should avoid that. First of all, you’re communicating to the audience that they’re attending a workshop. As the word says, there should be work involved. If your audience
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1–2 minutes
Say hello to WooCommerce 2.6 “Zipping Zebra”
I’ve updated all of my test sites already and have been playing around with the newly added “Shipping Zones” for a while. WooCommerce 2.6 is an amazing update and you should get it for your store as well. Read the post on our development website on how to update safely. Oh, and I even made a
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1–2 minutes
Field Notes: Grow Leadership Academy 2016
Last week, I wrote my first post on the official blog of WordPress.com. It’s a report of the great teaching experience we had at the Grow Leadership Academy in Athlone, Cape Town.
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4–6 minutes
Ethical Consumption in South Africa: Chocolate and Coffee
When I arrived in South Africa about three years ago, fair trade was not really a consideration here. Very few brands were offering clear information about their supply chains and the control or transparency of those chains by external organisations. In the last few years, there has been quite a big change. Why should you care?
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1–2 minutes
ScaleConf 2016: Scaling Support by Education Customers
A few months ago, I spoke at ScaleConf 2016, which was quite intimidating. It’s a developer conference, and I’m not a developer. I posted my slides a while ago, but now you can also watch the video as well. I hope you like it! I really enjoyed infusing Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts I learnt
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1–2 minutes
James K.A. Smith Quote
In its truest sense, eros signals a desire and attraction that is a good feature of our creaturehood. . . . To be human is to have a heart. You can’t not love. So the question isn’t whether you will love something as ultimate; the question is what you will love as ultimate. And you
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1–2 minutes
Nicholas Wolterstorff Quote
Disrespect, and thereby also wronging, is determined, on the one hand, by the actual worth of the recipient, not by what agent or recipient happens to believe to be that worth; and on the other hand, by whether or not the respect-disrespect import of the action is such as to befit a person of this worth,
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2–3 minutes
What’s on Tap? My (Menu)bar Apps
I always find it interesting to see what software people use. The menubar in OSX gives a good overview of what people have open all the time. Here is my list. First of all, I use Bartender to limit the amount of apps visible. All apps that aren’t visible at first glance are just in
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1–2 minutes
Bono & Eugene Peterson: The Psalms
The Psalms Fuller Theological Seminary, with several famous theologians on staff–including Richard J. Foster, Miroslav Volf, and Joel B. Green–has documented a meeting between Bono and Eugene Peterson. Bono has never hidden his Christian background; he reached out to Peterson when The Message translation of the Bible was released to say thanks and invite him
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1–2 minutes
Field Notes: CMS Africa Summit 2016
My colleague Marjorie wrote a great recap of our trip to Uganda two weeks ago.
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6–9 minutes
Haters Gonna Hate: From Brussels with Love?
When Taylor Swift is singing her “Shake It Off” song, she’s not focusing on very deep aspects of life. Granted, while the message to not care too much about what other people say is valid, she is still only singing about dating and dance moves. There are deeper sides to life. Worse haters that
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1–2 minutes
Mischa – Two
We have some pretty talented friends. One of those friends is Mischa. Her angelic voice takes you out of this world. Read my full review of one of her previous show here. Go check out her Soundcloud profile or visit her Facebook page.
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1–2 minutes
Scaling Support by Educating Customers
At ScaleConf 2016 in Cape Town, I was invited to speak in front of a large audience of developers. I focused on one of the biggest passions of most developers (not): support. However, while devs might not get excited about support, they all understand the importance of it. With having WooCommerce active on 1+ million
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3–5 minutes
Why I (now) use Polymail for work
Note: Polymail was discontinued a while ago, but I found similar features in Spark. Half a year ago, I wrote a post in which I recommended the Mailbox App made by the Dropbox team. Unfortunately, Mailbox was discontinued earlier this year. So I started yet another search for a mail client that had the same
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2–4 minutes
Studying Scripture: Lectio Divina
One of the dangers of studying Scripture is that the focus can be too much on the cognitive side. While this is an important aspect of being human, it is only one aspect. Applying different methods for studying the Bible can help avoid these pitfalls. An approach that has helped me a lot in catering to various