Crixu is around

  • Discovering My New Neighborhood on Two Wheels

    Last July, I relocated to a different part of the city, where my wife grew up. As a result, there are numerous spots that she and her family are familiar with, but I’ve yet to explore. So, I decided it was time to rediscover my surroundings and get to know this new area. And what better way to do that than on a bicycle?

    The Journey to Find the Perfect Bike

    On Saturday, my wife and I visited a large retail bicycle shop to find a suitable ride for my explorations. I wanted something more reliable than my old Peugeot race bike, but still sporty enough to complement my preferred way of traveling. Initially, I was considering a mountain or gravel bike. However, a former colleague who happened to work at the store recommended an urban bike instead.

    After taking my colleague’s advice, I opted for the CXS 800 from Bicycles. So far, it’s been a simple yet fantastic bike that meets my needs. For those interested, here’s a link to the German store where I purchased it: https://boc24.de/products/bicycles-cxs-802?variant=43549592027401.

    Once I’ve clocked my first 1,000 kilometers on the CXS 800, I’ll share a short review detailing my experience and how well the bike has served me. Stay tuned for more updates on my adventures in the new neighborhood!

  • My Travel Bag

    I’m having a few travels ahead, and to always be prepared, I started to have a “travel bag” with all the cables and adapters I might need during going around different places. It’s a great #travelhack to ensure you don’t forget that one specific cable or if you go somewhere and need another HDMI port (thanks to Apple for finally including one in the newer models again).

    This little black contains everything I need to charge and operate my devices on the go. Inside is a big compartment with separators and five sections at the top for efficiently storing cables. In my case, I’m storing two USB-C to HDMI converters, two USB-C to Lightning cables, and one multiport adapter providing me access to 2 USB-A, another HDMI port, and card reader slots. Last, a charger for my Apple Watch shouldn’t be missed.

    The lower compartment holds all the power delivery devices and the official Apple USB-C Multiport adapter and storage for my headphones. I trust two USB-Chargers with 20 watts and a USB-C and/or USB-A outlet for power delivery. The big black brick is a 60-Watt Power Source that can power my MacBook and provides three USB-A and one USB-C outlet.

    Now still missing are some travel adapters for various regions. The best part is that this case is always in my bag, and I can rely on it.

    The last item I always ensure goes into my bag is at least one of my power banks. Mainly I bring a powerful 20,000mAh power bank to charge all my tech gadgets on the go. It has two USB A ports and one USB C port.

    So that’s it for my travel bag. Now I’m always prepared for any situation and moment I come across during my travels.

    Do you keep such a case with you? What am I missing to upgrade it?

    , ,

  • Smart Banners for Podcast

    iPhone users might have already discovered that some websites provide them with those bright banners nudging them to install their applications while browsing their websites. A befriended podcast recommended that it is possible to use those banners to share information about your podcast. The code that needs to be added to the <head> section of your website looks like this:

    <meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=YOUR_ID" />

    To get your ID, you can check the my-podcast page on Apple.com or go to your Apple podcast application, copy the share link for the podcast series, and extract the ID from there. You can then proceed to add the code to your WordPress installation by using the functions.php of your child theme (If you don’t already have one, I can recommend going ahead and creating one first):

    add_action('wp_head', 'add_podcast_smart_banner');
function add_podcast_smart_banner(){
	?>
<meta name="apple-itunes-app" content="app-id=" />
<?php
}

    If you don’t want to play around with the code of your theme, I also uploaded a simple plugin to my GitHub Repo which I might soon publish to WP.org. If everything worked out you should see a new banner on your website while browsing it with your iPhone or iPad.

  • Perfect chair?

    I’m working mainly from my home office setup but once or twice a week I’m going to a coworking space in my city. It’s a lovely and modern place I really like. The best part is that I can work on an always-standing desk with a special chair to switch between sitting and standing easily. Does someone out there know a good chair that you can use for both a standing and sitting desk? Like sitting while the desk is all the way up but also while the desk is down?

    This is the “magic” chair but only useable while the desk is in standing mode

    Especially when I start a meeting standing, but it takes longer than expected, I want to have the option to sit down without moving the desk down to the sitting position again.

  • Scouting and Product Management – the start

    This one is already in my mind since a long time. I‘m a passionate scout and what I love most is to support others in reaching their goals and experience adventures. This approach of supporting and helping can easily transformed into product management – and this series should be around this area.

    Let’s start with knowledge sharing. With years of experience it’s easy to assess situations and know how to react on it. Be it the weather, the camp situation, group dynamic,… all things that can change in seconds or develop to something larger. Even a larger problem. While I might have the knowledge of the situation and it’s implication others don’t have this experience.

    This is the point where you, as a Scout or Product Manager, need to act. It’s your duty to share this knowledge and make the others aware. Make sure that you share the right amount of data in a certain time frame. If there is a storm upcoming you can’t take 30 minutes of explaining what will happen next and how to prepare. You need to act quickly, share knowledge and provide actionable todos.

  • Home Office Gadget: Stream Deck

    Have I already talked about how great the Elgato Stream Deck can support you in your daily work?

    Add shortcuts from Alfred to its buttons and manage your zoom call from the tiny buttons. It even shows me if I am muted and allows me to easily unmute even if zoom is not the active window.

    Any more recommendations for office gadgets?

  • IT more sustainable?

    While brainstorming for some upcoming projects I came across the newly added feature for iOS 16.1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323

    tl;dr: Charge your phone only when green energy is currently available (e.g.: during the sunniest time of the day,…)

    What if we used this approach more often in the IT space? Run heavy workloads which are not time critical only when green energy is available? What could it mean for the #WordPress space?

  • Back to tumblr?

    Already started there to link my new blog so why not link back to tumblr? Make sure to follow me there:

    https://tumblr.com/crixu

  • A new start

    This idea is in my head already for a while: Start writing again. But I always struggled to find the right platform to do so. Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon, Tumblr? Never found really the one platform to do so. I already had my own blog but I never had the feeling it’s the right one. It is in german and I used to focus to much on all habits from the days I was working for an online magazine: Righting posts for others to read.

    This time it should be different. My new blog is for me to express myself. With this I don’t mean to only publish for me or make it hard for the readers to follow but I will stop trying to impress people, write for search engines or optimize it to the max.

    And as you’re still reading: Have fun and enjoy my hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly/… braindumps and thoughts.