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
Bruce Lunnis: The Age of the Digital Superhero
My favourite talk at WordCamp Cape Town 2015 was Bruce Lunnis‘. He shared some of the stories of the do_action-hackathons in Cape Town. On those events, WordPress professionals gather to make websites, set up eCommerce and design branding for NGOs from the Cape Town region. Bruce highlighted a few of the success stories of how
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1–2 minutes
Purpose-Driven Website: What on Earth Is Your Website Here for?
Follow along with the workshop I gave at WordCamp Cape Town last September.
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4–6 minutes
“So How Long Will You Stay in South Africa?” On Answering the Underlying Question
Even though I have definitely picked up some South African lingo, most locals still hear straight away that I’m not a national (yet). Once that is clear and they understand that I’m not Dutch or German, but Belgian, they ask me how long I’ve been in South Africa (since August 2013). The follow-up question to that
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6–10 minutes
Lent: How on Earth?
In my previous post I spoke about the reasons for partaking in Lent. In this post I’ll make a few suggestions on how to do that. Self-Denial It’s quite simple to find a few things to deny yourself during Lent. Ask yourself the question: What is important in my life? What do I spent time/energy/money
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4–6 minutes
Lent: Why on Earth?
On Wednesday (10 Feb 2016) most traditional Churches start a six and an half weeks of fasting called ‘Lent’. Though this is a lot less popular in Evangelical contexts, I’ve been part of a group of friends who has been partaking for several years now. So what is Lent and why on earth would anyone
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1–2 minutes
Mischa
It’s been a while since I’d seen a show in Cape Town. Here’s one from last Sunday.
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4–6 minutes
Working with Friends
In 3 of the 4 jobs I’ve held in the last five years, I’ve worked together with people who were already friends before I took the job. Here are a few of my advices based on that experience. #1 Communicate Openly and Regularly When you start working together, something in the relationship changes. Not necessarily
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1–2 minutes
Omnichannel at WooCommerce
Last week I spoke at Webwinkel Vakdagen in Utrecht (NL), one of the biggest eCommerce conferences in Europe (with 11,000+ visitors). My talk was about how WooCommerce extensions in almost 99% of the cases are purchased on desktop, and that this is normal since webshop development is still mostly done sitting behind the computer. That
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1–2 minutes
Spectre (2015)
My review of the new James Bond movie (and my first review for CULTURESHOCK in a long time)
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1–2 minutes
Hillsong and Creeds
Little over a year ago, I wrote this opinion piece on Hillsong and it’s great move toward including The Apostles’ Creed on their album. Singing this song in church yesterday morning made me happy seeing that this song is bringing the Creed into non-traditional churches.
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1–2 minutes
Help us Translate Sensei
Our company also has an LMS plugin (learning management system). We’ve now opened up the floor for everyone to help translate this plugin into other languages than English and I happy to announce that Dutch is one of the languages that’s almost at 100%. If you’d like to see Sensei in your native language: follow
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1–2 minutes
Welcome to the New WordPress.com and WordPress.com App for Mac
I was quite skeptical towards the new interface at first, and I find myself going back to the wp-admin dashboard from time to time, but that’s decreasing fast. The new WordPress.com interface is fast and fun to work with. It focuses on writing and that’s exactly what WordPress is there for. The app (currently only
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4–5 minutes
Anti-Flag’s Underground Network: Choose Your Covers Wisely
Around Easter in my second year of high school, I bought a guitar. My two best friends already had their instruments: a bass and drums. So the guitar was the only instrument that we still needed; we were going to play punk rock after all. We played for a while as My Mistake, but for most of our
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1–2 minutes
Attempts at Making Websites: Macromedia Flash
I’ve started playing around with making websites over a decade ago. The first websites I put online were built with Flash. I know there is a lot of hate against Flash, and I remember it being a tedious work to get it right, especially if you don’t know code (like me). I had to make
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3–5 minutes
Studying Scripture: Manuscript Studies
I’ve learnt a lot during my time at Ichtus Vlaanderen, and one of the many things was a Bible study method we called “Manuscript” study. Preparation It’s a reasonably simple approach in the sense that you can study Scripture this way with just about anyone. You take a decent translation (not too far from the source
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1–2 minutes
Mouille Point, South Africa
At Automattic, we can work from wherever we want. My office today was at home. We’re hiring by the way.